1. Family: Na-Dene
  2. Genus: Athapaskan

Slave

WALS coordinates: 67° N, 125° W

spoken in Canada

Alternative Names

Ethnologue:
Ruhlen:
    Routledge:
      Other:
      • Hare,
      • Slave, Hare dialect,
      • Peaux de Lièvre
      ISO 639-3:

      Features

      Feature Value References
      Phonology
      Consonant Inventories Moderately large
      Vowel Quality Inventories Average (5-6)
      Consonant-Vowel Ratio Moderately high
      Voicing in Plosives and Fricatives In fricatives alone
      Voicing and Gaps in Plosive Systems Other
      Uvular Consonants None
      Glottalized Consonants Ejectives and glottalized resonants
      Lateral Consonants /l/ and lateral obstruent
      The Velar Nasal No velar nasal
      Vowel Nasalization Contrast present
      Front Rounded Vowels None
      Syllable Structure Moderately complex
      Tone Simple tone system
      Fixed Stress Locations No fixed stress
      Weight-Sensitive Stress Not predictable
      Weight Factors in Weight-Sensitive Stress Systems Lexical stress
      Rhythm Types No rhythmic stress
      Absence of Common Consonants All present
      Presence of Uncommon Consonants None
      Morphology
      Fusion of Selected Inflectional Formatives Exclusively concatenative
      Exponence of Selected Inflectional Formatives No case
      Inflectional Synthesis of the Verb 8-9 categories per word
      Locus of Marking in the Clause Head marking
      Locus of Marking in Possessive Noun Phrases Head marking
      Locus of Marking: Whole-language Typology Head-marking
      Prefixing vs. Suffixing in Inflectional Morphology Strong prefixing
      Reduplication No productive reduplication
      Case Syncretism No case marking
      Syncretism in Verbal Person/Number Marking Not syncretic
      Nominal Categories
      Coding of Nominal Plurality Plural suffix
      Plurality in Independent Personal Pronouns Person-number stem
      The Associative Plural Unique periphrastic associative plural
      Definite Articles No definite or indefinite article
      Indefinite Articles No definite or indefinite article
      Inclusive/Exclusive Distinction in Independent Pronouns No inclusive/exclusive
      Inclusive/Exclusive Distinction in Verbal Inflection No inclusive/exclusive
      Distance Contrasts in Demonstratives Two-way contrast
      Pronominal and Adnominal Demonstratives Identical
      Third Person Pronouns and Demonstratives Related for non-human reference
      Gender Distinctions in Independent Personal Pronouns No gender distinctions
      Politeness Distinctions in Pronouns No politeness distinction
      Indefinite Pronouns Generic-noun-based
      Person Marking on Adpositions Pronouns only
      Number of Cases No morphological case-marking
      Asymmetrical Case-Marking No case-marking
      Position of Case Affixes No case affixes or adpositional clitics
      Comitatives and Instrumentals Differentiation
      Ordinal Numerals First, two-th, three-th
      Position of Pronominal Possessive Affixes Possessive prefixes
      Nominal Syntax
      Obligatory Possessive Inflection Absent
      Possessive Classification Three to five classes
      Action Nominal Constructions No action nominals
      Noun Phrase Conjunction 'And' different from 'with'
      Nominal and Verbal Conjunction Differentiation
      Verbal Categories
      Perfective/Imperfective Aspect Grammatical marking
      The Past Tense Present, 2-3 remoteness distinctions
      The Future Tense Inflectional future exists
      The Perfect Other perfect
      Position of Tense-Aspect Affixes Tense-aspect prefixes
      The Morphological Imperative No second-person imperatives
      Imperative-Hortative Systems Maximal system
      The Optative Inflectional optative absent
      Situational Possibility Other kinds of markers
      Epistemic Possibility Other
      Overlap between Situational and Epistemic Modal Marking No overlap
      Semantic Distinctions of Evidentiality Indirect only
      Coding of Evidentiality Separate particle
      Suppletion According to Tense and Aspect Aspect
      Verbal Number and Suppletion Singular-dual-plural triples, suppletion
      Word Order
      Order of Subject, Object and Verb SOV
      Order of Subject and Verb SV
      Order of Object and Verb OV
      Order of Object, Oblique, and Verb XOV
      Order of Adposition and Noun Phrase Postpositions
      Order of Genitive and Noun Genitive-Noun
      Order of Adjective and Noun Noun-Adjective
      Order of Demonstrative and Noun Demonstrative-Noun
      Order of Numeral and Noun Noun-Numeral
      Order of Relative Clause and Noun Mixed
      Position of Polar Question Particles Initial
      Position of Interrogative Phrases in Content Questions Not initial interrogative phrase
      Order of Adverbial Subordinator and Clause Mixed
      Relationship between the Order of Object and Verb and the Order of Adposition and Noun Phrase OV and Postpositions
      Relationship between the Order of Object and Verb and the Order of Relative Clause and Noun Other
      Relationship between the Order of Object and Verb and the Order of Adjective and Noun OV and NAdj
      Simple Clauses
      Alignment of Case Marking of Full Noun Phrases Neutral
      Alignment of Case Marking of Pronouns Neutral
      Alignment of Verbal Person Marking Accusative
      Expression of Pronominal Subjects Subject affixes on verb
      Verbal Person Marking Both the A and P arguments
      Third Person Zero of Verbal Person Marking Zero in all 3sg forms
      Order of Person Markers on the Verb P precedes A
      Ditransitive Constructions: The Verb 'Give' Indirect-object construction
      Reciprocal Constructions Distinct from reflexive
      Passive Constructions Present
      Antipassive Constructions No antipassive
      Applicative Constructions No applicative construction
      Nonperiphrastic Causative Constructions Morphological but no compound
      Negative Morphemes Negative particle
      Symmetric and Asymmetric Standard Negation Symmetric
      Subtypes of Asymmetric Standard Negation Non-assignable
      Negative Indefinite Pronouns and Predicate Negation Predicate negation also present
      Polar Questions Question particle
      Predicative Adjectives Verbal encoding
      Nominal and Locational Predication Different
      Zero Copula for Predicate Nominals Impossible
      Complex Sentences
      Relativization on Subjects Non-reduction
      Relativization on Obliques Non-reduction
      'Want' Complement Subjects Subject is expressed overtly
      Purpose Clauses Balanced
      'When' Clauses Balanced
      Reason Clauses Balanced
      Utterance Complement Clauses Balanced
      Lexicon
      Hand and Arm Different
      Finger and Hand Different
      Numeral Bases Decimal
      Number of Non-Derived Basic Colour Categories 6
      Number of Basic Colour Categories 7-7.5
      Green and Blue Green vs. blue
      Red and Yellow Red vs. yellow
      M-T Pronouns No M-T pronouns
      N-M Pronouns No N-M pronouns