1. Family: Austro-Asiatic
  2. Subfamily: Mon-Khmer
  3. Genus: Aslian

Semelai

WALS coordinates: 3° N, 103° E

spoken in Malaysia

Alternative Names

Ethnologue:
Ruhlen:
  • Semelai
Routledge:
    Other:
      ISO 639-3:

      Features

      Feature Value References
      Phonology
      Consonant Inventories Moderately large
      Vowel Quality Inventories Large (7-14)
      Consonant-Vowel Ratio Average
      Voicing in Plosives and Fricatives In plosives alone
      Voicing and Gaps in Plosive Systems None missing in /p t k b d g/
      Uvular Consonants None
      Glottalized Consonants Glottalized resonants only
      Lateral Consonants /l/, no obstruent laterals
      The Velar Nasal Initial velar nasal
      Vowel Nasalization Contrast present
      Front Rounded Vowels None
      Syllable Structure Moderately complex
      Tone No tones
      Fixed Stress Locations Ultimate
      Weight-Sensitive Stress Fixed stress (no weight-sensitivity)
      Weight Factors in Weight-Sensitive Stress Systems No weight
      Rhythm Types No rhythmic stress
      Absence of Common Consonants All present
      Presence of Uncommon Consonants None
      Morphology
      Locus of Marking in the Clause Dependent marking
      Locus of Marking in Possessive Noun Phrases No marking
      Locus of Marking: Whole-language Typology Inconsistent or other
      Reduplication Productive full and partial reduplication
      Nominal Categories
      Number of Genders None
      Sex-based and Non-sex-based Gender Systems No gender
      Systems of Gender Assignment No gender
      Plurality in Independent Personal Pronouns Person stem + pronominal plural affix
      Inclusive/Exclusive Distinction in Independent Pronouns Only inclusive
      Inclusive/Exclusive Distinction in Verbal Inflection Only inclusive
      Distance Contrasts in Demonstratives Two-way contrast
      Pronominal and Adnominal Demonstratives Identical
      Third Person Pronouns and Demonstratives Unrelated
      Gender Distinctions in Independent Personal Pronouns No gender distinctions
      Indefinite Pronouns Mixed
      Person Marking on Adpositions No person marking
      Number of Cases 3 cases
      Asymmetrical Case-Marking Additive-quantitatively asymmetrical
      Position of Case Affixes No case affixes or adpositional clitics
      Distributive Numerals No distributive numerals
      Numeral Classifiers Obligatory
      Conjunctions and Universal Quantifiers Formally different
      Nominal Syntax
      Genitives, Adjectives and Relative Clauses Weakly differentiated
      Adjectives without Nouns Marked by prefix
      Verbal Categories
      Perfective/Imperfective Aspect No grammatical marking
      The Past Tense No past tense
      The Future Tense No inflectional future
      The Perfect From 'finish', 'already'
      The Morphological Imperative No second-person imperatives
      The Prohibitive Normal imperative + special negative
      Imperative-Hortative Systems Neither type of system
      The Optative Inflectional optative absent
      Situational Possibility Verbal constructions
      Epistemic Possibility Affixes on verbs
      Overlap between Situational and Epistemic Modal Marking No overlap
      Suppletion According to Tense and Aspect None
      Verbal Number and Suppletion None
      Word Order
      Order of Subject, Object and Verb No dominant order
      Order of Subject and Verb No dominant order
      Order of Object and Verb VO
      Order of Object, Oblique, and Verb VOX
      Order of Adposition and Noun Phrase Prepositions
      Order of Genitive and Noun Noun-Genitive
      Order of Adjective and Noun Noun-Adjective
      Order of Demonstrative and Noun Noun-Demonstrative
      Order of Numeral and Noun Numeral-Noun
      Order of Relative Clause and Noun Noun-Relative clause
      Position of Polar Question Particles No question particle
      Position of Interrogative Phrases in Content Questions Initial interrogative phrase
      Relationship between the Order of Object and Verb and the Order of Adposition and Noun Phrase VO and Prepositions
      Relationship between the Order of Object and Verb and the Order of Relative Clause and Noun VO and NRel
      Relationship between the Order of Object and Verb and the Order of Adjective and Noun VO and NAdj
      Simple Clauses
      Alignment of Case Marking of Full Noun Phrases Tripartite
      Alignment of Case Marking of Pronouns Tripartite
      Alignment of Verbal Person Marking Split
      Expression of Pronominal Subjects Subject affixes on verb
      Verbal Person Marking Only the A argument
      Third Person Zero of Verbal Person Marking No zero realization
      Order of Person Markers on the Verb A and P do not or do not both occur on the verb
      Ditransitive Constructions: The Verb 'Give' Indirect-object construction
      Passive Constructions Present
      Nonperiphrastic Causative Constructions Morphological but no compound
      Negative Morphemes Negative particle
      Symmetric and Asymmetric Standard Negation Both
      Subtypes of Asymmetric Standard Negation A/Cat
      Polar Questions Interrogative intonation only
      Complex Sentences
      Purpose Clauses Balanced
      'When' Clauses Balanced
      Reason Clauses Balanced
      Utterance Complement Clauses Balanced
      Other
      Para-Linguistic Usages of Clicks Other or none