1. Family: Afro-Asiatic
  2. Subfamily: Cushitic
  3. Genus: Eastern Cushitic

Somali

WALS coordinates: 3° N, 45° E

spoken in Somalia

Alternative Names

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

      Features

      Feature Value References
      Phonology
      Consonant Inventories Average
      Vowel Quality Inventories Large (7-14)
      Consonant-Vowel Ratio Moderately low
      Voicing in Plosives and Fricatives In plosives alone
      Voicing and Gaps in Plosive Systems Missing /p/
      Uvular Consonants Uvular stops only
      Glottalized Consonants No glottalized consonants
      Lateral Consonants /l/, no obstruent laterals
      The Velar Nasal No velar nasal
      Front Rounded Vowels None
      Syllable Structure Moderately complex
      Tone Simple tone system
      Absence of Common Consonants All present
      Presence of Uncommon Consonants Pharyngeals
      Morphology
      Prefixing vs. Suffixing in Inflectional Morphology Strongly suffixing
      Reduplication Productive full and partial reduplication
      Nominal Categories
      Coding of Nominal Plurality Plural suffix
      Occurrence of Nominal Plurality All nouns, always obligatory
      Definite Articles Definite affix
      Indefinite Articles No indefinite, but definite article
      Distance Contrasts in Demonstratives Four-way contrast
      Pronominal and Adnominal Demonstratives Different inflection
      Politeness Distinctions in Pronouns No politeness distinction
      Indefinite Pronouns Generic-noun-based
      Intensifiers and Reflexive Pronouns Differentiated
      Number of Cases 3 cases
      Asymmetrical Case-Marking Symmetrical
      Position of Case Affixes No case affixes or adpositional clitics
      Comitatives and Instrumentals Differentiation
      Ordinal Numerals One-th, two-th, three-th
      Position of Pronominal Possessive Affixes Possessive suffixes
      Nominal Syntax
      Noun Phrase Conjunction 'And' different from 'with'
      Nominal and Verbal Conjunction Differentiation
      Verbal Categories
      Perfective/Imperfective Aspect No grammatical marking
      The Past Tense Present, no remoteness distinctions
      The Future Tense Inflectional future exists
      The Perfect No perfect
      Position of Tense-Aspect Affixes Tense-aspect suffixes
      The Optative Inflectional optative absent
      Situational Possibility Verbal constructions
      Epistemic Possibility Affixes on verbs
      Overlap between Situational and Epistemic Modal Marking No overlap
      Word Order
      Order of Subject, Object and Verb SOV
      Order of Subject and Verb SV
      Order of Object and Verb OV
      Order of Adposition and Noun Phrase No dominant order
      Order of Genitive and Noun No dominant order
      Order of Adjective and Noun Noun-Adjective
      Order of Demonstrative and Noun Demonstrative suffix
      Order of Numeral and Noun Numeral-Noun
      Order of Relative Clause and Noun Noun-Relative clause
      Order of Degree Word and Adjective Degree word-Adjective
      Position of Polar Question Particles Other position
      Position of Interrogative Phrases in Content Questions Not initial interrogative phrase
      Order of Adverbial Subordinator and Clause Initial subordinator word
      Relationship between the Order of Object and Verb and the Order of Adposition and Noun Phrase Other
      Relationship between the Order of Object and Verb and the Order of Relative Clause and Noun OV and NRel
      Relationship between the Order of Object and Verb and the Order of Adjective and Noun OV and NAdj
      Simple Clauses
      Expression of Pronominal Subjects Subject pronouns in different position
      Ditransitive Constructions: The Verb 'Give' Secondary-object construction
      Negative Morphemes Negative particle
      Symmetric and Asymmetric Standard Negation Asymmetric
      Subtypes of Asymmetric Standard Negation A/Fin and A/Cat
      Negative Indefinite Pronouns and Predicate Negation Predicate negation also present
      Polar Questions Question particle
      Predicative Possession Conjunctional
      Predicative Adjectives Mixed
      Nominal and Locational Predication Different
      Zero Copula for Predicate Nominals Possible
      Complex Sentences
      'Want' Complement Subjects Subject is expressed overtly
      Purpose Clauses Balanced
      'When' Clauses Balanced
      Reason Clauses Balanced
      Lexicon
      Tea Words derived from Sinitic cha
      Other
      Para-Linguistic Usages of Clicks Logical meanings