1. Family: Afro-Asiatic
  2. Genus: Semitic

Tigré

WALS coordinates: 16° 30′ N, 38° 30′ E

spoken in Eritrea

Alternative Names

Ethnologue:
Ruhlen:
  • Tigre
Routledge:
    Other:
      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 both plosives and fricatives
      Voicing and Gaps in Plosive Systems Missing /p/
      Uvular Consonants None
      Glottalized Consonants Ejectives only
      Lateral Consonants /l/, no obstruent laterals
      Front Rounded Vowels None
      Syllable Structure Moderately complex
      Tone No tones
      Absence of Common Consonants All present
      Presence of Uncommon Consonants Pharyngeals
      Morphology
      Prefixing vs. Suffixing in Inflectional Morphology Weakly suffixing
      Reduplication Productive full and partial reduplication
      Nominal Categories
      Number of Genders Two
      Sex-based and Non-sex-based Gender Systems Sex-based
      Systems of Gender Assignment Semantic and formal
      Coding of Nominal Plurality Mixed morphological plural
      Definite Articles Definite word distinct from demonstrative
      Indefinite Articles Indefinite word same as 'one'
      Position of Case Affixes No case affixes or adpositional clitics
      Position of Pronominal Possessive Affixes Possessive suffixes
      Nominal Syntax
      Noun Phrase Conjunction 'And' different from 'with'
      Verbal Categories
      Perfective/Imperfective Aspect No grammatical marking
      The Past Tense Present, no remoteness distinctions
      The Future Tense No inflectional future
      The Perfect Other perfect
      The Morphological Imperative Second singular and second plural
      The Prohibitive Special imperative + normal negative
      Imperative-Hortative Systems Neither type of system
      The Optative Inflectional optative absent
      Situational Possibility Verbal constructions
      Epistemic Possibility Other
      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 Prepositions
      Order of Genitive and Noun Noun-Genitive
      Order of Adjective and Noun Adjective-Noun
      Order of Demonstrative and Noun Mixed
      Order of Numeral and Noun Numeral-Noun
      Order of Relative Clause and Noun Relative clause-Noun
      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 Prepositions
      Relationship between the Order of Object and Verb and the Order of Relative Clause and Noun OV and RelN
      Relationship between the Order of Object and Verb and the Order of Adjective and Noun OV and AdjN
      Simple Clauses
      Expression of Pronominal Subjects Subject affixes on verb
      Negative Morphemes Negative affix
      Predicative Adjectives Nonverbal encoding
      Nominal and Locational Predication Identical
      Zero Copula for Predicate Nominals Impossible