1. Family: Australian
  2. Genus: Tiwian

Tiwi

WALS coordinates: 11° 30′ S, 131° E

spoken in Australia

Alternative Names

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

      Features

      Feature Value References
      Phonology
      Consonant Inventories Average
      Vowel Quality Inventories Small (2-4)
      Consonant-Vowel Ratio Moderately high
      Voicing in Plosives and Fricatives No voicing constrast
      Voicing and Gaps in Plosive Systems Other
      Uvular Consonants None
      Glottalized Consonants No glottalized consonants
      Lateral Consonants /l/, no obstruent laterals
      The Velar Nasal Initial velar nasal
      Vowel Nasalization Contrast absent
      Front Rounded Vowels None
      Syllable Structure Moderately complex
      Tone No tones
      Fixed Stress Locations Penultimate
      Weight-Sensitive Stress Fixed stress (no weight-sensitivity)
      Weight Factors in Weight-Sensitive Stress Systems No weight
      Rhythm Types Trochaic
      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 4-5 categories per word
      Locus of Marking in the Clause Head marking
      Locus of Marking in Possessive Noun Phrases No marking
      Locus of Marking: Whole-language Typology Inconsistent or other
      Prefixing vs. Suffixing in Inflectional Morphology Strong prefixing
      Reduplication Productive full and partial reduplication
      Case Syncretism No case marking
      Syncretism in Verbal Person/Number Marking Syncretic
      Nominal Categories
      Number of Genders Two
      Sex-based and Non-sex-based Gender Systems Sex-based
      Systems of Gender Assignment Semantic
      Coding of Nominal Plurality Plural suffix
      Occurrence of Nominal Plurality Only human nouns, obligatory
      Plurality in Independent Personal Pronouns Person-number stem
      Definite Articles No definite or indefinite article
      Indefinite Articles No definite or indefinite article
      Inclusive/Exclusive Distinction in Independent Pronouns Inclusive/exclusive
      Inclusive/Exclusive Distinction in Verbal Inflection Inclusive/exclusive
      Distance Contrasts in Demonstratives Two-way contrast
      Pronominal and Adnominal Demonstratives Identical
      Gender Distinctions in Independent Personal Pronouns 3rd person singular only
      Politeness Distinctions in Pronouns No politeness distinction
      Indefinite Pronouns Interrogative-based
      Intensifiers and Reflexive Pronouns Identical
      Person Marking on Adpositions No person marking
      Number of Cases No morphological case-marking
      Asymmetrical Case-Marking No case-marking
      Position of Case Affixes No case affixes or adpositional clitics
      Ordinal Numerals None
      Distributive Numerals Marked by suffix
      Numeral Classifiers Absent
      Conjunctions and Universal Quantifiers Formally different
      Position of Pronominal Possessive Affixes No possessive affixes
      Nominal Syntax
      Obligatory Possessive Inflection Exists
      Possessive Classification Two classes
      Genitives, Adjectives and Relative Clauses Highly differentiated
      Adjectives without Nouns Without marking
      Noun Phrase Conjunction 'And' different from 'with'
      Nominal and Verbal Conjunction Both expressed by juxtaposition
      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 prefixes
      The Morphological Imperative Second singular and second plural
      The Prohibitive Special imperative + special negative
      Imperative-Hortative Systems Neither type of system
      The Optative Inflectional optative absent
      Epistemic Possibility Affixes on verbs
      Semantic Distinctions of Evidentiality No grammatical evidentials
      Coding of Evidentiality No grammatical evidentials
      Suppletion According to Tense and Aspect None
      Verbal Number and Suppletion None
      Word Order
      Order of Subject, Object and Verb SVO
      Order of Subject and Verb SV
      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 Genitive-Noun
      Order of Adjective and Noun Adjective-Noun
      Order of Demonstrative and Noun Demonstrative-Noun
      Order of Numeral and Noun Numeral-Noun
      Order of Relative Clause and Noun Noun-Relative clause
      Position of Polar Question Particles Final
      Position of Interrogative Phrases in Content Questions Mixed
      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 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 AdjN
      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 No zero realization
      Order of Person Markers on the Verb Both orders of A and P occur
      Ditransitive Constructions: The Verb 'Give' Secondary-object construction
      Reciprocal Constructions Distinct from reflexive
      Passive Constructions Absent
      Antipassive Constructions No antipassive
      Applicative Constructions Non-benefactive object; both bases
      Nonperiphrastic Causative Constructions Morphological but no compound
      Negative Morphemes Negative particle
      Symmetric and Asymmetric Standard Negation Both
      Subtypes of Asymmetric Standard Negation A/NonReal
      Negative Indefinite Pronouns and Predicate Negation No predicate negation
      Polar Questions Question particle
      Predicative Possession Topic
      Predicative Adjectives Nonverbal encoding
      Nominal and Locational Predication Different
      Zero Copula for Predicate Nominals Possible
      Complex Sentences
      'When' Clauses Balanced
      Reason Clauses Balanced
      Lexicon
      Hand and Arm Different
      M-T Pronouns No M-T pronouns
      N-M Pronouns No N-M pronouns
      Tea Others