Tamil
WALS coordinates: 11° N, 78° 30′ E
Find examples here.
Alternative Names
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| Ruhlen: |
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| Routledge: |
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| Other: |
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| ISO 639-3: |
Features
| ID | Feature | Value | Area | References | |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 26A | Prefixing vs. Suffixing in Inflectional Morphology | Strongly suffixing | Morphology | comment | |
| 27A | Reduplication | Productive full and partial reduplication | Morphology | comment | |
| 30A | Number of Genders | Three | Nominal Categories | comment | |
| 31A | Sex-based and Non-sex-based Gender Systems | Sex-based | Nominal Categories | comment | |
| 32A | Systems of Gender Assignment | Semantic | Nominal Categories | comment | |
| 33A | Coding of Nominal Plurality | Plural suffix | Nominal Categories | comment | |
| 34A | Occurrence of Nominal Plurality | All nouns, optional in inanimates | Nominal Categories | comment | |
| 35A | Plurality in Independent Personal Pronouns | Person-number stem + nominal plural affix | Nominal Categories | comment | |
| 41A | Distance Contrasts in Demonstratives | Two-way contrast | Nominal Categories |
comment
examples |
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| 42A | Pronominal and Adnominal Demonstratives | Different inflection | Nominal Categories |
comment
examples |
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| 45A | Politeness Distinctions in Pronouns | Multiple politeness distinctions | Nominal Categories |
comment
examples |
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| 46A | Indefinite Pronouns | Interrogative-based | Nominal Categories | comment | |
| 47A | Intensifiers and Reflexive Pronouns | Identical | Nominal Categories | comment | |
| 51A | Position of Case Affixes | Case suffixes | Nominal Categories | comment | |
| 52A | Comitatives and Instrumentals | Differentiation | Nominal Categories |
comment
examples |
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| 53A | Ordinal Numerals | First, two-th, three-th | Nominal Categories | comment | |
| 54A | Distributive Numerals | Marked by reduplication | Nominal Categories | comment | |
| 56A | Conjunctions and Universal Quantifiers | Formally similar, with interrogative | Nominal Categories | comment | |
| 62A | Action Nominal Constructions | Sentential | Nominal Syntax |
comment
examples |
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| 63A | Noun Phrase Conjunction | 'And' different from 'with' | Nominal Syntax |
comment
examples |
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| 64A | Nominal and Verbal Conjunction | Differentiation | Nominal Syntax | comment | |
| 65A | Perfective/Imperfective Aspect | No grammatical marking | Verbal Categories | comment | |
| 66A | The Past Tense | Present, no remoteness distinctions | Verbal Categories | comment | |
| 67A | The Future Tense | Inflectional future exists | Verbal Categories | comment | |
| 68A | The Perfect | Other perfect | Verbal Categories | comment | |
| 69A | Position of Tense-Aspect Affixes | Tense-aspect suffixes | Verbal Categories | comment | |
| 70A | The Morphological Imperative | Second singular and second plural | Verbal Categories | comment | |
| 71A | The Prohibitive | Special imperative + special negative | Verbal Categories | comment | |
| 74A | Situational Possibility | Affixes on verbs | Verbal Categories | comment | |
| 75A | Epistemic Possibility | Affixes on verbs | Verbal Categories | comment | |
| 76A | Overlap between Situational and Epistemic Modal Marking | Overlap for either possibility or necessity | Verbal Categories | comment | |
| 77A | Semantic Distinctions of Evidentiality | Indirect only | Verbal Categories | comment | |
| 78A | Coding of Evidentiality | Verbal affix or clitic | Verbal Categories | comment | |
| 81A | Order of Subject, Object and Verb | SOV | Word Order | comment | |
| 82A | Order of Subject and Verb | SV | Word Order | comment | |
| 83A | Order of Object and Verb | OV | Word Order | comment | |
| 84A | Order of Object, Oblique, and Verb | XOV | Word Order | comment | |
| 85A | Order of Adposition and Noun Phrase | Postpositions | Word Order | comment | |
| 86A | Order of Genitive and Noun | Genitive-Noun | Word Order | comment | |
| 87A | Order of Adjective and Noun | Adjective-Noun | Word Order | comment | |
| 88A | Order of Demonstrative and Noun | Demonstrative-Noun | Word Order | comment | |
| 89A | Order of Numeral and Noun | Numeral-Noun | Word Order | comment | |
| 90A | Order of Relative Clause and Noun | Relative clause-Noun | Word Order | comment | |
| 90B | Prenominal relative clauses | Relative clause-Noun (RelN) dominant | Word Order | comment | |
| 91A | Order of Degree Word and Adjective | Degree word-Adjective | Word Order | comment | |
| 92A | Position of Polar Question Particles | No question particle | Word Order | comment | |
| 93A | Position of Interrogative Phrases in Content Questions | Not initial interrogative phrase | Word Order | comment | |
| 94A | Order of Adverbial Subordinator and Clause | Subordinating suffix | Word Order | comment | |
| 95A | Relationship between the Order of Object and Verb and the Order of Adposition and Noun Phrase | OV and Postpositions | Word Order | comment | |
| 96A | Relationship between the Order of Object and Verb and the Order of Relative Clause and Noun | OV and RelN | Word Order | comment | |
| 97A | Relationship between the Order of Object and Verb and the Order of Adjective and Noun | OV and AdjN | Word Order | comment | |
| 105A | Ditransitive Constructions: The Verb 'Give' | Indirect-object construction | Simple Clauses | comment | |
| 106A | Reciprocal Constructions | Distinct from reflexive | Simple Clauses |
comment
examples |
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| 108A | Antipassive Constructions | No antipassive | Simple Clauses | comment | |
| 108B | Productivity of the Antipassive Construction | no antipassive | Simple Clauses | comment | |
| 109A | Applicative Constructions | No applicative construction | Simple Clauses | comment | |
| 109B | Other Roles of Applied Objects | No applicative construction | Simple Clauses | comment | |
| 110A | Periphrastic Causative Constructions | Purposive but no sequential | Simple Clauses | comment | |
| 111A | Nonperiphrastic Causative Constructions | Morphological but no compound | Simple Clauses |
comment
examples |
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| 112A | Negative Morphemes | Negative affix | Simple Clauses | comment | |
| 115A | Negative Indefinite Pronouns and Predicate Negation | Predicate negation also present | Simple Clauses | comment | |
| 116A | Polar Questions | Interrogative verb morphology | Simple Clauses | comment | |
| 117A | Predicative Possession | Locational | Simple Clauses | comment | |
| 118A | Predicative Adjectives | Nonverbal encoding | Simple Clauses | comment | |
| 119A | Nominal and Locational Predication | Identical | Simple Clauses |
comment
examples |
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| 120A | Zero Copula for Predicate Nominals | Possible | Simple Clauses | comment | |
| 121A | Comparative Constructions | Locational | Simple Clauses | comment | |
| 125A | Purpose Clauses | Deranked | Complex Sentences | comment | |
| 126A | 'When' Clauses | Deranked | Complex Sentences | comment | |
| 127A | Reason Clauses | Deranked | Complex Sentences | comment | |
| 128A | Utterance Complement Clauses | Deranked | Complex Sentences | comment | |
| 129A | Hand and Arm | Identical | Lexicon |
comment
examples |
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| 130A | Finger and Hand | Different | Lexicon |
comment
examples |
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| 143A | Order of Negative Morpheme and Verb | [V-Neg] | Word Order | comment | |
| 143E | Preverbal Negative Morphemes | None | Word Order | comment | |
| 143F | Postverbal Negative Morphemes | [V-Neg] | Word Order | comment | |
| 143G | Minor morphological means of signaling negation | None | Word Order | comment | |
| 144A | Position of Negative Word With Respect to Subject, Object, and Verb | MorphNeg | Word Order | comment | |
| 144L | The Position of Negative Morphemes in SOV Languages | SO[V-Neg] | Word Order | comment | |
| 144P | NegSOV Order | No NegSOV | Word Order | comment | |
| 144Q | SNegOV Order | No SNegOV | Word Order | comment | |
| 144R | SONegV Order | No SONegV | Word Order | comment | |
| 144S | SOVNeg Order | Suffix&NoDoubleNeg | Word Order | comment |
