1. Family: Austronesian
  2. Subfamily: Eastern Malayo-Polynesian
  3. Genus: Oceanic

Tongan

WALS coordinates: 21° 10′ S, 175° 10′ W

spoken in Tonga

Alternative Names

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

      Features

      Feature Value References
      Phonology
      Fixed Stress Locations No fixed stress
      Weight-Sensitive Stress Right-edge: Ultimate or penultimate
      Weight Factors in Weight-Sensitive Stress Systems Long vowel
      Rhythm Types Trochaic
      Morphology
      Prefixing vs. Suffixing in Inflectional Morphology Little affixation
      Reduplication Productive full and partial reduplication
      Nominal Categories
      Coding of Nominal Plurality Plural word
      Definite Articles Definite word distinct from demonstrative
      Indefinite Articles Indefinite word distinct from 'one'
      Distance Contrasts in Demonstratives Two-way contrast
      Pronominal and Adnominal Demonstratives Different stem
      Position of Case Affixes No case affixes or adpositional clitics
      Comitatives and Instrumentals Differentiation
      Distributive Numerals Marked by prefix
      Numeral Classifiers Optional
      Position of Pronominal Possessive Affixes No possessive affixes
      Verbal Categories
      Position of Tense-Aspect Affixes No tense-aspect inflection
      Word Order
      Order of Subject, Object and Verb No dominant order
      Order of Subject and Verb VS
      Order of Object and Verb VO
      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 Noun-Numeral
      Order of Relative Clause and Noun Noun-Relative clause
      Order of Degree Word and Adjective No dominant order
      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 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
      Nonperiphrastic Causative Constructions Morphological but no compound
      Negative Morphemes Negative word, unclear if verb or particle
      Predicative Adjectives Verbal encoding
      Nominal and Locational Predication Different
      Zero Copula for Predicate Nominals Possible