1. Family: Austro-Asiatic
  2. Subfamily: Mon-Khmer
  3. Genus: Viet-Muong

Vietnamese

WALS coordinates: 10° 30′ N, 106° 30′ E

spoken in Vietnam

Alternative Names

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

      Features

      Feature Value References
      Phonology
      Consonant Inventories Average
      Vowel Quality Inventories Large (7-14)
      Consonant-Vowel Ratio Low
      Voicing in Plosives and Fricatives In fricatives alone
      Voicing and Gaps in Plosive Systems Other
      Uvular Consonants None
      Glottalized Consonants Implosives only
      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 Complex tone system
      Absence of Common Consonants All present
      Presence of Uncommon Consonants None
      Morphology
      Fusion of Selected Inflectional Formatives Exclusively isolating
      Exponence of Selected Inflectional Formatives No case
      Inflectional Synthesis of the Verb 0-1 category per word
      Locus of Marking in the Clause No marking
      Locus of Marking in Possessive Noun Phrases No marking
      Locus of Marking: Whole-language Typology Zero-marking
      Prefixing vs. Suffixing in Inflectional Morphology Little affixation
      Reduplication Productive full and partial reduplication
      Case Syncretism No case marking
      Syncretism in Verbal Person/Number Marking No subject person/number marking
      Nominal Categories
      Number of Genders None
      Sex-based and Non-sex-based Gender Systems No gender
      Systems of Gender Assignment No gender
      Coding of Nominal Plurality Plural word
      Occurrence of Nominal Plurality All nouns, always optional
      Plurality in Independent Personal Pronouns Person stem + pronominal plural affix
      The Associative Plural No associative plural
      Definite Articles Definite word distinct from demonstrative
      Inclusive/Exclusive Distinction in Independent Pronouns 'We' the same as 'I'
      Inclusive/Exclusive Distinction in Verbal Inflection No person marking
      Distance Contrasts in Demonstratives Two-way contrast
      Third Person Pronouns and Demonstratives Related to remote demonstratives
      Gender Distinctions in Independent Personal Pronouns No gender distinctions
      Politeness Distinctions in Pronouns Pronouns avoided for politeness
      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 Various
      Distributive Numerals No distributive numerals
      Numeral Classifiers Obligatory
      Conjunctions and Universal Quantifiers Formally similar, with interrogative
      Position of Pronominal Possessive Affixes No possessive affixes
      Nominal Syntax
      Obligatory Possessive Inflection Absent
      Possessive Classification No possessive classification
      Genitives, Adjectives and Relative Clauses Adjectives and relative clauses collapsed
      Adjectives without Nouns Marked by preceding word
      Action Nominal Constructions Possessive-Accusative
      Noun Phrase Conjunction 'And' different from 'with'
      Nominal and Verbal Conjunction Identity
      Verbal Categories
      Perfective/Imperfective Aspect No grammatical marking
      The Past Tense No past tense
      The Future Tense No inflectional future
      The Perfect Other perfect
      Position of Tense-Aspect Affixes No tense-aspect inflection
      The Morphological Imperative No second-person imperatives
      The Prohibitive Normal imperative + special negative
      Imperative-Hortative Systems Neither type of system
      The Optative Inflectional optative absent
      Situational Possibility Verbal constructions
      Epistemic Possibility Verbal constructions
      Overlap between Situational and Epistemic Modal Marking Overlap for either possibility or necessity
      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 Noun-Genitive
      Order of Adjective and Noun Noun-Adjective
      Order of Demonstrative and Noun Noun-Demonstrative
      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 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
      Alignment of Case Marking of Full Noun Phrases Neutral
      Alignment of Case Marking of Pronouns Neutral
      Alignment of Verbal Person Marking Neutral
      Expression of Pronominal Subjects Optional pronouns in subject position
      Verbal Person Marking No person marking
      Third Person Zero of Verbal Person Marking No person marking
      Order of Person Markers on the Verb A and P do not or do not both occur on the verb
      Ditransitive Constructions: The Verb 'Give' Double-object construction
      Reciprocal Constructions Distinct from reflexive
      Passive Constructions Present
      Antipassive Constructions No antipassive
      Applicative Constructions No applicative construction
      Periphrastic Causative Constructions Both
      Nonperiphrastic Causative Constructions Compound but no morphological
      Negative Morphemes Negative word, unclear if verb or particle
      Symmetric and Asymmetric Standard Negation Symmetric
      Subtypes of Asymmetric Standard Negation Non-assignable
      Negative Indefinite Pronouns and Predicate Negation Predicate negation also present
      Polar Questions Question particle
      Predicative Possession Topic
      Predicative Adjectives Verbal encoding
      Nominal and Locational Predication Different
      Zero Copula for Predicate Nominals Possible
      Comparative Constructions Exceed
      Complex Sentences
      Relativization on Subjects Gap
      'Want' Complement Subjects Subject is left implicit
      Purpose Clauses Balanced
      'When' Clauses Balanced
      Reason Clauses Balanced
      Utterance Complement Clauses Balanced
      Lexicon
      Numeral Bases Decimal
      M-T Pronouns No M-T pronouns
      N-M Pronouns No N-M pronouns
      Tea Words derived from Sinitic cha