Wambaya

WALS coordinates: 18° 40′ S, 135° 45′ E

spoken in Australia

Alternative Names

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

      Features

      Feature Value References
      Phonology
      Consonant Inventories Moderately small
      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 No fixed stress
      Weight-Sensitive Stress Left-edge: First or second
      Weight Factors in Weight-Sensitive Stress Systems Long vowel
      Rhythm Types Trochaic
      Absence of Common Consonants No fricatives
      Presence of Uncommon Consonants None
      Morphology
      Prefixing vs. Suffixing in Inflectional Morphology Strongly suffixing
      Case Syncretism Core cases only
      Syncretism in Verbal Person/Number Marking Not syncretic
      Nominal Categories
      Number of Genders Four
      Sex-based and Non-sex-based Gender Systems Sex-based
      Systems of Gender Assignment Semantic
      Occurrence of Nominal Plurality All nouns, always optional
      Plurality in Independent Personal Pronouns Person-number stem + pronominal plural affix
      Inclusive/Exclusive Distinction in Independent Pronouns Inclusive/exclusive
      Inclusive/Exclusive Distinction in Verbal Inflection No person marking
      Distance Contrasts in Demonstratives Two-way contrast
      Pronominal and Adnominal Demonstratives Identical
      Third Person Pronouns and Demonstratives Related for all demonstratives
      Gender Distinctions in Independent Personal Pronouns No gender distinctions
      Politeness Distinctions in Pronouns No politeness distinction
      Indefinite Pronouns Interrogative-based
      Intensifiers and Reflexive Pronouns Differentiated
      Person Marking on Adpositions No adpositions
      Number of Cases 8-9 cases
      Asymmetrical Case-Marking Qualitatively asymmetrical
      Position of Case Affixes Case suffixes
      Nominal Syntax
      Action Nominal Constructions No action nominals
      Verbal Categories
      Position of Tense-Aspect Affixes Tense-aspect suffixes
      The Morphological Imperative No second-person imperatives
      The Optative Inflectional optative absent
      Situational Possibility Other kinds of markers
      Epistemic Possibility Affixes on verbs
      Overlap between Situational and Epistemic Modal Marking No overlap
      Semantic Distinctions of Evidentiality No grammatical evidentials
      Coding of Evidentiality No grammatical evidentials
      Word Order
      Order of Subject, Object and Verb No dominant order
      Order of Subject and Verb No dominant order
      Order of Object and Verb VO
      Order of Demonstrative and Noun Demonstrative-Noun
      Simple Clauses
      Alignment of Case Marking of Full Noun Phrases Ergative - absolutive
      Alignment of Case Marking of Pronouns Nominative - accusative (standard)
      Alignment of Verbal Person Marking Split
      Expression of Pronominal Subjects Subject pronouns in different position
      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 A precedes P
      Ditransitive Constructions: The Verb 'Give' Double-object construction
      Reciprocal Constructions Identical to reflexive
      Passive Constructions Absent
      Antipassive Constructions No antipassive
      Applicative Constructions Non-benefactive object; only intransitive
      Periphrastic Causative Constructions Purposive but no sequential
      Nonperiphrastic Causative Constructions Morphological but no compound
      Negative Morphemes Negative particle
      Symmetric and Asymmetric Standard Negation Both
      Subtypes of Asymmetric Standard Negation A/NonReal
      Complex Sentences
      'Want' Complement Subjects Subject is left implicit
      Purpose Clauses Deranked
      'When' Clauses Balanced
      Reason Clauses Balanced
      Lexicon
      Hand and Arm Different
      Finger and Hand Identical
      Tea Others