1. Family: Niger-Congo
  2. Subfamily: Atlantic
  3. Genus: Northern Atlantic

Wolof

WALS coordinates: 15° 15′ N, 16° W

spoken in Gambia, Senegal

Alternative Names

Ethnologue:
Ruhlen:
  • Wolof
Routledge:
    Other:
    • Dyolof,
    • Wolof (Dakar)
    ISO 639-3:

    Features

    Feature Value References
    Phonology
    Consonant Inventories Moderately large
    Vowel Quality Inventories Large (7-14)
    Consonant-Vowel Ratio Average
    Voicing in Plosives and Fricatives In plosives alone
    Voicing and Gaps in Plosive Systems None missing in /p t k b d g/
    Uvular Consonants None
    Glottalized Consonants No glottalized consonants
    Lateral Consonants /l/, no obstruent laterals
    Vowel Nasalization Contrast absent
    Front Rounded Vowels None
    Syllable Structure Complex
    Tone No tones
    Absence of Common Consonants All present
    Presence of Uncommon Consonants None
    Morphology
    Prefixing vs. Suffixing in Inflectional Morphology Little affixation
    Reduplication Full reduplication only
    Nominal Categories
    Coding of Nominal Plurality Plural word
    Plurality in Independent Personal Pronouns Person-number stem
    Definite Articles Definite word distinct from demonstrative
    Indefinite Articles Indefinite word distinct from 'one'
    Intensifiers and Reflexive Pronouns Identical
    Position of Case Affixes No case affixes or adpositional clitics
    Ordinal Numerals First, two-th, three-th
    Position of Pronominal Possessive Affixes Possessive suffixes
    Nominal Syntax
    Noun Phrase Conjunction 'And' identical to 'with'
    Nominal and Verbal Conjunction Differentiation
    Verbal Categories
    Perfective/Imperfective Aspect No grammatical marking
    The Past Tense Present, no remoteness distinctions
    The Future Tense No inflectional future
    The Perfect Other perfect
    Position of Tense-Aspect Affixes No tense-aspect inflection
    The Morphological Imperative Second singular and second plural
    The Prohibitive Normal imperative + special negative
    Imperative-Hortative Systems Maximal system
    Situational Possibility Verbal constructions
    Epistemic Possibility Verbal constructions
    Overlap between Situational and Epistemic Modal Marking Overlap for either possibility or necessity
    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
    Order of Degree Word and Adjective Adjective-Degree word
    Position of Polar Question Particles Initial
    Position of Interrogative Phrases in Content Questions 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
    Expression of Pronominal Subjects Subject pronouns in different position
    Ditransitive Constructions: The Verb 'Give' Double-object construction
    Applicative Constructions Benefactive and other; both bases
    Negative Morphemes Negative word, unclear if verb or particle
    Negative Indefinite Pronouns and Predicate Negation Predicate negation also present
    Polar Questions Question particle
    Predicative Adjectives Verbal encoding
    Nominal and Locational Predication Different
    Zero Copula for Predicate Nominals Impossible
    Comparative Constructions Exceed
    Complex Sentences
    'Want' Complement Subjects Subject is left implicit
    Lexicon
    Tea Others