1. Family: Australian
  2. Subfamily: Gunwinyguan
  3. Genus: Yangmanic

Wardaman

WALS coordinates: 15° 30′ S, 131° E

spoken in Australia

Alternative Names

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

      Features

      Feature Value References
      Phonology
      Consonant Inventories Moderately small
      Vowel Quality Inventories Average (5-6)
      Consonant-Vowel Ratio Average
      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 Complex
      Tone No tones
      Fixed Stress Locations Penultimate
      Weight-Sensitive Stress Fixed stress (no weight-sensitivity)
      Weight Factors in Weight-Sensitive Stress Systems No weight
      Rhythm Types Trochaic
      Absence of Common Consonants No fricatives
      Presence of Uncommon Consonants None
      Morphology
      Fusion of Selected Inflectional Formatives Exclusively concatenative
      Exponence of Selected Inflectional Formatives Monoexponential case
      Reduplication Productive full and partial reduplication
      Case Syncretism No syncretism
      Syncretism in Verbal Person/Number Marking Not syncretic
      Nominal Categories
      Number of Genders Three
      Sex-based and Non-sex-based Gender Systems Non-sex-based
      Systems of Gender Assignment Semantic
      Coding of Nominal Plurality Plural suffix
      Occurrence of Nominal Plurality All nouns, always optional
      Plurality in Independent Personal Pronouns Person-number stem + nominal plural affix
      The Associative Plural Unique affixal associative plural
      Definite Articles Definite affix
      Inclusive/Exclusive Distinction in Independent Pronouns Inclusive/exclusive
      Inclusive/Exclusive Distinction in Verbal Inflection Inclusive/exclusive
      Distance Contrasts in Demonstratives Three-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
      Indefinite Pronouns Interrogative-based
      Person Marking on Adpositions No adpositions
      Number of Cases 8-9 cases
      Asymmetrical Case-Marking Additive-quantitatively asymmetrical
      Position of Case Affixes Case suffixes
      Ordinal Numerals None
      Nominal Syntax
      Nominal and Verbal Conjunction Differentiation
      Verbal Categories
      The Morphological Imperative Second singular and second plural
      The Prohibitive Special imperative + normal negative
      The Optative Inflectional optative absent
      Epistemic Possibility Affixes on verbs
      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 No dominant order
      Order of Object, Oblique, and Verb No dominant order
      Order of Adposition and Noun Phrase Postpositions
      Order of Genitive and Noun No dominant order
      Order of Adjective and Noun Noun-Adjective
      Order of Demonstrative and Noun Demonstrative-Noun
      Order of Numeral and Noun Numeral-Noun
      Position of Interrogative Phrases in Content Questions Not initial interrogative phrase
      Relationship between the Order of Object and Verb and the Order of Adposition and Noun Phrase Other
      Relationship between the Order of Object and Verb and the Order of Relative Clause and Noun Other
      Relationship between the Order of Object and Verb and the Order of Adjective and Noun Other
      Simple Clauses
      Alignment of Case Marking of Full Noun Phrases Ergative - absolutive
      Alignment of Case Marking of Pronouns Ergative - absolutive
      Alignment of Verbal Person Marking Accusative
      Expression of Pronominal Subjects Subject affixes on verb
      Verbal Person Marking Both the A and P arguments
      Third Person Zero of Verbal Person Marking Zero in all 3sg forms
      Order of Person Markers on the Verb A and P are fused
      Ditransitive Constructions: The Verb 'Give' Secondary-object construction
      Passive Constructions Absent
      Antipassive Constructions Oblique patient
      Applicative Constructions No applicative construction
      Nonperiphrastic Causative Constructions Compound but no morphological
      Symmetric and Asymmetric Standard Negation Symmetric
      Subtypes of Asymmetric Standard Negation Non-assignable
      Complex Sentences
      Relativization on Subjects Gap
      Purpose Clauses Deranked
      'When' Clauses Deranked
      Reason Clauses Balanced
      Lexicon
      Hand and Arm Different
      Finger and Hand Different
      M-T Pronouns No M-T pronouns
      N-M Pronouns No N-M pronouns