1. Family: Lower Sepik-Ramu
  2. Genus: Lower Sepik

Yimas

WALS coordinates: 4° 40′ 12.00″ S, 143° 33′ E

spoken in Papua New Guinea

Alternative Names

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

      Features

      Feature Value References
      Phonology
      Consonant Inventories 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 Initial
      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
      Locus of Marking in the Clause Head marking
      Locus of Marking in Possessive Noun Phrases Dependent marking
      Locus of Marking: Whole-language Typology Inconsistent or other
      Reduplication Productive full and partial reduplication
      Case Syncretism No case marking
      Syncretism in Verbal Person/Number Marking Syncretic
      Nominal Categories
      Number of Genders Five or more
      Sex-based and Non-sex-based Gender Systems Sex-based
      Systems of Gender Assignment Semantic and formal
      Coding of Nominal Plurality Plural suffix
      Occurrence of Nominal Plurality All nouns, always obligatory
      Plurality in Independent Personal Pronouns Person-number stem
      Inclusive/Exclusive Distinction in Independent Pronouns No inclusive/exclusive
      Inclusive/Exclusive Distinction in Verbal Inflection No 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
      Politeness Distinctions in Pronouns No politeness distinction
      Intensifiers and Reflexive Pronouns Identical
      Person Marking on Adpositions Pronouns only
      Number of Cases Exclusively borderline case-marking
      Asymmetrical Case-Marking Subtractive-quantitatively asymmetrical
      Position of Case Affixes Case suffixes
      Ordinal Numerals First, two-th, three-th
      Distributive Numerals No distributive numerals
      Numeral Classifiers Absent
      Conjunctions and Universal Quantifiers Formally different
      Nominal Syntax
      Obligatory Possessive Inflection Absent
      Possessive Classification No possessive classification
      Genitives, Adjectives and Relative Clauses Highly differentiated
      Adjectives without Nouns Without marking
      Action Nominal Constructions Possessive-Accusative
      Nominal and Verbal Conjunction Both expressed by juxtaposition
      Verbal Categories
      The Morphological Imperative Second singular and second plural
      The Prohibitive Special imperative + special negative
      Imperative-Hortative Systems Maximal system
      The Optative Inflectional optative absent
      Situational Possibility Affixes on verbs
      Epistemic Possibility Affixes on verbs
      Overlap between Situational and Epistemic Modal Marking Overlap for both possibility and necessity
      Semantic Distinctions of Evidentiality No grammatical evidentials
      Coding of Evidentiality No grammatical evidentials
      Suppletion According to Tense and Aspect Tense
      Verbal Number and Suppletion None
      Word Order
      Order of Adposition and Noun Phrase Postpositions
      Order of Genitive and Noun Genitive-Noun
      Order of Adjective and Noun No dominant order
      Order of Demonstrative and Noun Noun-Demonstrative
      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 Neutral
      Alignment of Case Marking of Pronouns Neutral
      Alignment of Verbal Person Marking Split
      Expression of Pronominal Subjects Subject affixes on verb
      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 Both orders of A and P occur
      Ditransitive Constructions: The Verb 'Give' Indirect-object construction
      Passive Constructions Absent
      Antipassive Constructions No antipassive
      Applicative Constructions Benefactive and other; both bases
      Periphrastic Causative Constructions Both
      Nonperiphrastic Causative Constructions Both
      Symmetric and Asymmetric Standard Negation Asymmetric
      Subtypes of Asymmetric Standard Negation A/Fin and A/Cat
      Predicative Possession Conjunctional
      Predicative Adjectives Mixed
      Nominal and Locational Predication Different
      Zero Copula for Predicate Nominals Impossible
      Complex Sentences
      Relativization on Subjects Gap
      'Want' Complement Subjects Subject is left implicit
      Purpose Clauses Deranked
      'When' Clauses Balanced/deranked
      Reason Clauses Balanced
      Lexicon
      Numeral Bases Pure vigesimal
      M-T Pronouns M-T pronouns, non-paradigmatic
      N-M Pronouns No N-M pronouns