1. Family: Niger-Congo
  2. Subfamily: Benue-Congo
  3. Genus: Defoid

Yoruba

WALS coordinates: 8° N, 4° 20′ E

spoken in Nigeria, Benin

Alternative Names

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

      Features

      Feature Value References
      Phonology
      Consonant Inventories Moderately small
      Vowel Quality Inventories Large (7-14)
      Consonant-Vowel Ratio Moderately low
      Voicing in Plosives and Fricatives In plosives alone
      Voicing and Gaps in Plosive Systems Missing /p/
      Uvular Consonants None
      Glottalized Consonants No glottalized consonants
      Lateral Consonants /l/, no obstruent laterals
      The Velar Nasal No velar nasal
      Vowel Nasalization Contrast present
      Front Rounded Vowels None
      Syllable Structure Simple
      Tone Complex tone system
      Absence of Common Consonants All present
      Presence of Uncommon Consonants Labial-velars
      Morphology
      Fusion of Selected Inflectional Formatives Tonal/isolating
      Exponence of Selected Inflectional Formatives Monoexponential case
      Inflectional Synthesis of the Verb 6-7 categories per word
      Locus of Marking in the Clause Double marking
      Locus of Marking in Possessive Noun Phrases Head marking
      Locus of Marking: Whole-language Typology Inconsistent or other
      Prefixing vs. Suffixing in Inflectional Morphology Little affixation
      Reduplication Productive full and partial reduplication
      Case Syncretism No syncretism
      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-number stem
      The Associative Plural Associative same as additive plural
      Definite Articles No definite or indefinite article
      Indefinite Articles No definite or indefinite article
      Inclusive/Exclusive Distinction in Independent Pronouns No 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 Unrelated
      Gender Distinctions in Independent Personal Pronouns No gender distinctions
      Politeness Distinctions in Pronouns Binary politeness distinction
      Indefinite Pronouns Generic-noun-based
      Intensifiers and Reflexive Pronouns Differentiated
      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
      Comitatives and Instrumentals Differentiation
      Ordinal Numerals One-th, two-th, three-th
      Distributive Numerals Marked by reduplication
      Numeral Classifiers Absent
      Position of Pronominal Possessive Affixes No possessive affixes
      Nominal Syntax
      Obligatory Possessive Inflection Absent
      Possessive Classification No possessive classification
      Action Nominal Constructions Restricted
      Noun Phrase Conjunction 'And' identical to 'with'
      Nominal and Verbal Conjunction Differentiation
      Verbal Categories
      Perfective/Imperfective Aspect No grammatical marking
      The Past Tense No past tense
      The Future Tense No inflectional future
      The Perfect From 'finish', 'already'
      Position of Tense-Aspect Affixes No tense-aspect inflection
      The Morphological Imperative No second-person imperatives
      The Optative Inflectional optative absent
      Situational Possibility Verbal constructions
      Epistemic Possibility Verbal constructions
      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 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 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 Noun-Numeral
      Order of Relative Clause and Noun Noun-Relative clause
      Position of Polar Question Particles No question particle
      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
      Alignment of Case Marking of Full Noun Phrases Neutral
      Alignment of Case Marking of Pronouns Nominative - accusative (standard)
      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' Secondary-object construction
      Reciprocal Constructions Identical to reflexive
      Passive Constructions Absent
      Antipassive Constructions No antipassive
      Applicative Constructions No applicative construction
      Periphrastic Causative Constructions Both
      Nonperiphrastic Causative Constructions Neither
      Symmetric and Asymmetric Standard Negation Both
      Subtypes of Asymmetric Standard Negation A/Cat
      Polar Questions Interrogative intonation only
      Predicative Possession 'Have'
      Predicative Adjectives Verbal encoding
      Nominal and Locational Predication Different
      Zero Copula for Predicate Nominals Impossible
      Comparative Constructions Exceed
      Complex Sentences
      Relativization on Subjects Pronoun-retention
      'Want' Complement Subjects Subject is left implicit
      Purpose Clauses Balanced
      'When' Clauses Balanced
      Reason Clauses Balanced
      Utterance Complement Clauses Balanced
      Lexicon
      Numeral Bases Pure vigesimal
      M-T Pronouns No M-T pronouns
      N-M Pronouns No N-M pronouns
      Tea Words derived from Min Nan Chinese te
      Other
      Para-Linguistic Usages of Clicks Affective meanings