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

Zulu

WALS coordinates: 30° S, 30° E

spoken in South Africa

Alternative Names

Ethnologue:
Ruhlen:
  • Zulu
Routledge:
    Other:
    • IsiZulu
    ISO 639-3:

    Features

    Feature Value References
    Phonology
    Consonant Inventories Moderately large
    Vowel Quality Inventories Average (5-6)
    Consonant-Vowel Ratio High
    Voicing in Plosives and Fricatives In fricatives alone
    Voicing and Gaps in Plosive Systems Other
    Uvular Consonants None
    Glottalized Consonants Ejectives and implosives
    Lateral Consonants /l/ and lateral obstruent
    Vowel Nasalization Contrast absent
    Front Rounded Vowels None
    Syllable Structure Moderately complex
    Tone Simple tone system
    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 All present
    Presence of Uncommon Consonants Clicks
    Morphology
    Fusion of Selected Inflectional Formatives Exclusively concatenative
    Exponence of Selected Inflectional Formatives No case
    Inflectional Synthesis of the Verb 4-5 categories per word
    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
    Prefixing vs. Suffixing in Inflectional Morphology Strong prefixing
    Reduplication Full reduplication only
    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 Non-sex-based
    Systems of Gender Assignment Semantic and formal
    Coding of Nominal Plurality Plural prefix
    Occurrence of Nominal Plurality All nouns, always obligatory
    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 inclusive/exclusive
    Third Person Pronouns and Demonstratives Related by gender markers
    Gender Distinctions in Independent Personal Pronouns 3rd person only, but also non-singular
    Politeness Distinctions in Pronouns No politeness distinction
    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 Case prefixes
    Ordinal Numerals First, two-th, three-th
    Numeral Classifiers Absent
    Conjunctions and Universal Quantifiers Formally similar, without interrogative
    Nominal Syntax
    Obligatory Possessive Inflection Absent
    Possessive Classification No possessive classification
    Genitives, Adjectives and Relative Clauses Highly differentiated
    Adjectives without Nouns Without marking
    Noun Phrase Conjunction 'And' identical to 'with'
    Nominal and Verbal Conjunction Differentiation
    Verbal Categories
    Perfective/Imperfective Aspect Grammatical marking
    The Past Tense Present, 2-3 remoteness distinctions
    The Future Tense Inflectional future exists
    The Perfect Other perfect
    Position of Tense-Aspect Affixes Tense-aspect prefixes
    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 either possibility or 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 Mixed
    Order of Relative Clause and Noun Noun-Relative clause
    Position of Polar Question Particles Final
    Position of Interrogative Phrases in Content Questions Not 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 Neutral
    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 No zero realization
    Order of Person Markers on the Verb A precedes P
    Ditransitive Constructions: The Verb 'Give' Double-object construction
    Reciprocal Constructions Distinct from reflexive
    Passive Constructions Present
    Antipassive Constructions No antipassive
    Applicative Constructions Benefactive and other; both bases
    Periphrastic Causative Constructions Purposive but no sequential
    Nonperiphrastic Causative Constructions Morphological but no compound
    Negative Morphemes Negative affix
    Symmetric and Asymmetric Standard Negation Both
    Subtypes of Asymmetric Standard Negation A/Cat
    Negative Indefinite Pronouns and Predicate Negation Predicate negation also present
    Polar Questions Question particle
    Predicative Possession Conjunctional
    Predicative Adjectives Mixed
    Nominal and Locational Predication Identical
    Zero Copula for Predicate Nominals Impossible
    Comparative Constructions Exceed
    Complex Sentences
    Relativization on Subjects Gap
    'Want' Complement Subjects Subject is left implicit
    Purpose Clauses Deranked
    'When' Clauses Deranked
    Reason Clauses Deranked
    Lexicon
    Hand and Arm Different
    Finger and Hand Different
    Numeral Bases Decimal
    M-T Pronouns No M-T pronouns
    N-M Pronouns No N-M pronouns
    Tea Others