Zulu

WALS coordinates: 30° S, 30° E

spoken in South Africa

Find examples here.

Alternative Names

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

Features

ID Feature Value Area References  
1A Consonant Inventories Moderately large Phonology
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2A Vowel Quality Inventories Average (5-6) Phonology
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3A Consonant-Vowel Ratio High Phonology
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4A Voicing in Plosives and Fricatives In fricatives alone Phonology
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5A Voicing and Gaps in Plosive Systems Other Phonology
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6A Uvular Consonants None Phonology
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7A Glottalized Consonants Ejectives and implosives Phonology
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8A Lateral Consonants /l/ and lateral obstruent Phonology
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10A Vowel Nasalization Contrast absent Phonology
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11A Front Rounded Vowels None Phonology
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12A Syllable Structure Moderately complex Phonology
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13A Tone Simple tone system Phonology
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14A Fixed Stress Locations Penultimate Phonology
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15A Weight-Sensitive Stress Fixed stress (no weight-sensitivity) Phonology
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16A Weight Factors in Weight-Sensitive Stress Systems No weight Phonology
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17A Rhythm Types Trochaic Phonology
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18A Absence of Common Consonants All present Phonology
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19A Presence of Uncommon Consonants Clicks Phonology
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20A Fusion of Selected Inflectional Formatives Exclusively concatenative Morphology
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21A Exponence of Selected Inflectional Formatives No case Morphology
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21B Exponence of Tense-Aspect-Mood Inflection monoexponential TAM Morphology
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22A Inflectional Synthesis of the Verb 4-5 categories per word Morphology
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23A Locus of Marking in the Clause Head marking Morphology
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24A Locus of Marking in Possessive Noun Phrases Dependent marking Morphology
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25A Locus of Marking: Whole-language Typology Inconsistent or other Morphology
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25B Zero Marking of A and P Arguments Non-zero marking Morphology
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26A Prefixing vs. Suffixing in Inflectional Morphology Strong prefixing Morphology
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27A Reduplication Full reduplication only Morphology
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28A Case Syncretism No case marking Morphology
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29A Syncretism in Verbal Person/Number Marking Syncretic Morphology
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30A Number of Genders Five or more Nominal Categories
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31A Sex-based and Non-sex-based Gender Systems Non-sex-based Nominal Categories
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32A Systems of Gender Assignment Semantic and formal Nominal Categories
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33A Coding of Nominal Plurality Plural prefix Nominal Categories
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34A Occurrence of Nominal Plurality All nouns, always obligatory Nominal Categories
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35A Plurality in Independent Personal Pronouns Person-number stem Nominal Categories
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36A The Associative Plural Associative same as additive plural Nominal Categories
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examples
37A Definite Articles No definite or indefinite article Nominal Categories
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38A Indefinite Articles No definite or indefinite article Nominal Categories
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39A Inclusive/Exclusive Distinction in Independent Pronouns No inclusive/exclusive Nominal Categories
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examples
40A Inclusive/Exclusive Distinction in Verbal Inflection No inclusive/exclusive Nominal Categories
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examples
43A Third Person Pronouns and Demonstratives Related by gender markers Nominal Categories
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examples
44A Gender Distinctions in Independent Personal Pronouns 3rd person only, but also non-singular Nominal Categories
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45A Politeness Distinctions in Pronouns No politeness distinction Nominal Categories
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47A Intensifiers and Reflexive Pronouns Differentiated Nominal Categories
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48A Person Marking on Adpositions No person marking Nominal Categories
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49A Number of Cases No morphological case-marking Nominal Categories
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50A Asymmetrical Case-Marking No case-marking Nominal Categories
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51A Position of Case Affixes Case prefixes Nominal Categories
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examples
53A Ordinal Numerals First, two-th, three-th Nominal Categories
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55A Numeral Classifiers Absent Nominal Categories
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56A Conjunctions and Universal Quantifiers Formally similar, without interrogative Nominal Categories
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58A Obligatory Possessive Inflection Absent Nominal Syntax
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58B Number of Possessive Nouns None reported Nominal Syntax
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59A Possessive Classification No possessive classification Nominal Syntax
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60A Genitives, Adjectives and Relative Clauses Highly differentiated Nominal Syntax
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61A Adjectives without Nouns Without marking Nominal Syntax
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63A Noun Phrase Conjunction 'And' identical to 'with' Nominal Syntax
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64A Nominal and Verbal Conjunction Differentiation Nominal Syntax
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65A Perfective/Imperfective Aspect Grammatical marking Verbal Categories
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66A The Past Tense Present, 2-3 remoteness distinctions Verbal Categories
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67A The Future Tense Inflectional future exists Verbal Categories
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68A The Perfect Other perfect Verbal Categories
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69A Position of Tense-Aspect Affixes Tense-aspect prefixes Verbal Categories
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70A The Morphological Imperative Second singular and second plural Verbal Categories
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71A The Prohibitive Special imperative + special negative Verbal Categories
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examples
72A Imperative-Hortative Systems Maximal system Verbal Categories
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73A The Optative Inflectional optative absent Verbal Categories
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74A Situational Possibility Affixes on verbs Verbal Categories
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75A Epistemic Possibility Affixes on verbs Verbal Categories
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76A Overlap between Situational and Epistemic Modal Marking Overlap for either possibility or necessity Verbal Categories
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77A Semantic Distinctions of Evidentiality No grammatical evidentials Verbal Categories
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78A Coding of Evidentiality No grammatical evidentials Verbal Categories
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79A Suppletion According to Tense and Aspect None Verbal Categories
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79B Suppletion in Imperatives and Hortatives None (= no suppletive imperatives reported in the reference material) Verbal Categories
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80A Verbal Number and Suppletion None Verbal Categories
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81A Order of Subject, Object and Verb SVO Word Order
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82A Order of Subject and Verb SV Word Order
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83A Order of Object and Verb VO Word Order
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85A Order of Adposition and Noun Phrase Prepositions Word Order
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86A Order of Genitive and Noun Noun-Genitive Word Order
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87A Order of Adjective and Noun Noun-Adjective Word Order
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88A Order of Demonstrative and Noun Mixed Word Order
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90A Order of Relative Clause and Noun Noun-Relative clause Word Order
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90C Postnominal relative clauses Noun-Relative clause (NRel) dominant Word Order
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92A Position of Polar Question Particles Final Word Order
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93A Position of Interrogative Phrases in Content Questions Not initial interrogative phrase Word Order
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94A Order of Adverbial Subordinator and Clause Initial subordinator word Word Order
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95A Relationship between the Order of Object and Verb and the Order of Adposition and Noun Phrase VO and Prepositions Word Order
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96A Relationship between the Order of Object and Verb and the Order of Relative Clause and Noun VO and NRel Word Order
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97A Relationship between the Order of Object and Verb and the Order of Adjective and Noun VO and NAdj Word Order
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98A Alignment of Case Marking of Full Noun Phrases Neutral Simple Clauses
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examples
99A Alignment of Case Marking of Pronouns Neutral Simple Clauses
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examples
100A Alignment of Verbal Person Marking Accusative Simple Clauses
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101A Expression of Pronominal Subjects Subject affixes on verb Simple Clauses
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102A Verbal Person Marking Both the A and P arguments Simple Clauses
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103A Third Person Zero of Verbal Person Marking No zero realization Simple Clauses
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104A Order of Person Markers on the Verb A precedes P Simple Clauses
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105A Ditransitive Constructions: The Verb 'Give' Double-object construction Simple Clauses
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106A Reciprocal Constructions Distinct from reflexive Simple Clauses
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examples
107A Passive Constructions Present Simple Clauses
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108A Antipassive Constructions No antipassive Simple Clauses
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108B Productivity of the Antipassive Construction no antipassive Simple Clauses
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109A Applicative Constructions Benefactive and other; both bases Simple Clauses
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109B Other Roles of Applied Objects Instrument Simple Clauses
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110A Periphrastic Causative Constructions Purposive but no sequential Simple Clauses
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111A Nonperiphrastic Causative Constructions Morphological but no compound Simple Clauses
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112A Negative Morphemes Negative affix Simple Clauses
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113A Symmetric and Asymmetric Standard Negation Both Simple Clauses
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114A Subtypes of Asymmetric Standard Negation A/Cat Simple Clauses
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115A Negative Indefinite Pronouns and Predicate Negation Predicate negation also present Simple Clauses
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116A Polar Questions Question particle Simple Clauses
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117A Predicative Possession Conjunctional Simple Clauses
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118A Predicative Adjectives Mixed Simple Clauses
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119A Nominal and Locational Predication Identical Simple Clauses
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120A Zero Copula for Predicate Nominals Impossible Simple Clauses
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121A Comparative Constructions Exceed Simple Clauses
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122A Relativization on Subjects Gap Complex Sentences
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124A 'Want' Complement Subjects Subject is left implicit Complex Sentences
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examples
125A Purpose Clauses Deranked Complex Sentences
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126A 'When' Clauses Deranked Complex Sentences
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127A Reason Clauses Deranked Complex Sentences
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129A Hand and Arm Different Lexicon
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examples
130A Finger and Hand Different Lexicon
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examples
131A Numeral Bases Decimal Lexicon
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examples
136A M-T Pronouns No M-T pronouns Lexicon
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136B M in First Person Singular m in first person singular Lexicon
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137A N-M Pronouns No N-M pronouns Lexicon
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137B M in Second Person Singular No m in second person singular Lexicon
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138A Tea Others Lexicon
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examples
143A Order of Negative Morpheme and Verb OptDoubleNeg Word Order
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143C Optional Double Negation [Neg-V(-Neg)] Word Order
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143E Preverbal Negative Morphemes [Neg-V] Word Order
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143F Postverbal Negative Morphemes [V-Neg] Word Order
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143G Minor morphological means of signaling negation None Word Order
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144A Position of Negative Word With Respect to Subject, Object, and Verb MorphNeg Word Order
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144D The Position of Negative Morphemes in SVO Languages OptNeg Word Order
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144G Optional Double Negation in SVO languages S[Neg-V(-Neg)]O Word Order
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144H NegSVO Order No NegSVO Word Order
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144I SNegVO Order Prefix&OptDoubleNeg Word Order
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144J SVNegO Order Suffix&OnlyWithAnotherNeg Word Order
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144K SVONeg Order No SVONeg Word Order
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