Sl.No. | Feature | Value | Area |
1 | Consonant Inventories | Large : 33 | Phonology |
2 | Vowel Quality Inventories | Large : 9 | Phonology |
3 | Consonant-Vowel Ratio | Average : 3.66 | Phonology |
4 | Voicing and Gaps in Plosive Systems | None missing in /p t k b d g/ | Phonology |
5 | Uvular Consonants | None | Phonology |
6 | Lateral Consonants | /l/, no obstruent laterals | Phonology |
7 | Velar Nasal | Velar nasal, non initially: /əŋuʈʰɑ/ ‘thumb’ /ʈɑŋ/ ‘leɡ’ | Phonology |
8 | Vowel Nasalization | Contrastive nasal vowels present : ɑ̃, ũ, ɛ̃, ĩ, ə̃. | Phonology |
9 | Front Rounded Vowels | none | Phonology |
10 | Syllable structure | Moderately complex syllable structure: V, VC, CV, CVC, CCVC, CVCC | Phonology |
11 | Tone | Absent | Phonology |
12 | Common Consonants | All present | Phonology |
13 | Presence of Uncommon Consonants | Absent | Phonology |
14 | Fusion of Selected Inflectional Formatives | Exclusively concatenative | Morphology |
15 | Locus of Marking: Whole-language Typology | Inconsistent or other | Morphology |
16 | Prefixing vs. Suffixing in Inflectional Morphology | Strongly suffixing | Morphology |
17 | Reduplication | Full reduplication: /bəle bəle/ 'slowly- sowly' /bər bər/ 'again again' | Morphology |
18 | Case Syncretism | Core : Erg-Dat /-ne/ | Morphology |
19 | Number of Genders | Two | Nominal Categories |
20 | Sex-based and Non-sex-based Gender Systems | Sex-based | Nominal Categories |
21 | Systems of Gender Assignment | Semantic and formal | Nominal Categories |
22 | Coding of Nominal Plurality | Plural suffix: /–jə, -e, –ɑ̃/ | Nominal Categories |
23 | Indefinite Pronouns | Generic-noun-based | Nominal Categories |
24 | Plurality in Independent Personal Pronouns | Person-number stem | Nominal Categories |
25 | Inclusive/Exclusive Distinction in Independent Pronouns | No inclusive/exclusive | Nominal Categories |
26 | Distance Contrasts in Demonstratives | Two-way contrast: /jo/ /je/ ‘This’ /vo/ ‘That’ | Nominal Categories |
27 | Number of Cases | 8 case categories: 8 case categories: Nom /-Ø/, Acc /-Ø, Erg /-ne/, Dat /-ne, -de, Gen /‘meri’, ‘merə’, ‘əpni’, ‘əpne’ ‘ʊs ki’/, Inst /-nəl, Loc /-mɛ, -pə, -ni, -tʰəʈ/, Abl /-vitʃ,-ro, -de/ | Nominal Categories |
28 | Position of Case Affixes | Case suffixes | Nominal Categories |
29 | Numeral Classifiers | Absent | Nominal Categories |
30 | Perfective/Imperfective Aspect | Grammatical marking: /-dekʰtə/ 'IMPF' /-ɖeʈʰo/ (PFV) 'see' | Verbal Categories |
31 | Past Tense | Present, no remoteness distinctions | Verbal Categories |
32 | Future Tense | Inflectional future exists: /dekʰɑ̃ ɡə/ 'Will see' | Verbal Categories |
33 | Position of Tense-Aspect Affixes | Tense-aspect suffixes: /dekʰə/ | Verbal Categories |
34 | The Prohibitive | Normal imperative + special negative | Verbal Categories |
35 | Order of Subject, Object and Verb | SOV: /mẽː (S) tʃɪɖi-ne (O) dekʰɑ (V) tʰu/ 'I see birds' | Word Order |
36 | Order of Subject and Verb | SV: /ɖerə (S) dʒɑo (V)/ 'Go home’ | Word Order |
37 | Order of Object and Verb | OV: /kʰɑ ni (O) pʊno (V) 'Remove the grass' | Word Order |
38 | Order of Adposition and Noun Phrase | Postpositions | Word Order |
39 | Order of Genitive and Noun | Genitive-Noun: /meri-GEN koʈʰjə house-pl 'My houses' | Word Order |
40 | Order of Adjective and Noun | Adjective-Noun: /soɳə (Adj) dʒəɡət/ 'Good boy’ | Word Order |
41 | Order of Demonstrative and Noun | Demonstrative-Noun | Word Order |
42 | Order of Numeral and Noun | Numeral-Noun | Word Order |
43 | Order of Negative Morpheme and Verb | [Neg-V]: /kɑm niː (NEG) kərənɑ/ ‘Not to work’ | Word Order |
44 | Order of Degree Word and Adjective | Degree word-Adjective | Word Order |
45 | Predicative Adjectives | Non Verbal encoding: /vo kʊɽi dori (Pred Adj) hɛ/ 'That girl is deaf’ | Word Order |
46 | Position of Negative Word With Respect to Subject, Object, and Verb | SNegOV: /vo nəhiː (NEG) kər səkte/ ‘They cannot do it’ | Word Order |
47 | Position of Interrogative Phrases in Content Questions | Not initial interrogative phrase: /terɑ nɑv kijo (NEG) dʒiː/ What is your name?' | Word Order |
48 | Alignment of Verbal Person Marking | Accusative | Simple Clauses |
49 | Negative Morphemes | Negative particle: /-ni, -nɑhi, -nə/ | Simple Clauses |
50 | Passive Constructions | Present: /tumɑrɑ koʈ siɖ kijɑ (PASS) kəre/ 'Your coat is being stitched’ | Simple Clauses |