Guna
- Family
- Chibchan
- Region
- South America
- ISO 639-3
- cuk
- Location
- 9.16°, -78.31°
- Notes
- Features
-
Grammatical Data
- Data Sources
- Smith, Wikaliler Daniel 2014. A grammar of Guna: A community-centered approach. University of Texas at Austin (doctoral dissertation. Smith, Wikaliler. Grammar notes.
Grammatical Data (226)
| Category | Grammatical Feature | Grammatical Feature: Notes | Feature Status | Grammatical Notes | Source | Etymology Notes | General Notes | Phylogenetic Code |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Phonology - Segmental | Pre-/post-nasalized stops | Analysis posits that the stop is the most relevant underlying phoneme. Comment in notes on whether the nasal contour is understood as a phonetic (allophonic) effect, or is phonologically contrastive. | no | Smith | ||||
| Phonology - Segmental | Glottalized/ejective consonants | Phonemic contrast [NOT counting glottal stop/fricative] | no | Smith | ||||
| Phonology - Segmental | Palatalized stops | Phonemic contrast | no | Smith | ||||
| Phonology - Segmental | Phonemic vowel length | Does the language have long and short vowels? | no | Smith | ||||
| Phonology - Segmental | Phonemic glottalization/laryngealization of vowels | no | Smith | |||||
| Phonology - Segmental | Complex onsets | Onset consists of more than one consonant phoneme | no | Smith | ||||
| Phonology - Segmental | No codas | *(C)VC [no also equals highly constrained] | no | Smith | ||||
| Phonology - Segmental | Word-final coda required | Do all syllables end in a consonant? | no | Smith | ||||
| Phonology - Suprasegmental | Contrastive tones | Note how many contrastive tones | no | Smith | ||||
| Phonology - Suprasegmental | Contrastive stress | Does stress occur on different syllables with meaning difference? | no | Smith | ||||
| Phonology - Suprasegmental | Nasalization property of morpheme or syllable | In contrast to nasalization as a property of segments | no | Smith | ||||
| Phonology - Suprasegmental | Nasal spreading across some morpheme boundaries | Do some affixes or other morphemes take the nasal/oral properties of the root they attach to? | no | Smith | ||||
| Phonology - Suprasegmental | Vowel harmony | no | Smith | |||||
| Morphology - General | Verbal fusion (2+ categories marked by portmanteau morphemes on verb) | Verb combines two or more categories (tense, aspect, mood, person, number, etc.) in portmanteau morphemes{ [ignore proclitics unless they are fused with values other than person/number] | no | Smith texts | ||||
| Morphology - General | Inflection manifested by replacement of segmental or suprasegmental phonemes | Stem change, tone | no | Smith texts | ||||
| Morphology - General | Verbal synthesis (1+ inflectional categories marked by verbal affixes) | Morphological complexity in verbs - multiple inflectional affixes in a single verb word | yes | aspect, mood, evidentials, adverbial suffixes | Smith texts | |||
| Morphology - General | Prefixing/suffixing inflectional morph: strongly prefixing | There are many more prefixes than suffixes | no | Smith texts | ||||
| Morphology - General | Prefixing/suffixing inflectional morph: strongly suffixing | There are many more suffixes than prefixes | yes | Smith texts | causative is the only prefix | |||
| Morphology - General | Prefixing/suffixing inflectional morph: roughly equal or one weakly preferred | The numbers of suffixes and prefixes are not notably different | no | Smith texts | ||||
| Morphology - General | Reduplication: full | The full morpheme is reduplicated | yes | e.g. dunnu - dunnu (wrinkled) | Smith texts | |||
| Morphology - General | Reduplication: partial | Only part of the morpheme is reduplicated | no | Smith texts | ||||
| Morphology - Compounding, auxiliaries, light verbs | Productive NN compounding | Noun compounds created from two noun phrases are common and systematically produced | yes | e.g. ur-dup, gas-dup, mor-dup | Smith texts | |||
| Morphology - Compounding, auxiliaries, light verbs | Productive VV serialization (without compounding) | Verb roots can be combined in a single predicate without markers of subordination (distinct from subordinating construction) or distinct inflection | no | Smith texts | ||||
| Morphology - Compounding, auxiliaries, light verbs | Productive VV compounding | Serial verb constructions involve chaining of roots together in one morphophonological word | yes | verb+positional and verb+directional | Smith texts | |||
| Morphology - Compounding, auxiliaries, light verbs | Verb-adjunct (aka light verb) constructions | There is a set of semantically weak verbs used in complex verbal constructions, e.g. 'take a nap' | no | Smith texts | ||||
| Morphology - Compounding, auxiliaries, light verbs | Auxiliary verb(s) | There are verbs that accompany main verbs of clauses and take grammatical marking not expressed by main verbs | no | Smith texts | ||||
| Morphology - Incorporation | Incorporation of nouns into verbs is a productive intransitivizing process | Verb contains nominal segment | no | Smith texts | ||||
| Morphology - Incorporation | Productive incorporation of other elements (adjectives, locatives, etc.) into verbs | Like noun incorporation, but incorporated elements are not nouns | yes | verb + directional adverbs | Smith texts | |||
| Nominal Categories - Gender and noun classification | Noun classes/genders | Nouns are organized into sets with distinct morphological treatment; usually affects all nouns and involves agreement within the NP | no | Smith texts | ||||
| Nominal Categories - Gender and noun classification | Number of noun classes/genders | Note the (approximate) total number of noun classes/genders | no | Smith texts | ||||
| Nominal Categories - Gender and noun classification | Noun classifiers (distinct from noun classes/genders) | Nouns are organized into sets, but only a limited set of nouns may be implicated, with no or limited agreement marking. If only numeral classifiers exist, indicate yes but explain. | no | Smith texts | ||||
| Nominal Categories - Gender and noun classification | Sex is a relevant category in noun class(ification) system for animates | Masculine, feminine, neuter | no | Smith texts | ||||
| Nominal Categories - Gender and noun classification | Sex is a relevant category in noun class(ification) system for inanimates | no | Smith texts | |||||
| Nominal Categories - Gender and noun classification | Animacy (w/o reference to sex) is a relevant category in the noun class(ification) system | Animate/inanimate, human/non-human | no | Smith texts | ||||
| Nominal Categories - Gender and noun classification | Sex/gender distinction only in 3rd person pronouns | add in notes section whether gender is present in other PNs or not in any PNs; consider with reference to pronouns and person marking only | no | Smith texts | ||||
| Nominal Categories - Gender and noun classification | Shape is a relevant category in the noun class(ification) system for animates | no | shape is relevant only in numeral classifiers | Smith texts | ||||
| Nominal Categories - Gender and noun classification | Shape is a relevant category in the noun class(ification) system for inanimates | no | Smith texts | |||||
| Nominal Categories - Gender and noun classification | "Repeater" classifiers | Where no distinct classifier exists, a copy of the noun itself may function in the morphosyntactic classifier "slot" | no | Smith texts | ||||
| Nominal Categories - Gender and noun classification | Numeral classifiers (specific to numerals) | Special classifier forms that occur only with numerals | yes | round, flat, bulky/oblong, long, general (respectively) | Smith texts | |||
| Nominal Categories - Gender and noun classification | Classifiers used as derivational suffixes to derive nouns | Verb + classifier = 'thing for doing V, thing that does V, etc.' | no | Smith texts | ||||
| Nominal Categories - Number | Singular number may be marked on the noun | Often occurs in a small subset of nouns if a single entity is referred to, e.g. insects that normally occur in groups | no | Smith texts | ||||
| Nominal Categories - Number | Plural affix on noun | yes | -mar is short form | Smith texts | ||||
| Nominal Categories - Number | Plural marked by stem change or tone on noun | no | Smith texts | |||||
| Nominal Categories - Number | Plural marked by reduplication of noun | no | Smith texts | |||||
| Nominal Categories - Number | Plural word/clitic | no | Smith texts | |||||
| Nominal Categories - Number | Plural marked on human or animate nouns only | no | allows a plural, but not preferred | Smith texts | ||||
| Nominal Categories - Number | Pronominal plural: stem + nominal plural affix | Pronouns use a nominal plural affix not specific to pronouns | yes | plural enclitic | Smith texts | |||
| Nominal Categories - Number | Unique associative plural marker | e.g. 'John and his associates', 'John and them' | yes | only for a limited # of nouns | Smith texts | |||
| Nominal Categories - Definiteness and clusivity | Definite or specific articles | Definite = particular referent known to both speaker and addressee; specific = particular referent known to speaker only | no | Smith texts | ||||
| Nominal Categories - Definiteness and clusivity | Marker of definiteness distinct from demonstratives | Focus on articles/markers whose primary function is to mark definiteness | no | Smith texts | ||||
| Nominal Categories - Definiteness and clusivity | Indefinite or non-specific article | or marker | no | Smith texts | ||||
| Nominal Categories - Definiteness and clusivity | Inclusive/exclusive: in free pronominals | Inclusive =us + you, exclusive = us but not you | no | Smith texts | ||||
| Nominal Categories - Definiteness and clusivity | Inclusive/exclusive: in verbal inflection (bound) | no | Smith texts | |||||
| Nominal Categories - Definiteness and clusivity | Distance contrasts in demonstratives (number) | Note the number of distances in the demonstrative system | 2 | distal, proximal | Smith texts | |||
| Nominal Categories - Definiteness and clusivity | Other contrasts in demonstratives (visibility, elevation, etc.) | no | Smith texts | |||||
| Nominal Categories - Pronominal categories | Gender in 3sg pronouns | no | Smith texts | |||||
| Nominal Categories - Pronominal categories | Gender in 3pl pronouns | no | Smith texts | |||||
| Nominal Categories - Pronominal categories | Gender in 1st and/or 2nd person pronouns | no | Smith texts | |||||
| Nominal Categories - Pronominal categories | Formal/informal distinction in pronouns | Polite pronominal variants or differential avoidance of pronouns | no | Smith texts | ||||
| Nominal Categories - Pronominal categories | Reflexive pronouns | e.g. English 'himself', Spanish 'se'; distinct form(s) from basic (non-reflexive) pronominals; distinct from reflexive verbal affix | no | a coreferential na particle appears before noun/pronoun | Smith texts | |||
| Nominal Categories - Case and adpositions | Adpositions mark core NPs | Prepositions or postpositions mark subjects, objects, beneficiaries/recipients | no | prepositions that are grammaticalizing into case markers | Smith texts | |||
| Nominal Categories - Case and adpositions | Case: number of cases | Note the number of grammatical relations that may be morphologically marked on the noun | 4 | no core case markers | Smith texts | |||
| Nominal Categories - Case and adpositions | Case: only non-core arguments morphologically marked | Subjects, objects, beneficiaries/recipients NOT marked, but other grammatical relations are | yes | subject and object not marked. Other arguments are | Smith texts | |||
| Nominal Categories - Case and adpositions | Case: symmetrical | All NPs marked if in appropriate syntactic relation; no distinction in marking based on semantics (type of entity) | yes | Smith texts | ||||
| Nominal Categories - Case and adpositions | Case: asymmetrical | Semantically defined subset of NPs marked for case, e.g. animates | no | Smith texts | ||||
| Nominal Categories - Case and adpositions | Case: suffix or postpositional clitic | yes | postpositional clitics for obliques | Smith texts | ||||
| Nominal Categories - Case and adpositions | Case: prefix or prepositional clitic | no | Smith texts | |||||
| Nominal Categories - Case and adpositions | Case: infix or inpositional clitic | no | Smith texts | |||||
| Nominal Categories - Case and adpositions | Case: stem change | no | Smith texts | |||||
| Nominal Categories - Case and adpositions | Case: tone | no | Smith texts | |||||
| Nominal Categories - Case and adpositions | Case: comitative = instrumental | Same marking for 'with a person' and 'with an instrument' | no | Smith texts | ||||
| Nominal Categories - Numerals | Base-2 | At least some part of the system involves base-2 | no | Smith texts | ||||
| Nominal Categories - Numerals | Base-5 | At least some part of the system involves base-5 | no | Smith texts | ||||
| Nominal Categories - Numerals | Base-10 | At least some part of the system involves base-10 | yes | Smith texts | ||||
| Nominal Categories - Numerals | Other base (specify) | 4, 20, etc. | yes | base 20 | Smith texts | |||
| Nominal Categories - Numerals | Etymological transparency in any numerals under 5 | e.g. two = 'eye-quantity' | no | Smith texts | ||||
| Nominal Categories - Numerals | Numerals do not go above 5 | 'Many' or some other non-exact term used | no | Smith texts | ||||
| Nominal Categories - Numerals | Numerals do not go above 10 | 'Many' or some other non-exact term used | no | Smith texts | ||||
| Nominal Categories - Other nominal | Tense or aspect inflection on non-verbal predicates | i.e. nominal or adjectival | no | only imperfective -na on nouns | Smith texts | |||
| Nominal Categories - Other nominal | Person inflection on non-verbal predicates | i.e. nominal or adjectival | no | Smith texts | ||||
| Nominal Syntax - Possession | Pronominal possessive affixes: prefix on N | alienable/inalienable? | yes | pronouns are affixed on N | Smith texts | |||
| Nominal Syntax - Possession | Pronominal possessive affixes: suffix on N | alienable/inalienable? | no | Smith texts | ||||
| Nominal Syntax - Possession | Head/dependent marking in possessive NP: dependent | e.g. 'the boy-'s dog' | no | Smith texts | ||||
| Nominal Syntax - Possession | Head/dependent marking in possessive NP: head | e.g. 'the boy his-dog' | yes | optional for third person | Smith texts | |||
| Nominal Syntax - Possession | Possessive classifiers | There are special classifiers that occur with possessed entities | no | Smith texts | ||||
| Nominal Syntax - Possession - Alienability | Morphological marking of inalienable possession | Where inalienable possession differs from alienable, the former takes a morphological marker (may include an associated free particle/pronoun) | no | Smith texts | ||||
| Nominal Syntax - Possession - Alienability | Morphological marking of alienable possession | Where inalienable possession differs from alienable, the latter takes a morphological marker (may include an associated free particle/pronoun) | no | Smith texts | ||||
| Nominal Syntax - Possession - Alienability | Default marker for inalienably possessed nouns if unpossessed | An inalienable noun that is in an unpossessed state must have a derivational affix or associated form | no | Smith texts | ||||
| Nominal Syntax - Possession - Alienability | Inalienable possession of kin terms | 'my-father' but *father | no | Smith texts | ||||
| Nominal Syntax - Possession - Alienability | Inalienable possession of body parts (human/animal) | 'my-leg' but *leg | no | Smith texts | ||||
| Nominal Syntax - Possession - Alienability | Generic human nouns are obligatorily bound/possessed | Human nouns must co-occur with another noun (e.g. Hup-man, NonIndian-woman, but *man) | no | Smith texts | ||||
| Nominal Syntax - Adjectives | Underived adjectives | There are underived adjectives which do not have counterparts in other word classes | yes | small class (e.g. bipi 'small') | Smith texts | |||
| Nominal Syntax - Adjectives | Gender inflection on adjectives within the NP | There is gender agreement/concord (animate/inanimate or masc/fem, etc.) within the NP, e.g. la casa blanca, el perro blanco | no | Smith texts | ||||
| Nominal Syntax - Derivation | Productive nominalizing morphology: action/state (arrive/arrival) | There is a morpheme which derives an event from a verb | yes | Smith texts | ||||
| Nominal Syntax - Derivation | Productive nominalizing morphology: agentive (sing/singer) | There is a morpheme which derives an agent or subject from a verb | no | Smith texts | ||||
| Nominal Syntax - Derivation | Productive nominalizing morphology: object (sing/song) | There is a morpheme which derives a patient or object from a verb | no | Smith texts | ||||
| Nominal Syntax - Derivation | Productive verbalizing morphology | There is a morpheme which derives a verb from a noun or adjective | no | Smith texts | ||||
| Nominal Syntax - Other | NP coordination and comitative phrases marked differently | 'John and Mary went to market' is marked differently from 'John went to market with Mary' | no | -bo comitative | Smith texts | |||
| Verbal Categories - Aspect and tense | Dedicated past marker(s) | Past tense is regularly morphologically marked on the verb or elsewhere | no | no tense markers | Smith texts | |||
| Verbal Categories - Aspect and tense | Multiple past tenses, distinguishing distance from time of reference | e.g. distant vs. recent past | no | Smith texts | ||||
| Verbal Categories - Aspect and tense | Multiple future tenses, distinguishing distance from time of reference | e.g. imminent vs. distant future | no | Smith texts | ||||
| Verbal Categories - Aspect and tense | Dedicated future or non-past marker(s) | no | Smith texts | |||||
| Verbal Categories - Aspect and tense | Tense-aspect affixes: prefix | no | Smith texts | |||||
| Verbal Categories - Aspect and tense | Tense-aspect affixes: suffix | yes | aspect suffixes | Smith texts | ||||
| Verbal Categories - Aspect and tense | Tense-aspect affixes: tone or ablaut | no | Smith texts | |||||
| Verbal Categories - Aspect and tense | Tense-aspect suppletion | no | Smith texts | |||||
| Verbal Categories - Mood | Dedicated imperative morpheme or verb form | There is a special morpheme (or morphemes, or a bare verb root where inflection is normally expected) used to signal imperative (command) mood | no | imperative verb carries no inflection | Smith texts | |||
| Verbal Categories - Mood | Polite imperative morpheme | There is a distinct morpheme for polite imperative constructions (specify if it has other functions in the language) | no | Smith texts | ||||
| Verbal Categories - Mood | Difference between negation in imperative (prohibitive) and declarative clauses | There are different strategies for marking negation in imperative and declarative clauses | yes | different particle for prohibitive | Smith texts | |||
| Verbal Categories - Mood | Dedicated hortative morpheme or verb form (1pl or 3rd person imperative) | as opposed to imperative; the person in control of desired state of affairs is not the addressee; ex: 'Let's sing' / 'Let him sing' | no | Smith texts | ||||
| Verbal Categories - Mood | Situational possibility: affix on verb | Inflectional marking of capacity to do something | no | Smith texts | ||||
| Verbal Categories - Mood | Situational possibility: verbal construction | yes | nabir particle preverbal | Smith texts | ||||
| Verbal Categories - Mood | Situational possibility: other marking | no | Smith texts | |||||
| Verbal Categories - Mood | Epistemic possibility: affix on verb | Modal expressing hypothesis | yes | Smith texts | ||||
| Verbal Categories - Mood | Epistemic possibility: verbal construction | no | Smith texts | |||||
| Verbal Categories - Mood | Epistemic possibility: other marking | no | Smith texts | |||||
| Verbal Categories - Mood | Marking of expected/unexpected action or result | There is inflectional marking of expected/unexpected | no | Smith texts | ||||
| Verbal Categories - Mood | Verbal frustrative | Modal expressing frustration ("in vain") | no | Smith texts | ||||
| Verbal Categories - Mood | Verbal habitual | Modal expressing habituality | yes | Smith texts | ||||
| Verbal Categories - Mood | Apprehensive construction | There is a single morpheme or verb form to mean '(be careful lest) X happens' | no | Smith texts | ||||
| Verbal Categories - Mood | Reality status marking on verbs | There are dedicated morpheme(s) for realis/irrealis 'actualized/unactualized events' | no | Smith texts | ||||
| Verbal Categories - Mood | Affect markers (positive/negative) | Note whether these inflectional markers are positive or negative | no | Smith texts | ||||
| Verbal Categories - Directionals | Directional elements affixed to the verb | There are grammaticalized elements indicating movement away, toward, there and back, etc. | yes | Smith texts | ||||
| Verbal Categories - Evidentiality | Grammaticalized visual | Indicates information has been witnessed visually - indicate only if an overt marker | no | Smith texts | ||||
| Verbal Categories - Evidentiality | Grammaticalized nonvisual | Indicates information has been sensed firsthand but not visually (usually heard; also smelled, tasted, felt) | no | Smith texts | ||||
| Verbal Categories - Evidentiality | Grammaticalized inferential | Indicates information has not been experienced firsthand, but inferred from some kind of evidence - indicate only if an overt marker. | no | Smith texts | ||||
| Verbal Categories - Evidentiality | Grammaticalized reportive | Indicates speaker is not responsible for veracity of statement, merely reporting; 'allegedly' | no | Smith texts | ||||
| Verbal Categories - Evidentiality | Grammaticalized quotative | Indicate presence of adjacent representation of repeated discourse | yes | Smith texts | ||||
| Verbal Categories - Evidentiality | Other evidential | Any other evidential values not represented above | no | Smith texts | ||||
| Verbal Categories - Evidentiality | Evidentiality: verb affix or clitic | yes | affixes | Smith texts | ||||
| Verbal Categories - Evidentiality | Evidentiality: part of tense system | Includes portmanteau morphs | no | Smith texts | ||||
| Verbal Categories - Evidentiality | Evidentiality: separate particle | no | Smith texts | |||||
| Verbal Categories - Evidentiality | Evidentiality: modal morpheme | no | Smith texts | |||||
| Verbal Categories - Verbal number | Verbal number suppletion | no | Smith texts | |||||
| Verbal Categories - Other | Social interaction markers | Note the type of interaction | no | Smith texts | ||||
| Word Order | No fixed basic constituent order | no | SOV - strongly preferred | Smith texts | ||||
| Word Order | VS in intransitive clauses | Verb precedes subject | no | Smith texts | ||||
| Word Order | VS in transitive clauses | no | Smith texts | |||||
| Word Order | VO in transitive clauses | Verb precedes object | no | Smith texts | ||||
| Word Order | OS in transitive clauses | Object precedes subject | no | Smith texts | ||||
| Word Order | Preposition-Noun | no | Smith texts | |||||
| Word Order | Noun-Postposition or case suffix | yes | both postpositions and case suffixes | Smith texts | ||||
| Word Order | Gen-Noun | Possessive phrase composed of a free possessor and its possessum has possessor first (e.g. John's book) | yes | Smith texts | ||||
| Word Order | Noun-Gen | Possessive phrase composed of a free possessor and its possessum has possessum first (e.g. 'book of John') | no | Smith texts | ||||
| Word Order | Adj-Noun | Adjective precedes the noun | no | Smith texts | ||||
| Word Order | Noun-Adj | Adjective follows the noun | yes | Smith texts | ||||
| Word Order | Dem-Noun | yes | Smith texts | |||||
| Word Order | Noun-Dem | no | Smith texts | |||||
| Word Order | Num-Noun | no | Smith texts | |||||
| Word Order | Noun-Num | yes | N Cl-Num | Smith texts | ||||
| Word Order | Noun-Rel | Relative clause follows noun that it modifies | yes | Smith texts | ||||
| Word Order | Rel-Noun | Relative clause precedes noun that it modifies | no | Smith texts | ||||
| Word Order | Re<Noun>l (internally headed relative) | e.g. 'the dog cat chased-NMZR got away' ('the cat that the dog chased got away') | yes | Smith texts | ||||
| Word Order | Relative clause is correlative or adjoined | e.g. 'what is running, the dog chased that cat' | no | Smith texts | ||||
| Word Order | Question word is clause initial | 'what', 'who', etc. come first in interrogative clause | yes | it can also remain in-situ | Smith texts | |||
| Simple Clauses - Alignment | Alignment of case marking in full NPs: nominative-accusative w/ marked accusative | Objects of transitive clauses ('P') have a unique marker, while subjects of transitive ('A') and intransitive ('S') clauses are unmarked or share a different marker from that occurring on objects | no | no core case markers | Smith texts | |||
| Simple Clauses - Alignment | Alignment of case marking in full NPs: nominative-accusative w/ marked nominative | Subjects of transitive and intransitive clauses share a marker, while objects of transitives are unmarked | no | Smith texts | ||||
| Simple Clauses - Alignment | Alignment of case marking in full NPs: ergative-absolutive | Subjects of intransitive clauses and objects of transitives share a unique marker, while subjects of transitive clauses are unmarked or have a different marker | no | Smith texts | ||||
| Simple Clauses - Alignment | Alignment of case marking in full NPs: tripartite | Intransitive subjects, transitive subjects, and transitive objects all receive distinct case markers | no | Smith texts | ||||
| Simple Clauses - Alignment | Alignment of case marking in full NPs: active-inactive | Subjects of intransitive clauses are treated two different ways: like subjects of transitives if they are more agent-like (e.g. he jumped), and like objects of transitives if they are more patient-like (e.g. he fell asleep) | no | Smith texts | ||||
| Simple Clauses - Alignment | Alignment of case marking of pronouns: marked accusative | no | pronouns are the same as subj. and obj. | Smith texts | ||||
| Simple Clauses - Alignment | Alignment of case marking of pronouns: marked nominative | no | Smith texts | |||||
| Simple Clauses - Alignment | Alignment of case marking of pronouns: ergative-absolutive | yes, no, mixed, other | no | Smith texts | ||||
| Simple Clauses - Alignment | Alignment of case marking of pronouns: tripartite | no | Smith texts | |||||
| Simple Clauses - Alignment | Alignment of case marking of pronouns: active-inactive | no | Smith texts | |||||
| Simple Clauses - Alignment | Alignment of verbal person-marking: nominative-accusative | Same as above, for pronominal affixes/clitics on verbs | no | Smith texts | ||||
| Simple Clauses - Alignment | Alignment of verbal person-marking: ergative-absolutive | yes, no, mixed, other | no | Smith texts | ||||
| Simple Clauses - Alignment | Alignment of verbal person-marking: active-inactive | no | Smith texts | |||||
| Simple Clauses - Alignment | Alignment of verbal person-marking: hierarchical | Marking of A and P depends on their relative ranking on a hierarchy (usually 1>2>3 or 2>1>3) | no | Smith texts | ||||
| Simple Clauses - Alignment | Alignment of verbal person-marking: split | More than one of the above systems is represented in person marking, depending on e.g. person (e.g. 1/2 vs. 3), tense-aspect value, main vs. subordinate clause type, etc. | no | Smith texts | ||||
| Simple Clauses - Pronouns and person marking | Pronominal subjects: pronouns in subject position | Pronominal subjects are free pronouns that occur in the same position as full NP subjects | yes | Smith texts | ||||
| Simple Clauses - Pronouns and person marking | Pronominal subjects: prefixes on verb | Pronominal subjects are marked as verbal prefixes (free pronouns may be another option) | no | Smith texts | ||||
| Simple Clauses - Pronouns and person marking | Pronominal subjects: suffixes on verb | Pronominal subjects are marked as verbal suffixes (free pronouns may be another option) | no | Smith texts | ||||
| Simple Clauses - Pronouns and person marking | Pronominal subjects: clitics on variable host | Pronominal subjects are clitics that can attach to verbs, nominal constituents, etc. | no | Smith texts | ||||
| Simple Clauses - Pronouns and person marking | Pronominal subjects: pronouns in non-subject position | Pronominal subjects are free pronouns but do not normally occur in the position expected for full NP subjects | no | Smith texts | ||||
| Simple Clauses - Pronouns and person marking | Person marking on intransitive verbs | Intransitive verbs take person-marking clitics/affixes | no | no person marking on verb | Smith texts | |||
| Simple Clauses - Pronouns and person marking | Person marking (of agents) on transitive verbs | Transitive verbs take subject (A) markers | no | Smith texts | ||||
| Simple Clauses - Pronouns and person marking | Person-marking (of objects) on transitive verbs | Transitive verbs take object (P) markers | no | Smith texts | ||||
| Simple Clauses - Pronouns and person marking | 3rd person zero in verbal person marking: subjects | 3rd person subjects are not overtly marked within the verbal person-marking system | no | Smith texts | no person marking | |||
| Simple Clauses - Pronouns and person marking | 3rd person zero in verbal person marking: objects | 3rd person objects are not overtly marked within the verbal person-marking system | no | Smith texts | ||||
| Simple Clauses - Pronouns and person marking | Number can be marked separately from person on the verb | Verbal person marking exists, but number is (or can) be marked separately | yes | =mala clitic may be marked on verb | Smith texts | |||
| Simple Clauses - Pronouns and person marking | Possessive affixes/clitics on nouns are same as verbal person markers | Where nouns take possessive affixes, these are the same as the person-marking affixes | no | Smith texts | ||||
| Simple Clauses - Pronouns and person marking | Gender distinguished in verbal person markers | For any person, verbal person markers exhibit different forms depending on the gender (masc/fem, animate/inanimate, etc.) of the referent | no | Smith texts | ||||
| Simple Clauses - Valence and voice | Ditransitive constructions: indirect object | In ditransitives (e.g. 'John gives a book to Bill'), the theme (book) is treated in the same way as are objects of transitives, while the recipient/beneficiary (Bill) is treated differently | yes | dative marker | Smith texts | |||
| Simple Clauses - Valence and voice | Ditransitive constructions: double object | In ditransitives (e.g. 'John gives Bill a book'), both the theme (book) and the recipient/beneficiary (Bill) is treated in the same way as are objects of transitives | yes | in rare cases, an indirect object may be unmarked for case | Smith texts | |||
| Simple Clauses - Valence and voice | Ditransitive constructions: secondary object | In ditransitives, the recipient/beneficiary is treated in the same way as are objects of transitives, while the theme (book) is treated differently | no | Smith texts | ||||
| Simple Clauses - Valence and voice - Decreasing | Reciprocal: dedicated morpheme | Verb becomes reciprocal through use of reciprocal morpheme associated with the verb (may be attached to the verb root). This morpheme is only used to mean reciprocal. | no | there is reflexive/reciprocal particle | Smith texts | |||
| Simple Clauses - Valence and voice - Decreasing | Reflexive: dedicated morpheme | Verb becomes reflexive through use of reflexive morpheme associated with the verb (may be attached to the verb root). This morpheme is used only to mean reflexive. | no | Smith texts | ||||
| Simple Clauses - Valence and voice - Decreasing | Reciprocal/reflexive: same morpheme | Verb becomes reciprocal or reflexive through use of a morpheme that means either reciprocal or reflexive which attaches to the root of the verb | no | Smith texts | ||||
| Simple Clauses - Valence and voice - Decreasing | Passive | Passive voice usually involves a change to the verb, while the object of the active voice verb is promoted to subject in the passive voice, and the former subject is deleted/demoted | yes | -le is the short form | Smith texts | |||
| Simple Clauses - Valence and voice - Decreasing | Antipassive | Like passive, but deletes or demotes the object of a transitive verb; usually found in ergative languages | no | Smith texts | ||||
| Simple Clauses - Valence and voice - Decreasing | Other intransitivizing morphology | There is/are some other mechanism(s) for reducing valency | no | Smith texts | ||||
| Simple Clauses - Valence and voice - Increasing | Applicative: benefactive | Applicative adds a beneficiary/maleficiary object argument to the verb | no | Smith texts | ||||
| Simple Clauses - Valence and voice - Increasing | Applicative: other | Applicative adds some other object argument to the verb | no | Smith texts | ||||
| Simple Clauses - Valence and voice - Increasing | Causative: prefix | Causative is morphological and is attached before the root of the verb | yes | Smith texts | ||||
| Simple Clauses - Valence and voice - Increasing | Causative: suffix | Causative is morphological and is attached after the root of the verb | no | Smith texts | ||||
| Simple Clauses - Valence and voice - Increasing | Causative marked by circumfix, stem change, or tone | Morphological causative other than simple prefix/suffix | no | Smith texts | ||||
| Simple Clauses - Valence and voice - Increasing | Causative: serial verb or analytical construction | Causative construction that involves periphrasis or serialization | yes | Smith texts | ||||
| Simple Clauses - Valence and voice - Increasing | Causative: dedicated 'make do by proxy' | Indicates that the causer does not directly cause the action of the verb to be realized, but does so by inducing someone else to carry out the action, e.g. 'John had the house painted.' | no | Smith texts | ||||
| Simple Clauses - Valence and voice - Increasing | Causative: dedicated sociative | Indicates that causer participates in event | no | Smith texts | ||||
| Simple Clauses - Valence and voice - Increasing | Other transitivizing morphology (adds valence) | There is/are some other mechanism(s) for increasing valency | no | Smith texts | ||||
| Simple Clauses - Negation | Clausal negator is a preposed element | Clausal negator is a preposed element | no | Smith texts | ||||
| Simple Clauses - Negation | Clausal negator is a postposed element | Clausal negator is a postposed element | yes | marked on the verb | Smith texts | |||
| Simple Clauses - Negation | Negatives: affix | Negatives: affix | yes | Smith texts | ||||
| Simple Clauses - Negation | Negatives: particle | Negatives: particle | yes | prohibitive, volitional neg., ability negative | Smith texts | |||
| Simple Clauses - Negation | Negatives: auxiliary verb | Negatives: auxiliary verb | no | Smith texts | ||||
| Simple Clauses - Negation | Negatives: double | Standard (non-emphatic) negation typically requires two morphemes, e.g. French 'ne V pas' | no | Smith texts | ||||
| Simple Clauses - Negation | Distinct negative form for 'NP does not exist' | no | Smith texts | |||||
| Simple Clauses - Negation | Distinct negative expression 'I don't know' | Lexical expression or highly idiomatic phrase | no | wissuli | Smith texts | |||
| Simple Clauses - Interrogatives | Polar questions: interrogative particle | Yes/no questions distinguished from declaratives by interrogative particle | no | Smith texts | ||||
| Simple Clauses - Interrogatives | Polar questions: verb morphology | Yes/no questions distinguished from declaratives by interrogative verb morphology | no | Smith texts | ||||
| Simple Clauses - Interrogatives | Polar questions: word order | Yes/no questions distinguished from declaratives by word order (esp. subject-verb inversion) | no | Smith texts | ||||
| Simple Clauses - Interrogatives | Polar questions: intonation only | Yes/no questions distinguished from declaratives by intonation only | yes | Smith texts | ||||
| Simple Clauses - Interrogatives | Content questions: word order differs from declaratives | Content questions distinguished from declaratives by word order (esp. subject-verb inversion) as well as by presence of Q-word (who, what, etc.) | no | Smith texts | ||||
| Simple Clauses - Predication | Predicate adjectives: verbal | Adjectives act like verbs in predicative position | no | Smith texts | ||||
| Simple Clauses - Predication | Predicate adjectives: nominal | Adjectives act like nouns in predicative position | yes | Smith texts | ||||
| Simple Clauses - Predication | Zero copula for predicate nominals is possible | Predicate nominals may occur without a copula (i.e. grammatical in some circumstances, if not all) | yes | zero copula is preferred | Smith texts | |||
| Simple Clauses - Predication | Headless relative clauses | Compare Eng 'the one that fell' (but in Eng 'one' could be considered a head) | yes | Smith texts | ||||
| Simple Clauses - Predication | Headless relative clauses are the dominant or only form of relative clause | Relative clauses that form a constituent with a head noun (in a single noun phrase) are rare or nonexistent; some descriptions may refer to adjoined or correlative clauses. | no | Smith texts | ||||
| Simple Clauses - Predication | Relative clause may occur with a noun classifier/class marker | It may be unclear whether the classifier is the nominal head of the construction or is an agreement marker on the relative clause | no | Smith texts | ||||
| Simple Clauses - Predication | Relativizer is a verbal affix | yes | Smith texts | |||||
| Simple Clauses - Predication | Morphological relativizer is homophonous with nominalizer | The same morpheme marks a relative clause and is a nominalizer on verbs (and/or other word classes) | yes | Smith texts | ||||
| Simple Clauses - Desiderative expressions | Grammaticalized verbal desiderative | Indicates that the subject desires to carry out the action denoted by the verb (distinct from verb 'want', but may be grammaticalized from it) | yes | -bi is short form | Smith texts | |||
| Simple Clauses - Other | Clause chaining | Clauses can be grouped such that only one bears most of the verb morphology, and the others are marked as to whether they share a subject with this reference clause. | no | Smith texts | ||||
| Simple Clauses - Other | Morphologically marked switch-reference system | There are special markers to indicate same vs. different subject when two clauses are combined | no | Smith texts | ||||
| Simple Clauses - Other | Morphologically marked distinction between simultaneous and sequential clauses | Morphology (usually on verb) distinguishes between clauses denoting events that occur at the same time or in sequence | no | Smith texts |