Features for 120705 CALS Metalanguage

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Phonology

Consonant Inventories WALS Average
Vowel Quality Inventories WALS Large (7-14)
Consonant-Vowel Ratio WALS Average
Voicing in Plosives and Fricatives WALS In both plosives and fricatives
Voicing and Gaps in Plosive Systems WALS None missing in /p t k b d g/
Uvular Consonants WALS None
Glottalized Consonants WALS No glottalized consonants
Lateral Consonants WALS /l/, no obstruent laterals
The Velar Nasal WALS No velar nasal
Vowel Nasalization WALS Contrast absent
Front Rounded Vowels WALS None
Syllable Structure WALS Moderately complex
Tone WALS No tones
Fixed Stress Locations WALS Penultimate
Weight-Sensitive Stress WALS Fixed stress
Weight Factors in Weight-Sensitive Stress Systems WALS No weight
Rhythm Types WALS No rhythmic stress
Absence of Common Consonants WALS All present
Presence of Uncommon Consonants WALS None

Morphology

Fusion of Selected Inflectional Formatives WALS Exclusively concatenative
Exponence of Selected Inflectional Formatives WALS Monoexponential case
Inflectional Synthesis of the Verb WALS 4-5 categories per word
Locus of Marking in the Clause WALS Dependent marking
Locus of Marking in Possessive Noun Phrases WALS Dependent marking
Locus of Marking: Whole-language Typology WALS Dependent-marking
Prefixing vs. Suffixing in Inflectional Morphology WALS Strongly suffixing
Reduplication WALS No productive reduplication
Case Syncretism WALS No syncretism
Syncretism in Verbal Person/Number Marking WALS No subject person/number marking

Nominal Categories

Number of Genders WALS None
Sex-based and Non-sex-based Gender Systems WALS No gender
Systems of Gender Assignment WALS No gender
Coding of Nominal Plurality WALS Plural suffix
Occurrence of Nominal Plurality WALS All nouns, always obligatory
Plurality in Independent Personal Pronouns WALS Person-number stem
The Associative Plural WALS No associative plural
Definite Articles WALS No definite or indefinite article
Indefinite Articles WALS No definite or indefinite article
Inclusive/Exclusive Distinction in Independent Pronouns WALS No inclusive/exclusive
Inclusive/Exclusive Distinction in Verbal Inflection WALS No person marking
Distance Contrasts in Demonstratives WALS Two-way contrast
Pronominal and Adnominal Demonstratives WALS Identical
Third Person Pronouns and Demonstratives WALS Unrelated
Gender Distinctions in Independent Personal Pronouns WALS No gender distinctions
Politeness Distinctions in Pronouns WALS No politeness distinction
Indefinite Pronouns WALS Interrogative-based
Intensifiers and Reflexive Pronouns WALS Differentiated
Person Marking on Adpositions WALS No person marking
Number of Cases WALS 10 or more cases
Asymmetrical Case-Marking WALS Symmetrical
Position of Case Affixes WALS Case suffixes
Comitatives and Instrumentals WALS Differentiation
Ordinal Numerals WALS One-th, two-th, three-th
Distributive Numerals WALS No distributive numerals
Numeral Classifiers WALS Absent
Conjunctions and Universal Quantifiers WALS Formally different
Position of Pronominal Possessive Affixes WALS No possessive affixes

Nominal Syntax

Obligatory Possessive Inflection WALS Absent
Possessive Classification WALS No possessive classification
Genitives, Adjectives and Relative Clauses WALS Highly differentiated
Adjectives without Nouns WALS Without marking
Action Nominal Constructions WALS No action nominals
Noun Phrase Conjunction WALS 'And' different from 'with'
Nominal and Verbal Conjunction WALS Identity

Verbal Categories

Perfective/Imperfective Aspect WALS Grammatical marking
The Past Tense WALS Present, no remoteness distinctions
The Future Tense WALS Inflectional future exists
The Perfect WALS Other perfect
Position of Tense-Aspect Affixes WALS Tense-aspect suffixes
The Morphological Imperative WALS Second singular and second plural
The Prohibitive WALS Normal imperative + normal negative
Imperative-Hortative Systems WALS Maximal system
The Optative WALS Inflectional optative absent
Situational Possibility WALS Verbal constructions
Epistemic Possibility WALS Verbal constructions
Overlap between Situational and Epistemic Modal Marking WALS No overlap
Semantic Distinctions of Evidentiality WALS No grammatical evidentials
Coding of Evidentiality WALS No grammatical evidentials
Suppletion According to Tense and Aspect WALS None
Verbal Number and Suppletion WALS None

Word Order

Order of Subject, Object and Verb WALS SVO
Order of Subject and Verb WALS SV
Order of Object and Verb WALS VO
Order of Object, Oblique, and Verb WALS VOX
Order of Adposition and Noun Phrase WALS Prepositions
Order of Genitive and Noun WALS Noun-Genitive
Order of Adjective and Noun WALS Noun-Adjective
Order of Demonstrative and Noun WALS Demonstrative-Noun
Order of Numeral and Noun WALS Numeral-Noun
Order of Relative Clause and Noun WALS Noun-Relative clause
Order of Degree Word and Adjective WALS Degree word-Adjective
Position of Polar Question Particles WALS Initial
Position of Interrogative Phrases in Content Questions WALS Not initial interrogative phrase
Order of Adverbial Subordinator and Clause WALS Initial subordinator word
Relationship between the Order of Object and Verb and the Order of Adposition and Noun Phrase WALS VO and Prepositions
Relationship between the Order of Object and Verb and the Order of Relative Clause and Noun WALS VO and NRel
Relationship between the Order of Object and Verb and the Order of Adjective and Noun WALS VO and NAdj
Order of Negative Morpheme and Verb WALS NegV
Position of Negative Morpheme With Respect to Subject, Object and Verb WALS SNegVO

Simple Clauses

Alignment of Case Marking of Full Noun Phrases WALS Nominative - accusative (standard)
Alignment of Case Marking of Pronouns WALS Nominative - accusative (standard)
Alignment of Verbal Person Marking WALS Neutral
Expression of Pronominal Subjects WALS Obligatory pronouns in subject position
Verbal Person Marking WALS No person marking
Third Person Zero of Verbal Person Marking WALS No person marking
Order of Person Markers on the Verb WALS A and P do not or do not both occur on the verb
Ditransitive Constructions: The Verb 'Give' WALS Indirect-object construction
Reciprocal Constructions WALS Distinct from reflexive
Passive Constructions WALS Present
Antipassive Constructions WALS No antipassive
Applicative Constructions WALS No applicative construction
Periphrastic Causative Constructions WALS Both
Nonperiphrastic Causative Constructions WALS Morphological but no compound
Negative Morphemes WALS Negative particle
Symmetric and Asymmetric Standard Negation WALS Symmetric
Subtypes of Asymmetric Standard Negation WALS Non-assignable
Negative Indefinite Pronouns and Predicate Negation WALS Predicate negation also present
Polar Questions WALS Question particle
Predicative Possession WALS 'Have'
Predicative Adjectives WALS Verbal encoding
Nominal and Locational Predication WALS Different
Zero Copula for Predicate Nominals WALS Impossible
Comparative Constructions WALS Particle

Complex Sentences

Relativization on Subjects WALS Relative pronoun
Relativization on Obliques WALS Relative pronoun
'Want' Complement Subjects WALS Subject is left implicit
Purpose Clauses WALS Balanced
'When' Clauses WALS Balanced
Reason Clauses WALS Balanced
Utterance Complement Clauses WALS Balanced

Lexicon

Hand and Arm WALS Different
Finger and Hand WALS Different
Numeral Bases WALS Decimal
Number of Non-Derived Basic Colour Categories WALS 6
Number of Basic Colour Categories WALS 11
Green and Blue WALS Green vs. blue
Red and Yellow WALS Red vs. yellow
M-T Pronouns WALS No M-T pronouns
N-M Pronouns WALS No N-M pronouns
Tea WALS Others

Sign Languages

Irregular Negatives in Sign Languages WALS None
Question Particles in Sign Languages WALS None

Other

Writing Systems WALS Alphabetic
Para-Linguistic Usages of Clicks WALS Other or none

Conlang-specific

Conlang type Artlang

Comments:

  1. On July 4, 2012, 4:08 p.m., k1234567890y wrote:
    so this page is dedicated to show the average values of all conlangs mentioned here?
    1. On July 4, 2012, 4:21 p.m., cromulant replied:
      Yep.
    2. On July 5, 2012, 7:27 p.m., cromulant replied:
      With the caveat that it needs to be self-consistent. It wasn't possible to go with the most popular choice for every feature, because some of them are mutually exclusive.
  2. On July 5, 2012, 6:50 p.m., k1234567890y wrote:
    this is a good reference for one who wants to innovations in his/her conlangs......
  3. On April 10, 2014, 7:33 p.m., cromulant wrote:
    9/7/11: Created profile for "Pecagalai" language. 7/4/12: Removed Pecagalai data, began assembling the metalanguage profile. Metalanguage was initially called "Conlang;" changed this to "Konlani." 7/5/12: Completed the metalanguage. 4/10/14: Renamed the metalanguage.