WALS Poll Conlang/Morphology

From FrathWiki
Jump to: navigation, search

General facts

Both head-marking and dependent-marking occur.

Both concatenative and non-concatenative processes occur.

Suffixes are more common than prefixes.

Full and partial reduplication are productive.

Verbs

Verbs are marked for 8 grammatical categories.

These include TAM, polarity, and agreement with the patient. They are also marked for person and number of the subject. All subject person/number markers are distinct.

There is an inclusive/exclusive distinction in verbal person marking.

TAM markers also indicate polarity.

Nouns

There are three genders. These are not sex-based. Nouns are assigned gender on both semantic and formal grounds.

All nouns may be marked for number, but it is optional for inanimates. Number is marked by a mixture of morphological strategies. There is no associative plural

Nouns are marked for case and referentiality. These share a single marker. There is syncretism in both core and non-core cases. The case system is complex, and marked with a mixed strategy. Case marking is symmetrical for all nominal categories.

Comitatives and instrumentals are distinct.

Possession is head-marked, with suffixes. There are two classes of possession markers. Some nouns are inalienably possessed.

Pronouns and demonstratives

Pronouns have person-number stem, and also carry a plural affix which is the same as found on nouns.

There is an inclusive/exclusive distinction on 1st person pronouns. 2nd person pronouns do not mark for politeness. All 3rd person pronouns mark for gender

Pronominal demonstratives have the same gender-marking as 3rd person pronouns. Pronominal demonstratives and adnominal demonstratives have different inflectional features. Adnominal demonstratives have a 3-way distance contrast.

Indefinite pronouns are derived from generic nouns.

Reflexive pronouns and intensifiers are different.

Adpositions

Adpositions mark for person when used with pronouns

Numerals

Ordinals are marked, and small ordinals are suppletive.