Features for Isoldian

Share & Bookmark

Phonology

Consonant Inventories WALS Moderately large

/m mʲ ʋ v vʲ f fʲ p pʲ n nʲ ð ðʲ θ θʲ t tʲ ɣ (ɣʲ) k (kʲ) x xʲ l lʲ r rʲ j s (sʲ) ɕ (ʥ?) ʨ/

Dental consonants with palatal secondary articulations normally are released as alveolo-palatal (sʲ rʲ --> [ɕ ʑ]) or palatal consonants.

In addition, general voiced stops [b d g] occur for /mp nt ŋk/, and [ŋ] occurs for /n/ before velar consonants.

The selection of 'moderately large' is conservative.

Vowel Quality Inventories WALS Large (7-14)

/ə a ɛ e ɪ i ɔ o ʊ u/

In words of two or more syllables, cardinal vowels /a e i o u/ can only occur in stressed syllables.

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 No fixed stress
Weight-Sensitive Stress WALS Combined: Right-edge and unbounded
Weight Factors in Weight-Sensitive Stress Systems WALS Combined
Rhythm Types WALS Iambic
Absence of Common Consonants WALS All present
Presence of Uncommon Consonants WALS 'Th' sounds

Morphology

Fusion of Selected Inflectional Formatives WALS Isolating/concatenative
Exponence of Selected Inflectional Formatives WALS No case
Inflectional Synthesis of the Verb WALS 2-3 categories per word
Locus of Marking in the Clause WALS Other
Locus of Marking in Possessive Noun Phrases WALS Dependent marking
Locus of Marking: Whole-language Typology WALS Inconsistent or other
Prefixing vs. Suffixing in Inflectional Morphology WALS Equal prefixing and suffixing
Reduplication WALS No productive reduplication
Case Syncretism WALS No case marking
Syncretism in Verbal Person/Number Marking WALS Syncretic

Nominal Categories

Number of Genders WALS Two

The use of gender is very minimal, mainly limited to one or two suffixes. It's highly likely that those would give way to a single set form in a very short time.

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 inclusive/exclusive
Distance Contrasts in Demonstratives WALS Two-way contrast
Pronominal and Adnominal Demonstratives WALS Different stem
Third Person Pronouns and Demonstratives WALS Related by gender markers
Gender Distinctions in Independent Personal Pronouns WALS 3rd person only, but also non-singular
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 No morphological case-marking
Asymmetrical Case-Marking WALS No case-marking
Position of Case Affixes WALS No case affixes or adpositional clitics
Comitatives and Instrumentals WALS Identity
Ordinal Numerals WALS First, second, 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
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 No inflectional future
The Perfect WALS Other perfect
The Optative WALS Inflectional optative absent
Semantic Distinctions of Evidentiality WALS No grammatical evidentials
Coding of Evidentiality WALS No grammatical evidentials
Verbal Number and Suppletion WALS None

Word Order

Order of Subject, Object and Verb WALS SVO

The dominant order is simply to place the subject before the object; the verb can be freely moved within a phrase to emphasize different constituents, however, the standard word order is SOV.

Order of Subject and Verb WALS SV
Order of Object and Verb WALS VO
Order of Adposition and Noun Phrase WALS Prepositions
Order of Genitive and Noun WALS Noun-Genitive
Order of Demonstrative and Noun WALS Demonstrative suffix
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
Order of Negative Morpheme and Verb WALS VNeg
Position of Negative Morpheme With Respect to Subject, Object and Verb WALS SNegVO

Simple Clauses

Alignment of Case Marking of Full Noun Phrases WALS Neutral
Alignment of Case Marking of Pronouns WALS Nominative - accusative (standard)
Alignment of Verbal Person Marking WALS Accusative
Expression of Pronominal Subjects WALS Obligatory pronouns in subject position
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
Passive Constructions WALS Present
Antipassive Constructions WALS No antipassive
Applicative Constructions WALS No applicative construction
Negative Morphemes WALS Negative particle
Symmetric and Asymmetric Standard Negation WALS Symmetric
Zero Copula for Predicate Nominals WALS Impossible

Lexicon

Hand and Arm WALS Different
Finger and Hand WALS Different
Numeral Bases WALS Decimal
Green and Blue WALS Green vs. blue
Red and Yellow WALS Red vs. yellow
M-T Pronouns WALS M-T pronouns, paradigmatic
N-M Pronouns WALS No N-M pronouns
Tea WALS Words derived from Min Nan Chinese te

Other

Writing Systems WALS Alphabetic

Conlang-specific

Conlang type Artlang

Comments:

No comments yet