Features for Seto ka'palo

Share & Bookmark

Phonology

Consonant Inventories WALS Average
Vowel Quality Inventories WALS Average (5-6)

normal vowels: /a//e//i//o//u/

reduced vowel: /ɨ/

Consonant-Vowel Ratio WALS Average
Voicing in Plosives and Fricatives WALS In plosives alone
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/ and lateral obstruent
The Velar Nasal WALS No velar nasal
Vowel Nasalization WALS Contrast absent
Front Rounded Vowels WALS None
Syllable Structure WALS Moderately complex

(C)V(C), but reduced vowels are not written and may be elided in casual or faster speech.

for example, the word fnio("fish") is pronounced as /fɨ.'ni.o/ in careful speech, but is frequently pronounced as /'fni.o/ in casual or faster speech.

Hiatuses of vowels do appear

Tone WALS No tones
Fixed Stress Locations WALS No fixed stress
Weight-Sensitive Stress WALS Right-oriented: One of the last three

the stress falls on the penultimate syllable unless the vowel of the penultimate syllable is the reduced vowel /ɨ/.

when the vowel of the penultimate syllable is the reduced vowel /ɨ/, the stress falls on the antepenultimate syllable, in disyllabic words where the first syllable of the word is the reduced vowel /ɨ/, the stress falls on the last syllable.

Weight Factors in Weight-Sensitive Stress Systems WALS Prominence

the stress never falls on the reduced vowel /ɨ/.

Absence of Common Consonants WALS All present
Presence of Uncommon Consonants WALS None

Morphology

Fusion of Selected Inflectional Formatives WALS Exclusively concatenative
Inflectional Synthesis of the Verb WALS 4-5 categories per word
Locus of Marking in the Clause WALS Head marking
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 Productive full and partial reduplication
Syncretism in Verbal Person/Number Marking WALS No subject person/number marking

Nominal Categories

Number of Genders WALS Four

masculine, feminine, animate neuter, inanimate neuter, although the animate neuter gender and the inanimate neuter gender are only distinguished in pronouns.

Sex-based and Non-sex-based Gender Systems WALS Sex-based
Systems of Gender Assignment WALS Semantic and formal
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 + nominal plural affix
The Associative Plural WALS Associative same as additive plural
Definite Articles WALS Definite word distinct from demonstrative
Indefinite Articles WALS No indefinite, but definite article
Inclusive/Exclusive Distinction in Independent Pronouns WALS Inclusive/exclusive
Inclusive/Exclusive Distinction in Verbal Inflection WALS Inclusive/exclusive
Distance Contrasts in Demonstratives WALS Two-way contrast
Pronominal and Adnominal Demonstratives WALS Different inflection
Third Person Pronouns and Demonstratives WALS Related for all demonstratives
Gender Distinctions in Independent Personal Pronouns WALS 3rd person only, but also non-singular
Person Marking on Adpositions WALS No person marking
Number of Cases WALS 3 cases

the possessive preposition ka and the vocative preposition ha are frequently procliticized to the following words, when cliticized, they become ka'-/k'- and ha'- respectively.

Asymmetrical Case-Marking WALS Symmetrical
Position of Case Affixes WALS Prepositional clitics
Comitatives and Instrumentals WALS Differentiation
Numeral Classifiers WALS Absent
Position of Pronominal Possessive Affixes WALS Possessive prefixes

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 Marked by suffix
Noun Phrase Conjunction WALS 'And' different from 'with'
Nominal and Verbal Conjunction WALS Identity

Verbal Categories

Perfective/Imperfective Aspect WALS No grammatical marking
The Past Tense WALS No past tense
The Future Tense WALS No inflectional future
The Perfect WALS No perfect
Position of Tense-Aspect Affixes WALS No tense-aspect inflection
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 Affixes on verbs
Epistemic Possibility WALS Affixes on verbs
Overlap between Situational and Epistemic Modal Marking WALS Overlap for both possibility and necessity
Suppletion According to Tense and Aspect WALS None

Word Order

Order of Subject, Object and Verb WALS SVO
in subordinate clauses, and when there are preverbal phrases other than the subject(mostly adverbials like adpositional phrases or the complementizer/relativizer), the word order becomes VSO, and the word order changes to OV in main clause when there's no subject and there are no preverbal adverbials.
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

they are postpositions when being used with pronouns

Order of Genitive and Noun WALS Noun-Genitive
Order of Adjective and Noun WALS Noun-Adjective
Order of Demonstrative and Noun WALS Noun-Demonstrative

while definite articles precede the nouns they modify, domonstratives follow the nouns they modify, and demonstratives are used with definite articles.

Order of Numeral and Noun WALS Noun-Numeral
Order of Relative Clause and Noun WALS Noun-Relative clause
Position of Polar Question Particles WALS Initial
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 [V-Neg]
Position of Negative Morpheme With Respect to Subject, Object and Verb WALS MorphNeg

Simple Clauses

Alignment of Case Marking of Full Noun Phrases WALS Neutral
Alignment of Case Marking of Pronouns WALS Neutral
Alignment of Verbal Person Marking WALS Active
Expression of Pronominal Subjects WALS Mixed

third person subjects are normally obligatory, but first and second person subjects can be omitted if the verb agrees with the subject and the subject is the first or second person.

Verbal Person Marking WALS A or P argument

Every verb can take at most one Verbal Person Marking. and it depends on the personal hierarchy: 1st person > 2nd person > 3rd person.

so "I love you" in seto ka'palo is "ne a'aima"(2.SG 1.SG.A-love-REAL); "you love me" is "ne go'aima"(2.SG 1.SG.P-love-REAL); "you love him" is "pibre e'aima"(3.SG.M 2.SG.A-love-REAL); "he loves you" is "pibre ne'aima"(3.SG.M 2.SG.P-love-REAL)

Third Person Zero of Verbal Person Marking WALS Zero in some 3sg forms
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
Antipassive Constructions WALS No antipassive
Applicative Constructions WALS No applicative construction
Nonperiphrastic Causative Constructions WALS Morphological but no compound
Negative Morphemes WALS Negative affix
Symmetric and Asymmetric Standard Negation WALS Both

To form negation, one may simply add the negative suffix to the verb, or changed the mood of the verb to the irrealis mood when adding the negative suffix.

Subtypes of Asymmetric Standard Negation WALS A/NonReal
Polar Questions WALS Question particle
Predicative Possession WALS Genitive
Predicative Adjectives WALS Nonverbal encoding
Nominal and Locational Predication WALS Different
Zero Copula for Predicate Nominals WALS Impossible
Comparative Constructions WALS Locational

Complex Sentences

Relativization on Subjects WALS Gap
Relativization on Obliques WALS Pronoun-retention
'Want' Complement Subjects WALS Desiderative verbal affix
'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

Originally I gave a undecimal (base-11) system, but since it is a human language, I changed the numeral base to a decimal system.

unless most of the speakers have polydactyly, which is highly unlikely to occur if they are not living on an island where everyone has the same ancestors, it is highly unlikely for a human language to have a undecimal (base-11) system.

M-T Pronouns WALS No M-T pronouns
N-M Pronouns WALS No N-M pronouns

Conlang-specific

Conlang type Artlang

Comments:

No comments yet