Alignment of Case Marking of Full Noun Phrases
Simple clauses · one world map for each value
WALS codes 190 languages for this feature. The most frequent value, “Neutral”, covers 98 of them (52%); 2 values tie for least frequent, with 4 languages each.
That value is most frequent in Papunesia (74% of the 31 languages coded there) and least frequent in Eurasia (28% of 53).
Among families with at least eight coded languages, Niger-Congo is the most uniform: 12 of 13 have “Neutral”.
Sino-Tibetan is the most divided, its largest group reaching only 4 of 8.
Neutral98 languages · 52%
Nominative - accusative (standard)46 languages · 24%
Nominative - accusative (marked nominative)6 languages · 3%
Ergative - absolutive32 languages · 17%
Tripartite4 languages · 2%
Active - inactive4 languages · 2%
One map per value; each dot is a language WALS codes with that value.
By macro-area
| Value | Africa | Eurasia | Papunesia | Australia | North America | South America |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Neutral | 22 | 15 | 23 | 5 | 20 | 13 |
| Nominative - accusative (standard) | 7 | 24 | 1 | 3 | 6 | 5 |
| Nominative - accusative (marked nominative) | 4 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 1 | 1 |
| Ergative - absolutive | 0 | 9 | 5 | 6 | 5 | 7 |
| Tripartite | 0 | 3 | 0 | 0 | 1 | 0 |
| Active - inactive | 0 | 2 | 2 | 0 | 0 | 0 |
| All values | 33 | 53 | 31 | 14 | 33 | 26 |
Inside the largest families
| Family | Coded | Most frequent value | Share |
|---|---|---|---|
| Austronesian | 14 | Neutral | 71% |
| Niger-Congo | 13 | Neutral | 92% |
| Indo-European | 12 | Nominative - accusative (standard) | 58% |
| Trans-New Guinea | 11 | Neutral | 64% |
| Sino-Tibetan | 8 | Nominative - accusative (standard) | 50% |
Languages to explore
The most fully coded languages with each value.
- Neutral: English, French, Indonesian, Mandarin, Amele, Abkhaz
- Nominative - accusative (standard): Russian, Finnish, Spanish, Turkish, Hungarian, Japanese
- Nominative - accusative (marked nominative): Oromo (Harar), Maricopa, Berber (Middle Atlas), Igbo, Aymara (Central), Murle
- Ergative - absolutive: Lezgian, Greenlandic (West), Tukang Besi, Burushaski, Chukchi, Ngiyambaa
- Tripartite: Hindi, Nez Perce, Semelai, Marathi
- Active - inactive: Georgian, Basque, Imonda, Drehu
Closely related features
WALS codes alignment of case marking of pronouns with the same kind of values, for largely the same languages.
| Value | Languages | Share |
|---|---|---|
| Neutral | 79 | 46% |
| Nominative - accusative (standard) | 61 | 35% |
| Nominative - accusative (marked nominative) | 3 | 2% |
| Ergative - absolutive | 20 | 12% |
| Tripartite | 3 | 2% |
| Active - inactive | 3 | 2% |
| None | 3 | 2% |