Alignment of Verbal Person Marking
Simple clauses · one world map for each value
WALS codes 380 languages for this feature. The most frequent value, “Accusative alignment”, covers 212 of them (56%); the least frequent, “Hierarchical alignment”, covers 11.
That value is most frequent in Papunesia (65% of the 80 languages coded there) and least frequent in South America (42% of 52).
Among families with at least eight coded languages, Indo-European is the most uniform: 18 of 19 have “Accusative alignment”.
Austro-Asiatic is the most divided, its largest group reaching only 5 of 10.
Neutral alignment (no verbal person marking)84 languages · 22%
Accusative alignment212 languages · 56%
Ergative alignment19 languages · 5%
Active alignment26 languages · 7%
Hierarchical alignment11 languages · 3%
Split alignment28 languages · 7%
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 alignment (no verbal person marking) | 24 | 23 | 13 | 8 | 8 | 8 |
| Accusative alignment | 47 | 41 | 52 | 12 | 38 | 22 |
| Ergative alignment | 1 | 3 | 5 | 0 | 3 | 7 |
| Active alignment | 0 | 2 | 6 | 0 | 10 | 8 |
| Hierarchical alignment | 0 | 2 | 0 | 1 | 5 | 3 |
| Split alignment | 1 | 6 | 4 | 5 | 8 | 4 |
| All values | 73 | 77 | 80 | 26 | 72 | 52 |
Inside the largest families
| Family | Coded | Most frequent value | Share |
|---|---|---|---|
| Austronesian | 42 | Accusative alignment | 55% |
| Niger-Congo | 24 | Accusative alignment | 58% |
| Indo-European | 19 | Accusative alignment | 95% |
| Afro-Asiatic | 18 | Accusative alignment | 78% |
| Trans-New Guinea | 18 | Accusative alignment | 94% |
| Sino-Tibetan | 14 | Neutral alignment (no verbal person marking) | 57% |
| Austro-Asiatic | 10 | Neutral alignment (no verbal person marking) | 50% |
| Pama-Nyungan | 10 | Neutral alignment (no verbal person marking) | 60% |
| Eastern Sudanic | 9 | Accusative alignment | 56% |
| Uto-Aztecan | 8 | Accusative alignment | 75% |
Languages to explore
The most fully coded languages with each value.
- Neutral alignment (no verbal person marking): Mandarin, Japanese, Lezgian, Korean, Hausa, Tagalog
- Accusative alignment: English, French, Russian, Finnish, Spanish, Turkish
- Ergative alignment: Basque, Abkhaz, Chamorro, Jakaltek, Canela, Trumai
- Active alignment: Guaraní, Lakhota, Apurinã, Yagua, Ket, Koasati
- Hierarchical alignment: Mapudungun, Awa Pit, Kiowa, Nunggubuyu, Cree (Plains), Karok
- Split alignment: Hixkaryana, Burushaski, Chukchi, Ngiyambaa, Ainu, Yimas