Comitatives and Instrumentals
Nouns and pronouns · one world map for each value
WALS codes 322 languages for this feature. The most frequent value, “Differentiation”, covers 213 of them (66%); the least frequent, “Mixed”, covers 33.
That value is most frequent in Australia (91% of the 22 languages coded there) and least frequent in Eurasia (54% of 104).
All 18 Trans-New Guinea languages coded have “Differentiation”.
Uralic is the most divided, its largest group reaching only 5 of 12.
Identity76 languages · 24%
Differentiation213 languages · 66%
Mixed33 languages · 10%
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 |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Identity | 20 | 34 | 7 | 0 | 10 | 5 |
| Differentiation | 41 | 56 | 42 | 20 | 32 | 22 |
| Mixed | 7 | 14 | 2 | 2 | 6 | 2 |
| All values | 68 | 104 | 51 | 22 | 48 | 29 |
Inside the largest families
| Family | Coded | Most frequent value | Share |
|---|---|---|---|
| Indo-European | 31 | Identity | 74% |
| Austronesian | 29 | Differentiation | 69% |
| Afro-Asiatic | 22 | Differentiation | 73% |
| Niger-Congo | 20 | Differentiation | 50% |
| Trans-New Guinea | 18 | Differentiation | 100% |
| Pama-Nyungan | 14 | Differentiation | 100% |
| Uralic | 12 | Identity | 42% |
| Altaic | 11 | Differentiation | 64% |
| Uto-Aztecan | 10 | Differentiation | 90% |
| Oto-Manguean | 9 | Identity | 56% |
| Dravidian | 8 | Differentiation | 75% |