Conjunctions and Universal Quantifiers
Nouns and pronouns · one world map for each value
WALS codes 116 languages for this feature. The most frequent value, “Formally similar, involving interrogative expression”, covers 43 of them (37%); the least frequent, “Formally similar, not involving interrogative expression”, covers 33.
That value is most frequent in Eurasia (53% of the 53 languages coded there) and least frequent in Papunesia (35% of 17).
Among families with at least eight coded languages, Austronesian is the most uniform: 7 of 12 have “Formally similar, involving interrogative expression”.
Indo-European is the most divided, its largest group reaching only 4 of 10.
Formally different40 languages · 34%
Formally similar, not involving interrogative expression33 languages · 28%
Formally similar, involving interrogative expression43 languages · 37%
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 |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Formally different | 5 | 10 | 5 | 4 | 8 | 8 |
| Formally similar, not involving interrogative expression | 4 | 15 | 6 | 4 | 2 | 2 |
| Formally similar, involving interrogative expression | 6 | 28 | 6 | 0 | 0 | 3 |
| All values | 15 | 53 | 17 | 8 | 10 | 13 |
Inside the largest families
| Family | Coded | Most frequent value | Share |
|---|---|---|---|
| Austronesian | 12 | Formally similar, involving interrogative expression | 58% |
| Indo-European | 10 | Formally different | 40% |
| Altaic | 8 | Formally similar, not involving interrogative expression | 50% |
Languages to explore
The most fully coded languages with each value.