Epistemic Possibility
Verbs: tense, mood, evidence · one world map for each value
WALS codes 240 languages for this feature. The most frequent value, “Other”, covers 91 of them (38%); the least frequent, “Verbal constructions”, covers 65.
That value is most frequent in Papunesia (59% of the 39 languages coded there) and least frequent in Eurasia (25% of 89).
Among families with at least eight coded languages, Indo-European is the most uniform: 27 of 32 have “Verbal constructions”.
Niger-Congo is the most divided, its largest group reaching only 9 of 18.
Verbal constructions65 languages · 27%
Affixes on verbs84 languages · 35%
Other91 languages · 38%
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 |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Verbal constructions | 15 | 47 | 3 | 0 | 0 | 0 |
| Affixes on verbs | 5 | 20 | 13 | 6 | 25 | 15 |
| Other | 17 | 22 | 23 | 7 | 12 | 10 |
| All values | 37 | 89 | 39 | 13 | 37 | 25 |
Inside the largest families
| Family | Coded | Most frequent value | Share |
|---|---|---|---|
| Indo-European | 32 | Verbal constructions | 84% |
| Austronesian | 26 | Other | 69% |
| Niger-Congo | 18 | Verbal constructions | 50% |
| Afro-Asiatic | 14 | Verbal constructions | 64% |
| Trans-New Guinea | 10 | Affixes on verbs | 60% |
| Sino-Tibetan | 9 | Affixes on verbs | 56% |
| Altaic | 8 | Affixes on verbs | 50% |