Nonperiphrastic Causative Constructions
Simple clauses · one world map for each value
WALS codes 310 languages for this feature. The most frequent value, “Morphological type but no compound type”, covers 254 of them (82%); the least frequent, “Compound type but no morphological type”, covers 9.
That value is most frequent in South America (88% of the 33 languages coded there) and least frequent in Eurasia (78% of 80).
All 13 Afro-Asiatic languages coded have “Morphological type but no compound type”.
Sino-Tibetan is the most divided, its largest group reaching only 5 of 12.
No morphological type or compound type23 languages · 7%
Morphological type but no compound type254 languages · 82%
Compound type but no morphological type9 languages · 3%
Both morphological type and compound type24 languages · 8%
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 |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| No morphological type or compound type | 5 | 7 | 4 | 3 | 3 | 1 |
| Morphological type but no compound type | 43 | 62 | 56 | 22 | 42 | 29 |
| Compound type but no morphological type | 1 | 3 | 1 | 1 | 1 | 2 |
| Both morphological type and compound type | 2 | 8 | 3 | 2 | 8 | 1 |
| All values | 51 | 80 | 64 | 28 | 54 | 33 |
Inside the largest families
| Family | Coded | Most frequent value | Share |
|---|---|---|---|
| Austronesian | 54 | Morphological type but no compound type | 93% |
| Niger-Congo | 22 | Morphological type but no compound type | 91% |
| Pama-Nyungan | 18 | Morphological type but no compound type | 89% |
| Indo-European | 17 | Morphological type but no compound type | 76% |
| Afro-Asiatic | 13 | Morphological type but no compound type | 100% |
| Sino-Tibetan | 12 | Morphological type but no compound type | 42% |
| Altaic | 9 | Morphological type but no compound type | 100% |
| Austro-Asiatic | 9 | Morphological type but no compound type | 67% |
| Uto-Aztecan | 8 | Morphological type but no compound type | 88% |
Languages to explore
The most fully coded languages with each value.
- No morphological type or compound type: Greek (Modern), Maybrat, Yoruba, Krongo, Thai, Gooniyandi
- Morphological type but no compound type: English, Russian, Finnish, Turkish, Indonesian, Hungarian
- Compound type but no morphological type: Mandarin, Vietnamese, Wari', Kobon, Ju|'hoan, Trumai
- Both morphological type and compound type: French, Spanish, Burmese, Mangarrayi, Nama, Lakhota