Position of Case Affixes
Nouns and pronouns · one world map for each value
WALS codes 1,031 languages for this feature. The most frequent value, “Case suffixes”, covers 452 of them (44%); the least frequent, “Case coded by changes within noun stem”, is recorded for a single language.
That value is most frequent in Australia (71% of the 104 languages coded there) and least frequent in Africa (21% of 195).
All 16 Uralic languages coded have “Case suffixes”.
Sino-Tibetan is the most divided, its largest group reaching only 29 of 77.
Case suffixes452 languages · 44%
Case prefixes38 languages · 4%
Case coded by tone5 languages · under 1%
Case coded by changes within noun stem1 language · under 1%
Mixed morphological case strategies with none primary9 languages · 1%
Postpositional clitics123 languages · 12%
Prepositional clitics17 languages · 2%
Inpositional clitics7 languages · 1%
Neither case affixes nor adpositional clitics379 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 |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Case suffixes | 40 | 160 | 44 | 74 | 75 | 59 |
| Case prefixes | 18 | 3 | 6 | 3 | 8 | 0 |
| Case coded by tone | 5 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 0 |
| Case coded by changes within noun stem | 1 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 0 |
| Mixed morphological case strategies with none primary | 5 | 2 | 0 | 1 | 1 | 0 |
| Postpositional clitics | 9 | 31 | 36 | 14 | 11 | 22 |
| Prepositional clitics | 6 | 6 | 0 | 0 | 3 | 2 |
| Inpositional clitics | 0 | 0 | 0 | 7 | 0 | 0 |
| Neither case affixes nor adpositional clitics | 111 | 61 | 128 | 5 | 43 | 31 |
| All values | 195 | 263 | 214 | 104 | 141 | 114 |
Inside the largest families
| Family | Coded | Most frequent value | Share |
|---|---|---|---|
| Austronesian | 103 | Neither case affixes nor adpositional clitics | 87% |
| Sino-Tibetan | 77 | Case suffixes | 38% |
| Pama-Nyungan | 62 | Case suffixes | 89% |
| Niger-Congo | 60 | Neither case affixes nor adpositional clitics | 70% |
| Indo-European | 59 | Case suffixes | 68% |
| Trans-New Guinea | 54 | Case suffixes | 50% |
| Afro-Asiatic | 53 | Neither case affixes nor adpositional clitics | 51% |
| Eastern Sudanic | 33 | Case suffixes | 48% |
| Altaic | 31 | Case suffixes | 94% |
| Uto-Aztecan | 22 | Case suffixes | 82% |
| Austro-Asiatic | 19 | Neither case affixes nor adpositional clitics | 58% |
| Central Sudanic | 18 | Neither case affixes nor adpositional clitics | 83% |
| Oto-Manguean | 16 | Neither case affixes nor adpositional clitics | 75% |
| Uralic | 16 | Case suffixes | 100% |
Languages to explore
The most fully coded languages with each value.
- Case suffixes: Russian, Finnish, Turkish, Hungarian, Georgian, Lezgian
- Case prefixes: Zulu, Maybrat, Krongo, Berber (Middle Atlas), Takelma, Shuswap
- Case coded by tone: Maba, Nandi, Maasai
- Mixed morphological case strategies with none primary: Swahili, Mangarrayi, Irish, Turkana, Siuslaw, Gaelic (Scots)
- Postpositional clitics: Japanese, Basque, Kanuri, Meithei, Alamblak, Maricopa
- Prepositional clitics: French, Malagasy, Hebrew (Modern), Squamish, Cayuvava, Breton
- Inpositional clitics: Gooniyandi
- Neither case affixes nor adpositional clitics: English, Spanish, Indonesian, Mandarin, Amele, Abkhaz