Position of Pronominal Possessive Affixes
Nouns and pronouns · one world map for each value
WALS codes 902 languages for this feature. The most frequent value, “Possessive suffixes”, covers 355 of them (39%); the least frequent, “Prefixes and suffixes”, covers 32.
That value is most frequent in Africa (65% of the 196 languages coded there) and least frequent in South America (9% of 112).
All 15 Arawakan languages coded have “Possessive prefixes”.
Trans-New Guinea is the most divided, its largest group reaching only 19 of 49.
Possessive prefixes255 languages · 28%
Possessive suffixes355 languages · 39%
Prefixes and suffixes32 languages · 4%
No possessive affixes260 languages · 29%
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 |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Possessive prefixes | 9 | 27 | 43 | 9 | 95 | 72 |
| Possessive suffixes | 127 | 58 | 109 | 22 | 29 | 10 |
| Prefixes and suffixes | 2 | 0 | 12 | 3 | 11 | 4 |
| No possessive affixes | 58 | 89 | 50 | 17 | 20 | 26 |
| All values | 196 | 174 | 214 | 51 | 155 | 112 |
Inside the largest families
| Family | Coded | Most frequent value | Share |
|---|---|---|---|
| Austronesian | 113 | Possessive suffixes | 80% |
| Niger-Congo | 77 | No possessive affixes | 48% |
| Afro-Asiatic | 57 | Possessive suffixes | 89% |
| Trans-New Guinea | 49 | Possessive prefixes | 39% |
| Sino-Tibetan | 43 | No possessive affixes | 58% |
| Indo-European | 33 | No possessive affixes | 85% |
| Altaic | 27 | Possessive suffixes | 96% |
| Pama-Nyungan | 26 | Possessive suffixes | 50% |
| Uto-Aztecan | 26 | Possessive prefixes | 65% |
| Eastern Sudanic | 25 | Possessive suffixes | 76% |
| Arawakan | 15 | Possessive prefixes | 100% |
| Central Sudanic | 15 | Possessive suffixes | 87% |
| Oto-Manguean | 15 | Possessive suffixes | 53% |
| Penutian | 14 | Possessive prefixes | 57% |
Languages to explore
The most fully coded languages with each value.
- Possessive prefixes: Abkhaz, Hixkaryana, Slave, Burushaski, Maybrat, Guaraní
- Possessive suffixes: Finnish, Turkish, Hungarian, Amele, Evenki, Hausa
- Prefixes and suffixes: Paumarí, Trumai, Squamish, Chinantec (Lealao), Ungarinjin, Cayuvava
- No possessive affixes: English, French, Russian, Spanish, Indonesian, Mandarin