Position of Tense-Aspect Affixes
Verbs: tense, mood, evidence · one world map for each value
WALS codes 1,131 languages for this feature. The most frequent value, “Tense-aspect suffixes”, covers 667 of them (59%); the least frequent, “Tense-aspect tone”, covers 13.
That value is most frequent in South America (85% of the 118 languages coded there) and least frequent in Africa (30% of 241).
All 30 Altaic languages coded have “Tense-aspect suffixes”.
Central Sudanic is the most divided, its largest group reaching only 6 of 19.
Tense-aspect prefixes153 languages · 14%
Tense-aspect suffixes667 languages · 59%
Tense-aspect tone13 languages · 1%
Combination of tense-aspect strategies with none primary146 languages · 13%
No tense-aspect inflection152 languages · 13%
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 |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Tense-aspect prefixes | 73 | 3 | 42 | 3 | 30 | 2 |
| Tense-aspect suffixes | 72 | 196 | 120 | 80 | 99 | 100 |
| Tense-aspect tone | 12 | 0 | 1 | 0 | 0 | 0 |
| Combination of tense-aspect strategies with none primary | 56 | 21 | 26 | 9 | 28 | 6 |
| No tense-aspect inflection | 28 | 35 | 65 | 7 | 7 | 10 |
| All values | 241 | 255 | 254 | 99 | 164 | 118 |
Inside the largest families
| Family | Coded | Most frequent value | Share |
|---|---|---|---|
| Niger-Congo | 106 | Tense-aspect prefixes | 44% |
| Austronesian | 102 | No tense-aspect inflection | 48% |
| Sino-Tibetan | 81 | Tense-aspect suffixes | 79% |
| Trans-New Guinea | 70 | Tense-aspect suffixes | 90% |
| Pama-Nyungan | 59 | Tense-aspect suffixes | 98% |
| Indo-European | 56 | Tense-aspect suffixes | 82% |
| Afro-Asiatic | 53 | Tense-aspect suffixes | 38% |
| Altaic | 30 | Tense-aspect suffixes | 100% |
| Eastern Sudanic | 30 | Tense-aspect suffixes | 33% |
| Uto-Aztecan | 27 | Tense-aspect suffixes | 100% |
| Oto-Manguean | 20 | Tense-aspect prefixes | 75% |
| Central Sudanic | 19 | Tense-aspect prefixes | 32% |
| Austro-Asiatic | 16 | No tense-aspect inflection | 56% |
| Penutian | 16 | Tense-aspect suffixes | 88% |
Languages to explore
The most fully coded languages with each value.
- Tense-aspect prefixes: Tagalog, Malagasy, Swahili, Slave, Tukang Besi, Zulu
- Tense-aspect suffixes: English, French, Finnish, Spanish, Turkish, Indonesian
- Tense-aspect tone: Lango, Kisi, Doyayo
- Combination of tense-aspect strategies with none primary: Russian, Basque, Persian, Supyire, Arabic (Egyptian), Chukchi
- No tense-aspect inflection: Hausa, Maori, Vietnamese, Fijian, Maybrat, Yoruba