Productivity of the Antipassive Construction
Simple clauses · one world map for each value
WALS codes 186 languages for this feature. The most frequent value, “no antipassive”, covers 146 of them (78%); the least frequent, “not productive”, covers 2.
That value is most frequent in South America (100% of the 18 languages coded there) and least frequent in Australia (53% of 15).
All 16 Indo-European languages coded have “no antipassive”.
Nakh-Daghestanian is the most divided, its largest group reaching only 4 of 9.
productive24 languages · 13%
partially productive14 languages · 8%
not productive2 languages · 1%
no antipassive146 languages · 78%
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 |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| productive | 2 | 6 | 3 | 3 | 10 | 0 |
| partially productive | 1 | 5 | 1 | 4 | 3 | 0 |
| not productive | 0 | 0 | 1 | 0 | 1 | 0 |
| no antipassive | 28 | 46 | 29 | 8 | 17 | 18 |
| All values | 31 | 57 | 34 | 15 | 31 | 18 |
Inside the largest families
| Family | Coded | Most frequent value | Share |
|---|---|---|---|
| Austronesian | 18 | no antipassive | 78% |
| Indo-European | 16 | no antipassive | 100% |
| Niger-Congo | 14 | no antipassive | 100% |
| Afro-Asiatic | 9 | no antipassive | 100% |
| Nakh-Daghestanian | 9 | partially productive | 44% |
| Trans-New Guinea | 9 | no antipassive | 100% |
Languages to explore
The most fully coded languages with each value.
- productive: Greenlandic (West), Chukchi, Krongo, Jakaltek, Paiwan, Cree (Plains)
- partially productive: Basque, Chamorro, Lango, Gooniyandi, Kiowa, Hunzib
- not productive: Lavukaleve, Choctaw
- no antipassive: English, French, Russian, Finnish, Spanish, Turkish
From the same chapter
- Antipassive Constructions 194 languages