Relativization on Obliques
Complex sentences · one world map for each value
WALS codes 112 languages for this feature. The most frequent value, “Gap Strategy”, covers 55 of them (49%); the least frequent, “Not possible”, covers 10.
That value is most frequent in Papunesia (63% of the 19 languages coded there) and least frequent in Africa (41% of 29).
Among families with at least eight coded languages, Indo-European is the most uniform: 9 of 13 have “Relative Pronoun Strategy”.
Niger-Congo is the most divided, its largest group reaching only 4 of 8.
Relative Pronoun Strategy13 languages · 12%
Non-Reduction Strategy14 languages · 12%
Pronoun-Retention Strategy20 languages · 18%
Gap Strategy55 languages · 49%
Not possible10 languages · 9%
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 |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Relative Pronoun Strategy | 0 | 12 | 0 | 0 | 1 | 0 |
| Non-Reduction Strategy | 2 | 1 | 3 | 1 | 3 | 4 |
| Pronoun-Retention Strategy | 13 | 5 | 1 | 0 | 0 | 1 |
| Gap Strategy | 12 | 18 | 12 | 5 | 3 | 5 |
| Not possible | 2 | 2 | 3 | 1 | 0 | 2 |
| All values | 29 | 38 | 19 | 7 | 7 | 12 |
Inside the largest families
| Family | Coded | Most frequent value | Share |
|---|---|---|---|
| Austronesian | 14 | Gap Strategy | 64% |
| Indo-European | 13 | Relative Pronoun Strategy | 69% |
| Afro-Asiatic | 9 | Pronoun-Retention Strategy | 56% |
| Niger-Congo | 8 | Pronoun-Retention Strategy | 50% |
Languages to explore
The most fully coded languages with each value.
- Relative Pronoun Strategy: English, French, Russian, Finnish, Spanish, Hungarian
- Non-Reduction Strategy: Amele, Supyire, Hindi, Hixkaryana, Slave, Lakhota
- Pronoun-Retention Strategy: Persian, Hausa, Arabic (Egyptian), Hebrew (Modern), Lango, Krongo
- Gap Strategy: Turkish, Indonesian, Mandarin, Japanese, Lezgian, Abkhaz
- Not possible: Basque, Tagalog, Malagasy, Swahili, Martuthunira, Pirahã