Relativization on Subjects
Complex sentences · one world map for each value
WALS codes 166 languages for this feature. The most frequent value, “Gap”, covers 125 of them (75%); the least frequent, “Pronoun-retention”, covers 5.
That value is most frequent in Papunesia (89% of the 27 languages coded there) and least frequent in North America (40% of 15).
All 17 Austronesian languages coded have “Gap”.
Indo-European is the most divided, its largest group reaching only 8 of 13.
Relative pronoun12 languages · 7%
Non-reduction24 languages · 14%
Pronoun-retention5 languages · 3%
Gap125 languages · 75%
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 | 0 | 11 | 0 | 0 | 1 | 0 |
| Non-reduction | 3 | 1 | 3 | 3 | 8 | 6 |
| Pronoun-retention | 4 | 1 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 0 |
| Gap | 47 | 31 | 24 | 10 | 6 | 7 |
| All values | 54 | 44 | 27 | 13 | 15 | 13 |
Inside the largest families
| Family | Coded | Most frequent value | Share |
|---|---|---|---|
| Niger-Congo | 20 | Gap | 75% |
| Austronesian | 17 | Gap | 100% |
| Afro-Asiatic | 14 | Gap | 100% |
| Indo-European | 13 | Relative pronoun | 62% |
| Eastern Sudanic | 10 | Gap | 100% |