Suppletion According to Tense and Aspect
Verbs: tense, mood, evidence · one world map for each value
WALS codes 193 languages for this feature. The most frequent value, “No suppletion in tense or aspect”, covers 123 of them (64%); the least frequent, “Suppletion according to aspect”, covers 10.
That value is most frequent in South America (80% of the 25 languages coded there) and least frequent in Eurasia (39% of 62).
Among families with at least eight coded languages, Afro-Asiatic is the most uniform: 11 of 13 have “No suppletion in tense or aspect”.
Uto-Aztecan is the most divided, its largest group reaching only 5 of 8.
Suppletion according to tense36 languages · 19%
Suppletion according to aspect10 languages · 5%
Suppletion in both tense and aspect24 languages · 12%
No suppletion in tense or aspect123 languages · 64%
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 |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Suppletion according to tense | 6 | 16 | 8 | 1 | 1 | 4 |
| Suppletion according to aspect | 0 | 0 | 0 | 2 | 7 | 1 |
| Suppletion in both tense and aspect | 1 | 22 | 0 | 0 | 1 | 0 |
| No suppletion in tense or aspect | 28 | 24 | 18 | 8 | 25 | 20 |
| All values | 35 | 62 | 26 | 11 | 34 | 25 |
Inside the largest families
| Family | Coded | Most frequent value | Share |
|---|---|---|---|
| Indo-European | 25 | Suppletion in both tense and aspect | 72% |
| Afro-Asiatic | 13 | No suppletion in tense or aspect | 85% |
| Austronesian | 12 | No suppletion in tense or aspect | 83% |
| Niger-Congo | 11 | No suppletion in tense or aspect | 82% |
| Uto-Aztecan | 8 | No suppletion in tense or aspect | 62% |
Languages to explore
The most fully coded languages with each value.
- Suppletion according to tense: English, Turkish, Hungarian, Basque, German, Abkhaz
- Suppletion according to aspect: Slave, Mixtec (Chalcatongo), Oneida, Wichita, Nunggubuyu, Ika
- Suppletion in both tense and aspect: French, Russian, Spanish, Georgian, Lezgian, Greek (Modern)
- No suppletion in tense or aspect: Finnish, Indonesian, Mandarin, Japanese, Amele, Korean
From the same chapter
- Suppletion in Imperatives and Hortatives 193 languages