Symmetric and Asymmetric Standard Negation
Simple clauses · one world map for each value
WALS codes 297 languages for this feature. The most frequent value, “Symmetric and asymmetric standard negation: Type SymAsy”, covers 130 of them (44%); the least frequent, “Asymmetric standard negation only: Type Asy”, covers 53.
That value is most frequent in Africa (57% of the 56 languages coded there) and least frequent in South America (27% of 48).
Among families with at least eight coded languages, Sino-Tibetan is the most uniform: 9 of 10 have “Symmetric and asymmetric standard negation: Type SymAsy”.
Trans-New Guinea is the most divided, its largest group reaching only 6 of 13.
Symmetric standard negation only: Type Sym114 languages · 38%
Asymmetric standard negation only: Type Asy53 languages · 18%
Symmetric and asymmetric standard negation: Type SymAsy130 languages · 44%
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 |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Symmetric standard negation only: Type Sym | 12 | 26 | 18 | 8 | 28 | 22 |
| Asymmetric standard negation only: Type Asy | 12 | 10 | 6 | 1 | 11 | 13 |
| Symmetric and asymmetric standard negation: Type SymAsy | 32 | 32 | 19 | 11 | 23 | 13 |
| All values | 56 | 68 | 43 | 20 | 62 | 48 |
Inside the largest families
| Family | Coded | Most frequent value | Share |
|---|---|---|---|
| Niger-Congo | 22 | Symmetric and asymmetric standard negation: Type SymAsy | 55% |
| Austronesian | 18 | Symmetric standard negation only: Type Sym | 61% |
| Indo-European | 16 | Symmetric standard negation only: Type Sym | 69% |
| Afro-Asiatic | 13 | Symmetric and asymmetric standard negation: Type SymAsy | 54% |
| Trans-New Guinea | 13 | Symmetric standard negation only: Type Sym | 46% |
| Sino-Tibetan | 10 | Symmetric and asymmetric standard negation: Type SymAsy | 90% |
| Austro-Asiatic | 9 | Symmetric standard negation only: Type Sym | 67% |
Languages to explore
The most fully coded languages with each value.
- Symmetric standard negation only: Type Sym: French, Russian, Spanish, Indonesian, Hungarian, Georgian
- Asymmetric standard negation only: Type Asy: Finnish, Japanese, Basque, Evenki, Kannada, Maori
- Symmetric and asymmetric standard negation: Type SymAsy: English, Turkish, Mandarin, Lezgian, Amele, Abkhaz