The Associative Plural
Nouns and pronouns · one world map for each value
WALS codes 236 languages for this feature. The most frequent value, “Associative plural marker also used for additive plurals”, covers 104 of them (44%); the least frequent, “Associative plural absent”, covers 37.
That value is most frequent in Africa (63% of the 43 languages coded there) and least frequent in Papunesia (23% of 30).
Among families with at least eight coded languages, Altaic is the most uniform: 16 of 20 have “Associative plural marker also used for additive plurals”.
Indo-European is the most divided, its largest group reaching only 12 of 28.
Associative plural marker also used for additive plurals104 languages · 44%
Special bound associative plural marker48 languages · 20%
Special non-bound associative plural marker47 languages · 20%
Associative plural absent37 languages · 16%
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 |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Associative plural marker also used for additive plurals | 27 | 52 | 7 | 3 | 7 | 8 |
| Special bound associative plural marker | 7 | 26 | 1 | 8 | 4 | 2 |
| Special non-bound associative plural marker | 7 | 12 | 20 | 1 | 4 | 3 |
| Associative plural absent | 2 | 18 | 2 | 1 | 7 | 7 |
| All values | 43 | 108 | 30 | 13 | 22 | 20 |
Inside the largest families
| Family | Coded | Most frequent value | Share |
|---|---|---|---|
| Indo-European | 28 | Associative plural absent | 43% |
| Altaic | 20 | Associative plural marker also used for additive plurals | 80% |
| Austronesian | 19 | Special non-bound associative plural marker | 79% |
| Sino-Tibetan | 17 | Associative plural marker also used for additive plurals | 71% |
| Niger-Congo | 14 | Associative plural marker also used for additive plurals | 79% |
| Nakh-Daghestanian | 11 | Associative plural marker also used for additive plurals | 45% |
| Uralic | 11 | Associative plural marker also used for additive plurals | 45% |
| other | 11 | Associative plural marker also used for additive plurals | 45% |
| Afro-Asiatic | 9 | Special non-bound associative plural marker | 44% |
Languages to explore
The most fully coded languages with each value.
- Associative plural marker also used for additive plurals: Turkish, Japanese, Lezgian, Korean, Evenki, Khalkha
- Special bound associative plural marker: Hungarian, Georgian, Abkhaz, Greenlandic (West), Yaqui, Mangarrayi
- Special non-bound associative plural marker: Indonesian, Mandarin, Basque, German, Persian, Hausa
- Associative plural absent: English, French, Russian, Finnish, Spanish, Amele