The Perfect
Verbs: tense, mood, evidence · one world map for each value
WALS codes 222 languages for this feature. The most frequent value, “No perfect”, covers 114 of them (51%); the least frequent, “From possessive”, covers 7.
That value is most frequent in South America (86% of the 21 languages coded there) and least frequent in Eurasia (33% of 66).
Among families with at least eight coded languages, Afro-Asiatic is the most uniform: 12 of 18 have “No perfect”.
Indo-European is the most divided, its largest group reaching only 8 of 21.
From possessive7 languages · 3%
Perfect derived from word meaning 'finish' or 'already'21 languages · 9%
Other perfect80 languages · 36%
No perfect114 languages · 51%
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 |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| From possessive | 0 | 7 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 0 |
| Perfect derived from word meaning 'finish' or 'already' | 6 | 7 | 7 | 0 | 1 | 0 |
| Other perfect | 23 | 30 | 12 | 1 | 11 | 3 |
| No perfect | 21 | 22 | 21 | 13 | 19 | 18 |
| All values | 50 | 66 | 40 | 14 | 31 | 21 |
Inside the largest families
| Family | Coded | Most frequent value | Share |
|---|---|---|---|
| Austronesian | 23 | No perfect | 48% |
| Indo-European | 21 | Other perfect | 38% |
| Niger-Congo | 20 | Other perfect | 60% |
| Afro-Asiatic | 18 | No perfect | 67% |
| Sino-Tibetan | 8 | Other perfect | 62% |
| Trans-New Guinea | 8 | No perfect | 50% |
Languages to explore
The most fully coded languages with each value.
- From possessive: English, French, Spanish, German, Greek (Modern), Swedish
- Perfect derived from word meaning 'finish' or 'already': Indonesian, Amele, Fijian, Yoruba, Thai, Burmese
- Other perfect: Finnish, Lezgian, Basque, Abkhaz, Evenki, Kannada
- No perfect: Russian, Turkish, Mandarin, Hungarian, Japanese, Georgian