Zero Marking of A and P Arguments
Word structure · one world map for each value
WALS codes 235 languages for this feature. The most frequent value, “Non-zero marking”, covers 219 of them (93%); the least frequent, “Zero-marking”, covers 16.
That value is most frequent in Australia (100% of the 27 languages coded there) and least frequent in Africa (82% of 34).
All 15 Trans-New Guinea languages coded have “Non-zero marking”.
Niger-Congo is the most divided, its largest group reaching only 6 of 9.
Zero-marking16 languages · 7%
Non-zero marking219 languages · 93%
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 |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Zero-marking | 6 | 3 | 5 | 0 | 1 | 1 |
| Non-zero marking | 28 | 46 | 41 | 27 | 49 | 28 |
| All values | 34 | 49 | 46 | 27 | 50 | 29 |
Inside the largest families
| Family | Coded | Most frequent value | Share |
|---|---|---|---|
| Trans-New Guinea | 15 | Non-zero marking | 100% |
| Austronesian | 12 | Non-zero marking | 75% |
| Indo-European | 11 | Non-zero marking | 100% |
| Pama-Nyungan | 10 | Non-zero marking | 100% |
| Niger-Congo | 9 | Non-zero marking | 67% |
Languages to explore
The most fully coded languages with each value.
- Zero-marking: Indonesian, Supyire, Vietnamese, Thai, Pirahã, Hmong Njua
- Non-zero marking: English, French, Russian, Finnish, Spanish, Turkish
From the same chapter
- Locus of Marking: Whole-language Typology 236 languages