Abkhaz
Northwest Caucasian family · Eurasia
Abkhaz is an SOV language, like 564 of the 1,376 languages WALS codes for basic word order.
On Applicative Constructions, WALS codes Abkhaz as “Benefactive and other; transitive base only”, a value held by 2 of the 183 languages coded.
On Presence of Uncommon Consonants, WALS codes Abkhaz as “Pharyngeals”, a value held by 21 of the 567 languages coded, Arabic (Egyptian) and Berber (Middle Atlas) among them.
Contrast Abkhaz with Kabardian or with any other language
Uncommon values
Values that fewer than one in ten of the coded languages share with Abkhaz, rarest first.
- Gender Distinctions in Independent Personal PronounsGender distinctions in 3rd person plus 1st and/or 2nd person18 of 378
- Inflectional Synthesis of the Verb10-11 categories per word7 of 145
- Alignment of Verbal Person MarkingErgative alignment19 of 380
- Weight-Sensitive StressNot predictable26 of 500
- Order of Numeral and NounBoth orders of numeral and noun with neither order dominant65 of 1,154
- Person Marking on AdpositionsPerson marking for pronouns and nouns23 of 378
- Uvular ConsonantsUvular stops only38 of 567
- Indefinite PronounsSpecial indefinites22 of 326
Inside the Northwest Caucasian family
Abkhaz matches the most frequent Northwest Caucasian value on 9 of the 12 features where at least three other members of the family are coded (75%).
Closest profiles
Languages that share the most coded values with Abkhaz; the count is out of the features both languages are coded for.
The rest of the profile
WALS codes Abkhaz for 133 of the 144 profile features used on this site. The remaining 122 are listed here, grouped by topic; within each group the value Abkhaz shares with the fewest languages comes first.
Sounds 15
| Feature | Value | Languages sharing it |
|---|---|---|
| Weight Factors in Weight-Sensitive Stress Systems | Lexical: lexical stress, diacritic weight | 38 of 500 |
| Consonant Inventories | Large | 57 of 563 |
| Glottalized Consonants | Ejectives only | 58 of 567 |
| Consonant-Vowel Ratio | High | 69 of 564 |
| Vowel Quality Inventories | Small vowel inventory (2-4) | 93 of 564 |
| Voicing in Plosives and Fricatives | Voicing contrast in both plosives and fricatives | 158 of 567 |
| Syllable Structure | Complex syllable structure | 151 of 486 |
| Fixed Stress Locations | No fixed stress (mostly weight-sensitive stress) | 220 of 502 |
| Voicing and Gaps in Plosive Systems | /p t k b d g/ | 255 of 567 |
| The Velar Nasal | No velar nasal | 235 of 469 |
| Tone | No tones | 307 of 527 |
| Lateral Consonants | /l/, no obstruent laterals | 388 of 567 |
| Vowel Nasalization | Contrastive nasal vowels absent | 180 of 244 |
| Absence of Common Consonants | All present | 503 of 567 |
| Front Rounded Vowels | None | 525 of 562 |
Word structure 11
| Feature | Value | Languages sharing it |
|---|---|---|
| Prefixing vs. Suffixing in Inflectional Morphology | Approximately equal amounts of suffixing and prefixing | 147 of 969 |
| Locus of Marking: Whole-language Typology | Consistently head-marking | 47 of 236 |
| Locus of Marking in the Clause | P is head-marked | 71 of 236 |
| Locus of Marking in Possessive Noun Phrases | Possessor is head-marked | 78 of 236 |
| Syncretism in Verbal Person/Number Marking | Subject person/number marking is never syncretic | 81 of 198 |
| Exponence of Selected Inflectional Formatives | No case | 75 of 162 |
| Case Syncretism | Inflectional case marking is absent or minimal | 123 of 198 |
| Reduplication | Productive full and partial reduplication | 278 of 368 |
| Fusion of Selected Inflectional Formatives | Exclusively concatenative | 125 of 165 |
| Exponence of Tense-Aspect-Mood Inflection | monoexponential TAM | 127 of 160 |
| Zero Marking of A and P Arguments | Non-zero marking | 219 of 235 |
Nouns and pronouns 22
| Feature | Value | Languages sharing it |
|---|---|---|
| Number of Cases | 2 case categories | 23 of 261 |
| Distributive Numerals | Marked by mixed or other strategies | 23 of 251 |
| Number of Genders | Three | 26 of 257 |
| Ordinal Numerals | First/one-th, two-th, three-th | 54 of 321 |
| The Associative Plural | Special bound associative plural marker | 48 of 236 |
| Systems of Gender Assignment | Semantic assignment | 53 of 257 |
| Indefinite Articles | Numeral for 'one' is used as indefinite article | 112 of 534 |
| Position of Pronominal Possessive Affixes | Possessive prefixes | 255 of 902 |
| Asymmetrical Case-Marking | Symmetrical case-marking | 79 of 261 |
| Inclusive/Exclusive Distinction in Independent Pronouns | Inclusive and exclusive differentiated | 63 of 200 |
| Sex-based and Non-sex-based Gender Systems | Sex-based gender system | 84 of 257 |
| Definite Articles | Definite word distinct from demonstrative | 216 of 620 |
| Position of Case Affixes | Neither case affixes nor adpositional clitics | 379 of 1,031 |
| Inclusive/Exclusive Distinction in Verbal Inflection | No inclusive/exclusive opposition | 79 of 200 |
| Plurality in Independent Personal Pronouns | Person-number stem | 114 of 261 |
| Intensifiers and Reflexive Pronouns | Intensifiers and reflexive pronouns are formally differentiated | 74 of 168 |
| Occurrence of Nominal Plurality | Plural in all nouns, always obligatory | 133 of 291 |
| Coding of Nominal Plurality | Plural suffix | 513 of 1,066 |
| Distance Contrasts in Demonstratives | Two-way contrast | 126 of 234 |
| Numeral Classifiers | Numeral classifiers are absent | 260 of 400 |
| Comitatives and Instrumentals | Differentiation | 213 of 322 |
| Pronominal and Adnominal Demonstratives | Same forms | 143 of 201 |
Noun phrases 8
| Feature | Value | Languages sharing it |
|---|---|---|
| Action Nominal Constructions | Ergative-Possessive | 21 of 168 |
| Possessive Classification | No possessive classification | 125 of 243 |
| Nominal and Verbal Conjunction | Nominal and verbal conjunction are largely identical | 161 of 301 |
| Genitives, Adjectives and Relative Clauses | Highly differentiated | 77 of 138 |
| Noun Phrase Conjunction | AND-languages: 'and' and 'with' are not identical | 131 of 234 |
| Adjectives without Nouns | Adjective may occur without noun, and without marking | 73 of 124 |
| Obligatory Possessive Inflection | No obligatorily possessed nouns | 201 of 244 |
| Number of Possessive Nouns | None reported | 233 of 243 |
Verbs: tense, mood, evidence 17
| Feature | Value | Languages sharing it |
|---|---|---|
| The Prohibitive | Special imperative + normal negative | 55 of 496 |
| The Optative | Inflectional optative present | 48 of 319 |
| Suppletion According to Tense and Aspect | Suppletion according to tense | 36 of 193 |
| Epistemic Possibility | Verbal constructions | 65 of 240 |
| Coding of Evidentiality | Verbal affix or clitic | 131 of 418 |
| Overlap between Situational and Epistemic Modal Marking | Overlap for either possibility or necessity | 66 of 207 |
| The Perfect | Other perfect | 80 of 222 |
| Semantic Distinctions of Evidentiality | Only indirect evidentials | 166 of 418 |
| The Past Tense | Past/non-past distinction marked; no remoteness distinction | 94 of 222 |
| Perfective/Imperfective Aspect | Grammatical marking of perfective/imperfective distinction | 101 of 222 |
| The Future Tense | Inflectional marking of future/non-future distinction | 110 of 222 |
| The Morphological Imperative | Second singular and second plural | 292 of 548 |
| Imperative-Hortative Systems | The language has neither a maximal nor a minimal system | 201 of 375 |
| Position of Tense-Aspect Affixes | Tense-aspect suffixes | 667 of 1,131 |
| Situational Possibility | Verbal constructions | 158 of 234 |
| Suppletion in Imperatives and Hortatives | None (= no suppletive imperatives reported in the reference material) | 153 of 193 |
| Verbal Number and Suppletion | No singular-(dual)-plural pairs/triples | 159 of 193 |
Word order 12
| Feature | Value | Languages sharing it |
|---|---|---|
| Order of Object, Oblique, and Verb | Oblique-object-verb (XOV) | 48 of 500 |
| Order of Adverbial Subordinator and Clause | Suffixal adverbial subordinators | 64 of 659 |
| Order of Relative Clause and Noun | Relative clause precedes noun (RelN) | 141 of 824 |
| Position of Polar Question Particles | No question particle | 355 of 884 |
| Order of Demonstrative and Noun | Demonstrative word precedes noun (DemN) | 542 of 1,225 |
| Order of Object and Verb | Object precedes verb (OV) | 712 of 1,518 |
| Order of Degree Word and Adjective | Degree word precedes adjective (DegAdj) | 227 of 481 |
| Order of Adposition and Noun Phrase | Postpositions | 577 of 1,184 |
| Order of Genitive and Noun | Genitive-noun (GenN) | 685 of 1,249 |
| Order of Adjective and Noun | Modifying adjective follows noun (NAdj) | 879 of 1,367 |
| Position of Interrogative Phrases in Content Questions | Interrogative phrases not obligatorily initial | 615 of 902 |
| Order of Subject and Verb | Subject precedes verb (SV) | 1,192 of 1,496 |
Simple clauses 23
| Feature | Value | Languages sharing it |
|---|---|---|
| Other Roles of Applied Objects | Instrument | 17 of 183 |
| Order of Person Markers on the Verb | P precedes A | 57 of 379 |
| Polar Questions | Interrogative verb morphology | 164 of 955 |
| Predicative Possession | Have-Possessive | 63 of 240 |
| Subtypes of Asymmetric Standard Negation | In other grammatical categories: Subtype A/Cat | 82 of 297 |
| Negative Morphemes | Negative affix | 395 of 1,157 |
| Predicative Adjectives | Predicative adjectives have verbal encoding | 151 of 386 |
| Symmetric and Asymmetric Standard Negation | Symmetric and asymmetric standard negation: Type SymAsy | 130 of 297 |
| Alignment of Case Marking of Pronouns | Neutral | 79 of 172 |
| Third Person Zero of Verbal Person Marking | No zero realization of third person S forms | 181 of 380 |
| Ditransitive Constructions: The Verb 'Give' | Indirect-object construction | 189 of 378 |
| Verbal Person Marking | Person marking of both the A and P arguments | 193 of 378 |
| Alignment of Case Marking of Full Noun Phrases | Neutral | 98 of 190 |
| Zero Copula for Predicate Nominals | Zero copula is impossible | 211 of 386 |
| Passive Constructions | There is no passive construction | 211 of 373 |
| Reciprocal Constructions | Distinct from reflexive | 99 of 175 |
| Periphrastic Causative Constructions | Purposive type but no sequential type | 68 of 118 |
| Expression of Pronominal Subjects | Pronominal subjects are expressed by affixes on verbs | 437 of 711 |
| Nominal and Locational Predication | Different | 269 of 386 |
| Antipassive Constructions | No antipassive | 146 of 194 |
| Productivity of the Antipassive Construction | no antipassive | 146 of 186 |
| Nonperiphrastic Causative Constructions | Morphological type but no compound type | 254 of 310 |
| Negative Indefinite Pronouns and Predicate Negation | Negative indefinites co-occur with predicate negation | 170 of 206 |
Complex sentences 7
| Feature | Value | Languages sharing it |
|---|---|---|
| Utterance Complement Clauses | Balanced/deranked | 18 of 143 |
| Purpose Clauses | Balanced/deranked | 30 of 170 |
| Reason Clauses | Deranked | 42 of 169 |
| 'Want' Complement Subjects | The complement subject is expressed overtly | 72 of 283 |
| 'When' Clauses | Deranked | 51 of 174 |
| Relativization on Obliques | Gap Strategy | 55 of 112 |
| Relativization on Subjects | Gap | 125 of 166 |
Vocabulary 7
| Feature | Value | Languages sharing it |
|---|---|---|
| Numeral Bases | Hybrid vigesimal-decimal | 22 of 196 |
| M in Second Person Singular | m in second person singular | 78 of 230 |
| Hand and Arm | Different | 389 of 617 |
| M in First Person Singular | No m in first person singular | 177 of 230 |
| N-M Pronouns | No N-M pronouns | 194 of 230 |
| M-T Pronouns | No M-T pronouns | 200 of 230 |
| Finger and Hand | Different | 521 of 593 |