Armenian (Eastern)

Indo-European family · Armenian branch · Eurasia

WALS records no dominant basic order of subject, object and verb for Armenian (Eastern), a group that holds 189 of the 1,376 languages it codes for this feature.

On Negative Morphemes, WALS codes Armenian (Eastern) as “Variation between negative word and affix”, a value held by 21 of the 1,157 languages coded, Lavukaleve and Paumarí among them.

On Uvular Consonants, WALS codes Armenian (Eastern) as “Uvular continuants only”, a value held by 11 of the 567 languages coded, French and German among them.

The closest grammar profile to Armenian (Eastern) in the atlas belongs to Brahui, a Dravidian language: the two agree on 56 of the 80 features both have coded.

The order Armenian (Eastern) uses in 9 pairings of a head word and its dependent. Bars: how all languages coded for each pairing split, before or after.

Contrast Armenian (Eastern) with Brahui or with any other language

Uncommon values

Values that fewer than one in ten of the coded languages share with Armenian (Eastern), rarest first.

Number of Cases5 case categories12 of 261
Order of Object and VerbBoth orders with neither order dominant101 of 1,518
Voicing in Plosives and FricativesVoicing contrast in fricatives alone38 of 567
Order of Relative Clause and NounMixed types of relative clause with none dominant64 of 824
Third Person Pronouns and DemonstrativesRelated to remote demonstratives18 of 225
Weight Factors in Weight-Sensitive Stress SystemsProminence: other factors are heavy for stress41 of 500
Distributive NumeralsMarked by mixed or other strategies23 of 251
Predicative PossessionGenitive Possessive22 of 240

Inside the Indo-European family

Armenian (Eastern) matches the most frequent Indo-European value on 63 of the 106 features where at least three other members of the family are coded (59%). Among the 39 Indo-European languages profiled here, that rate ranks 35th from the top.

Where Armenian (Eastern) breaks with a clear majority of its relatives
Feature	Armenian (Eastern)	Most relatives
Glottalized Consonants	Ejectives only	No glottalized consonants (29 of 30)

Closest profiles

Languages that share the most coded values with Armenian (Eastern); the count is out of the features both languages are coded for.

Hindi Indo-European64 of 100
Telugu Dravidian32 of 47
Finnish Uralic66 of 106
Nenets Uralic53 of 85

The rest of the profile

WALS codes Armenian (Eastern) for 106 of the 144 profile features used on this site. The remaining 94 are listed here, grouped by topic; within each group the value Armenian (Eastern) shares with the fewest languages comes first.

Sounds 14

Feature	Value	Languages sharing it
Weight-Sensitive Stress	Unbounded: Stress can be anywhere in the word	54 of 500
Rhythm Types	Undetermined: no clear foot type	37 of 323
Consonant Inventories	Moderately large	94 of 563
Consonant-Vowel Ratio	Moderately high	102 of 564
Voicing and Gaps in Plosive Systems	Other	242 of 567
Fixed Stress Locations	No fixed stress (mostly weight-sensitive stress)	220 of 502
The Velar Nasal	No velar nasal	235 of 469
Vowel Quality Inventories	Average vowel inventory (5-6)	287 of 564
Tone	No tones	307 of 527
Lateral Consonants	/l/, no obstruent laterals	388 of 567
Vowel Nasalization	Contrastive nasal vowels absent	180 of 244
Presence of Uncommon Consonants	None	449 of 567
Absence of Common Consonants	All present	503 of 567
Front Rounded Vowels	None	525 of 562

Word structure 5

Feature	Value	Languages sharing it
Reduplication	Full reduplication only	35 of 368
Case Syncretism	Core and non-core	22 of 198
Inflectional Synthesis of the Verb	2-3 categories per word	24 of 145
Syncretism in Verbal Person/Number Marking	Subject person/number marking is never syncretic	81 of 198
Prefixing vs. Suffixing in Inflectional Morphology	Predominantly suffixing	406 of 969

Nouns and pronouns 22

Feature	Value	Languages sharing it
Definite Articles	Definite affix on noun	92 of 620
The Associative Plural	Associative plural absent	37 of 236
Plurality in Independent Personal Pronouns	Person-number stem with a pronominal plural affix	47 of 261
Indefinite Articles	Indefinite word distinct from numeral for 'one'	102 of 534
Asymmetrical Case-Marking	Additive-quantitatively asymmetrical case-marking	53 of 261
Politeness Distinctions in Pronouns	Second person pronouns encode a binary politeness distinction	49 of 207
Ordinal Numerals	First, two-th, three-th	110 of 321
Conjunctions and Universal Quantifiers	Formally different	40 of 116
Position of Pronominal Possessive Affixes	Possessive suffixes	355 of 902
Inclusive/Exclusive Distinction in Verbal Inflection	No inclusive/exclusive opposition	79 of 200
Position of Case Affixes	Case suffixes	452 of 1,031
Occurrence of Nominal Plurality	Plural in all nouns, always obligatory	133 of 291
Coding of Nominal Plurality	Plural suffix	513 of 1,066
Person Marking on Adpositions	Adpositions without person marking	209 of 378
Intensifiers and Reflexive Pronouns	Intensifiers and reflexive pronouns are formally identical	94 of 168
Number of Genders	None	145 of 257
Sex-based and Non-sex-based Gender Systems	No gender system	145 of 257
Systems of Gender Assignment	No gender system	145 of 257
Inclusive/Exclusive Distinction in Independent Pronouns	No inclusive/exclusive opposition	120 of 200
Numeral Classifiers	Numeral classifiers are absent	260 of 400
Comitatives and Instrumentals	Differentiation	213 of 322
Gender Distinctions in Independent Personal Pronouns	No gender distinctions	254 of 378

Noun phrases 5

Feature	Value	Languages sharing it
Action Nominal Constructions	Possessive-Accusative	29 of 168
Possessive Classification	No possessive classification	125 of 243
Noun Phrase Conjunction	AND-languages: 'and' and 'with' are not identical	131 of 234
Obligatory Possessive Inflection	No obligatorily possessed nouns	201 of 244
Number of Possessive Nouns	None reported	233 of 243

Verbs: tense, mood, evidence 15

Feature	Value	Languages sharing it
Suppletion According to Tense and Aspect	Suppletion in both tense and aspect	24 of 193
Suppletion in Imperatives and Hortatives	Imperative	29 of 193
Overlap between Situational and Epistemic Modal Marking	Overlap for either possibility or necessity	66 of 207
The Perfect	Other perfect	80 of 222
The Prohibitive	Normal imperative + special negative	182 of 496
Epistemic Possibility	Other	91 of 240
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	No inflectional marking of future/non-future distinction	112 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
Verbal Number and Suppletion	No singular-(dual)-plural pairs/triples	159 of 193
The Optative	Inflectional optative absent	271 of 319

Word order 11

Feature	Value	Languages sharing it
Order of Adjective and Noun	Modifying adjective precedes noun (AdjN)	373 of 1,367
Order of Object, Oblique, and Verb	More than one order with none dominant	167 of 500
Position of Polar Question Particles	No question particle	355 of 884
Order of Numeral and Noun	Numeral precedes noun (NumN)	479 of 1,154
Order of Demonstrative and Noun	Demonstrative word precedes noun (DemN)	542 of 1,225
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 Adverbial Subordinator and Clause	Initial subordinator word	398 of 659
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 20

Feature	Value	Languages sharing it
Third Person Zero of Verbal Person Marking	Zero realization of all third person singular S forms	45 of 380
Subtypes of Asymmetric Standard Negation	In finiteness: Subtype A/Fin	40 of 297
Polar Questions	Interrogative intonation only	173 of 955
Verbal Person Marking	Person marking of only the A argument	73 of 378
Alignment of Case Marking of Full Noun Phrases	Nominative - accusative (standard)	46 of 190
Nominal and Locational Predication	Identical	117 of 386
Predicative Adjectives	Predicative adjectives have nonverbal encoding	132 of 386
Alignment of Case Marking of Pronouns	Nominative - accusative (standard)	61 of 172
Passive Constructions	There is a passive construction	162 of 373
Symmetric and Asymmetric Standard Negation	Symmetric and asymmetric standard negation: Type SymAsy	130 of 297
Order of Person Markers on the Verb	A and P do not or do not both occur on the verb	187 of 379
Applicative Constructions	No applicative construction	100 of 183
Other Roles of Applied Objects	No applicative construction	100 of 183
Zero Copula for Predicate Nominals	Zero copula is impossible	211 of 386
Alignment of Verbal Person Marking	Accusative alignment	212 of 380
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
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

Vocabulary 2

Feature	Value	Languages sharing it
Tea	Words derived from Min Nan Chinese te	84 of 230
Numeral Bases	Decimal	125 of 196