Brahui
The closest grammar profile to Brahui in the atlas belongs to Chuvash, an Altaic language: the two agree on 34 of the 45 features both have coded.
Of the 5 Dravidian languages profiled here, Brahui departs most often from the family’s usual values.
On Order of Relative Clause and Noun, 6 of 7 other Dravidian languages coded have the value “Relative clause precedes noun (RelN)”; Brahui has “Relative clause follows noun (NRel)”.
Contrast Brahui with Chuvash or with any other language
Uncommon values
Values that fewer than one in ten of the coded languages share with Brahui, rarest first.
- Third Person Zero of Verbal Person MarkingZero realization of some third person singular forms21 of 380
- Third Person Pronouns and DemonstrativesRelated to non-remote demonstratives14 of 225
- Indefinite PronounsSpecial indefinites22 of 326
- Number of Cases10 or more case categories24 of 261
Inside the Dravidian family
Brahui matches the most frequent Dravidian value on 39 of the 59 features where at least three other members of the family are coded (66%).
| Feature | Brahui | Most relatives |
|---|---|---|
| Voicing in Plosives and Fricatives | Voicing contrast in both plosives and fricatives | Voicing contrast in plosives alone (6 of 6) |
Closest profiles
Languages that share the most coded values with Brahui; the count is out of the features both languages are coded for.
The rest of the profile
WALS codes Brahui for 98 of the 144 profile features used on this site. The remaining 92 are listed here, grouped by topic; within each group the value Brahui shares with the fewest languages comes first.
Sounds 14
| Feature | Value | Languages sharing it |
|---|---|---|
| Consonant-Vowel Ratio | Moderately high | 102 of 564 |
| Syllable Structure | Complex syllable structure | 151 of 486 |
| Consonant Inventories | Average | 201 of 563 |
| Voicing and Gaps in Plosive Systems | /p t k b d g/ | 255 of 567 |
| 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 |
| Glottalized Consonants | No glottalized consonants | 409 of 567 |
| Vowel Nasalization | Contrastive nasal vowels absent | 180 of 244 |
| Presence of Uncommon Consonants | None | 449 of 567 |
| Uvular Consonants | No uvulars | 470 of 567 |
| Absence of Common Consonants | All present | 503 of 567 |
| Front Rounded Vowels | None | 525 of 562 |
Word structure 11
| Feature | Value | Languages sharing it |
|---|---|---|
| Exponence of Tense-Aspect-Mood Inflection | TAM+agreement | 19 of 160 |
| Inflectional Synthesis of the Verb | 2-3 categories per word | 24 of 145 |
| Case Syncretism | Inflectional case marking is never syncretic | 35 of 198 |
| Locus of Marking: Whole-language Typology | Consistently dependent-marking | 46 of 236 |
| Locus of Marking in the Clause | P is dependent-marked | 63 of 236 |
| Syncretism in Verbal Person/Number Marking | Subject person/number marking is never syncretic | 81 of 198 |
| Locus of Marking in Possessive Noun Phrases | Possessor is dependent-marked | 98 of 236 |
| Prefixing vs. Suffixing in Inflectional Morphology | Predominantly suffixing | 406 of 969 |
| Exponence of Selected Inflectional Formatives | Monoexponential case | 71 of 162 |
| Fusion of Selected Inflectional Formatives | Exclusively concatenative | 125 of 165 |
| Zero Marking of A and P Arguments | Non-zero marking | 219 of 235 |
Nouns and pronouns 21
| Feature | Value | Languages sharing it |
|---|---|---|
| Ordinal Numerals | First/one-th, two-th, three-th | 54 of 321 |
| The Associative Plural | Special bound associative plural marker | 48 of 236 |
| Asymmetrical Case-Marking | Symmetrical case-marking | 79 of 261 |
| Distributive Numerals | Marked by reduplication | 85 of 251 |
| 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 |
| Plurality in Independent Personal Pronouns | Person-number stem | 114 of 261 |
| 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 |
| Politeness Distinctions in Pronouns | Second person pronouns encode no politeness distinction | 136 of 207 |
| Comitatives and Instrumentals | Differentiation | 213 of 322 |
| Gender Distinctions in Independent Personal Pronouns | No gender distinctions | 254 of 378 |
Noun phrases 4
| Feature | Value | Languages sharing it |
|---|---|---|
| Possessive Classification | No possessive classification | 125 of 243 |
| Nominal and Verbal Conjunction | Nominal and verbal conjunction are largely identical | 161 of 301 |
| Obligatory Possessive Inflection | No obligatorily possessed nouns | 201 of 244 |
| Number of Possessive Nouns | None reported | 233 of 243 |
Verbs: tense, mood, evidence 16
| Feature | Value | Languages sharing it |
|---|---|---|
| Suppletion According to Tense and Aspect | Suppletion according to tense | 36 of 193 |
| Situational Possibility | Affixes on verbs | 63 of 234 |
| Epistemic Possibility | Affixes on verbs | 84 of 240 |
| The Perfect | Other perfect | 80 of 222 |
| The Past Tense | Past/non-past distinction marked; no remoteness distinction | 94 of 222 |
| Semantic Distinctions of Evidentiality | No grammatical evidentials | 181 of 418 |
| Coding of Evidentiality | No grammatical evidentials | 181 of 418 |
| 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 |
| Overlap between Situational and Epistemic Modal Marking | No overlap | 105 of 207 |
| 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 |
| 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 |
| The Optative | Inflectional optative absent | 271 of 319 |
Word order 4
| Feature | Value | Languages sharing it |
|---|---|---|
| Order of Adjective and Noun | Modifying adjective precedes noun (AdjN) | 373 of 1,367 |
| Order of Demonstrative and Noun | Demonstrative word precedes noun (DemN) | 542 of 1,225 |
| Order of Adposition and Noun Phrase | Postpositions | 577 of 1,184 |
| Position of Interrogative Phrases in Content Questions | Interrogative phrases not obligatorily initial | 615 of 902 |
Simple clauses 16
| Feature | Value | Languages sharing it |
|---|---|---|
| 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 |
| Subtypes of Asymmetric Standard Negation | In other grammatical categories: Subtype A/Cat | 82 of 297 |
| Negative Morphemes | Negative affix | 395 of 1,157 |
| Alignment of Case Marking of Pronouns | Nominative - accusative (standard) | 61 of 172 |
| 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 |
| Alignment of Verbal Person Marking | Accusative alignment | 212 of 380 |
| Passive Constructions | There is no passive construction | 211 of 373 |
| 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 |
| Negative Indefinite Pronouns and Predicate Negation | Negative indefinites co-occur with predicate negation | 170 of 206 |
Complex sentences 5
| Feature | Value | Languages sharing it |
|---|---|---|
| Purpose Clauses | Balanced/deranked | 30 of 170 |
| 'When' Clauses | Balanced | 84 of 174 |
| Reason Clauses | Balanced | 90 of 169 |
| Relativization on Subjects | Gap | 125 of 166 |
| Utterance Complement Clauses | Balanced | 114 of 143 |
Vocabulary 1
| Feature | Value | Languages sharing it |
|---|---|---|
| Numeral Bases | Decimal | 125 of 196 |