Drehu

Austronesian family · Oceanic branch · Papunesia

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

On Alignment of Case Marking of Pronouns, WALS codes Drehu as “Active - inactive”, a value held by 3 of the 172 languages coded, the others being Basque and Imonda.

On Alignment of Case Marking of Full Noun Phrases, WALS codes Drehu as “Active - inactive”, a value held by 4 of the 190 languages coded, Georgian and Basque among them.

On Gender Distinctions in Independent Personal Pronouns, 40 of 41 other Austronesian languages coded have the value “No gender distinctions”; Drehu has “3rd person only, but also non-singular”.

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

Contrast Drehu with Iaai or with any other language

Uncommon values

Values that fewer than one in ten of the coded languages share with Drehu, rarest first.

Negative MorphemesNegative word, unclear if verb or particle73 of 1,157
Presence of Uncommon Consonants'Th' sounds40 of 567
Order of Subject and VerbBoth orders with neither order dominant110 of 1,496

Inside the Austronesian family

Drehu matches the most frequent Austronesian value on 59 of the 89 features where at least three other members of the family are coded (66%). Among the 38 Austronesian languages profiled here, that rate ranks 16th from the top.

Closest profiles

Languages that share the most coded values with Drehu; the count is out of the features both languages are coded for.

Iaai Austronesian39 of 48
Rapanui Austronesian55 of 84
Sedang Austro-Asiatic28 of 40
Malagasy Austronesian54 of 83
Nung (in Vietnam) Tai-Kadai31 of 45

The rest of the profile

WALS codes Drehu for 89 of the 144 profile features used on this site. The remaining 82 are listed here, grouped by topic; within each group the value Drehu shares with the fewest languages comes first.

Sounds 18

Feature	Value	Languages sharing it
Consonant Inventories	Moderately large	94 of 563
Fixed Stress Locations	Initial: stress is on the first syllable	92 of 502
Voicing in Plosives and Fricatives	Voicing contrast in both plosives and fricatives	158 of 567
The Velar Nasal	Velar nasal, also initially	147 of 469
Vowel Quality Inventories	Large vowel inventory (7-14)	184 of 564
Consonant-Vowel Ratio	Average	234 of 564
Voicing and Gaps in Plosive Systems	/p t k b d g/	255 of 567
Rhythm Types	Trochaic: left-hand syllable in the foot is strong	153 of 323
Weight Factors in Weight-Sensitive Stress Systems	No weight, or weight factor unknown	261 of 500
Weight-Sensitive Stress	Fixed stress (no weight-sensitivity)	281 of 500
Syllable Structure	Moderately complex syllable structure	274 of 486
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
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 4

Feature	Value	Languages sharing it
Prefixing vs. Suffixing in Inflectional Morphology	Little or no inflectional morphology	141 of 969
Syncretism in Verbal Person/Number Marking	No subject person/number marking	57 of 198
Case Syncretism	Inflectional case marking is absent or minimal	123 of 198
Reduplication	Productive full and partial reduplication	278 of 368

Nouns and pronouns 16

Feature	Value	Languages sharing it
Coding of Nominal Plurality	Plural word	170 of 1,066
Plurality in Independent Personal Pronouns	Person-number stem with a pronominal plural affix	47 of 261
Asymmetrical Case-Marking	No morphological case-marking	81 of 261
Inclusive/Exclusive Distinction in Independent Pronouns	Inclusive and exclusive differentiated	63 of 200
Ordinal Numerals	First, two-th, three-th	110 of 321
Definite Articles	Definite word distinct from demonstrative	216 of 620
Inclusive/Exclusive Distinction in Verbal Inflection	No person marking at all	70 of 200
Position of Case Affixes	Neither case affixes nor adpositional clitics	379 of 1,031
Number of Cases	No morphological case-marking	100 of 261
Position of Pronominal Possessive Affixes	Possessive suffixes	355 of 902
Intensifiers and Reflexive Pronouns	Intensifiers and reflexive pronouns are formally differentiated	74 of 168
Distance Contrasts in Demonstratives	Two-way contrast	126 of 234
Person Marking on Adpositions	Adpositions without person marking	209 of 378
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 4

Feature	Value	Languages sharing it
Possessive Classification	Two classes	94 of 243
Nominal and Verbal Conjunction	Nominal and verbal conjunction are different	125 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 10

Feature	Value	Languages sharing it
Position of Tense-Aspect Affixes	No tense-aspect inflection	152 of 1,131
The Morphological Imperative	No second-person imperatives	122 of 548
The Prohibitive	Special imperative + special negative	146 of 496
Epistemic Possibility	Other	91 of 240
Semantic Distinctions of Evidentiality	No grammatical evidentials	181 of 418
Coding of Evidentiality	No grammatical evidentials	181 of 418
Overlap between Situational and Epistemic Modal Marking	No overlap	105 of 207
Imperative-Hortative Systems	The language has neither a maximal nor a minimal system	201 of 375
Situational Possibility	Verbal constructions	158 of 234
The Optative	Inflectional optative absent	271 of 319

Word order 11

Feature	Value	Languages sharing it
Position of Polar Question Particles	Question particle at beginning of sentence	129 of 884
Order of Genitive and Noun	Noun-genitive (NGen)	468 of 1,249
Order of Degree Word and Adjective	Degree word follows adjective (AdjDeg)	192 of 481
Order of Numeral and Noun	Numeral precedes noun (NumN)	479 of 1,154
Order of Adposition and Noun Phrase	Prepositions	511 of 1,184
Order of Demonstrative and Noun	Demonstrative word follows noun (NDem)	562 of 1,225
Order of Object and Verb	Object follows verb (VO)	705 of 1,518
Order of Adverbial Subordinator and Clause	Initial subordinator word	398 of 659
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 Relative Clause and Noun	Relative clause follows noun (NRel)	579 of 824

Simple clauses 11

Feature	Value	Languages sharing it
Ditransitive Constructions: The Verb 'Give'	Mixed	40 of 378
Expression of Pronominal Subjects	Obligatory pronouns in subject position	82 of 711
Verbal Person Marking	No person marking of any argument	82 of 378
Alignment of Verbal Person Marking	Neutral alignment (no verbal person marking)	84 of 380
Third Person Zero of Verbal Person Marking	No person marking of the S	96 of 380
Symmetric and Asymmetric Standard Negation	Symmetric standard negation only: Type Sym	114 of 297
Subtypes of Asymmetric Standard Negation	Non-assignable (no asymmetry found)	114 of 297
Passive Constructions	There is a passive construction	162 of 373
Order of Person Markers on the Verb	A and P do not or do not both occur on the verb	187 of 379
Polar Questions	Question particle	585 of 955
Nonperiphrastic Causative Constructions	Morphological type but no compound type	254 of 310

Complex sentences 5

Feature	Value	Languages sharing it
Purpose Clauses	Balanced	38 of 170
'When' Clauses	Balanced	84 of 174
'Want' Complement Subjects	The complement subject is left implicit	144 of 283
Reason Clauses	Balanced	90 of 169
Utterance Complement Clauses	Balanced	114 of 143

Vocabulary 3

Feature	Value	Languages sharing it
Numeral Bases	Pure vigesimal	20 of 196
Hand and Arm	Different	389 of 617
Finger and Hand	Different	521 of 593