Garo

Sino-Tibetan family · Brahmaputran branch · Eurasia

Garo is an SOV language, like 564 of the 1,376 languages WALS codes for basic word order.

The closest grammar profile to Garo in the atlas belongs to Bribri, a Chibchan language: the two agree on 36 of the 49 features both have coded.

On Person Marking on Adpositions, all 13 other Sino-Tibetan languages coded have the value “Adpositions without person marking”; Garo has “No adpositions”.

The order Garo uses in 8 pairings of a head word and its dependent. Bars: how all languages coded for each pairing split, before or after.

Contrast Garo with Bribri or with any other language

Uncommon values

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

Third Person Pronouns and DemonstrativesRelated for non-human reference17 of 225
Coding of Nominal PluralityPlural clitic81 of 1,066
Expression of Pronominal SubjectsOptional pronouns in subject position61 of 711
Number of Cases8-9 case categories23 of 261
Order of Adverbial Subordinator and ClauseSuffixal adverbial subordinators64 of 659

Inside the Sino-Tibetan family

Garo matches the most frequent Sino-Tibetan value on 66 of the 89 features where at least three other members of the family are coded (74%). Among the 15 Sino-Tibetan languages profiled here, that rate ranks second from the top.

Closest profiles

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

Ladakhi Sino-Tibetan49 of 70
Meithei Sino-Tibetan57 of 84
Páez Páezan30 of 42
Epena Pedee Choco51 of 76

The rest of the profile

WALS codes Garo 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 Garo shares with the fewest languages comes first.

Sounds 15

Feature	Value	Languages sharing it
Lateral Consonants	No laterals	95 of 567
The Velar Nasal	Velar nasal, but not initially	87 of 469
Consonant Inventories	Moderately small	122 of 563
Voicing in Plosives and Fricatives	Voicing contrast in plosives alone	189 of 567
Consonant-Vowel Ratio	Average	234 of 564
Voicing and Gaps in Plosive Systems	/p t k b d g/	255 of 567
Vowel Quality Inventories	Average vowel inventory (5-6)	287 of 564
Syllable Structure	Moderately complex syllable structure	274 of 486
Tone	No tones	307 of 527
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 8

Feature	Value	Languages sharing it
Inflectional Synthesis of the Verb	2-3 categories per word	24 of 145
Case Syncretism	Inflectional case marking is never syncretic	35 of 198
Syncretism in Verbal Person/Number Marking	No subject person/number marking	57 of 198
Prefixing vs. Suffixing in Inflectional Morphology	Predominantly suffixing	406 of 969
Exponence of Selected Inflectional Formatives	Monoexponential case	71 of 162
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

Nouns and pronouns 17

Feature	Value	Languages sharing it
Position of Case Affixes	Postpositional clitics	123 of 1,031
Ordinal Numerals	First/one-th, two-th, three-th	54 of 321
Occurrence of Nominal Plurality	Plural in all nouns, always optional	55 of 291
Numeral Classifiers	Numeral classifiers are obligatory	78 of 400
Position of Pronominal Possessive Affixes	No possessive affixes	260 of 902
Asymmetrical Case-Marking	Symmetrical case-marking	79 of 261
Inclusive/Exclusive Distinction in Independent Pronouns	Inclusive and exclusive differentiated	63 of 200
Definite Articles	Neither definite nor indefinite article	198 of 620
Distributive Numerals	Marked by reduplication	85 of 251
Inclusive/Exclusive Distinction in Verbal Inflection	No person marking at all	70 of 200
Indefinite Articles	Neither indefinite nor definite	198 of 534
Plurality in Independent Personal Pronouns	Person-number stem	114 of 261
The Associative Plural	Associative plural marker also used for additive plurals	104 of 236
Intensifiers and Reflexive Pronouns	Intensifiers and reflexive pronouns are formally identical	94 of 168
Indefinite Pronouns	Interrogative-based indefinites	194 of 326
Politeness Distinctions in Pronouns	Second person pronouns encode no politeness distinction	136 of 207
Gender Distinctions in Independent Personal Pronouns	No gender distinctions	254 of 378

Noun phrases 1

Feature	Value	Languages sharing it
Nominal and Verbal Conjunction	Nominal and verbal conjunction are largely identical	161 of 301

Verbs: tense, mood, evidence 13

Feature	Value	Languages sharing it
The Morphological Imperative	Second person number-neutral	89 of 548
Situational Possibility	Affixes on verbs	63 of 234
The Prohibitive	Special imperative + special negative	146 of 496
Coding of Evidentiality	Verbal affix or clitic	131 of 418
Epistemic Possibility	Affixes on verbs	84 of 240
Semantic Distinctions of Evidentiality	Only indirect evidentials	166 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
Position of Tense-Aspect Affixes	Tense-aspect suffixes	667 of 1,131
Suppletion According to Tense and Aspect	No suppletion in tense or aspect	123 of 193
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 10

Feature	Value	Languages sharing it
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 Adposition and Noun Phrase	Postpositions	577 of 1,184
Order of Numeral and Noun	Numeral follows noun (NNum)	608 of 1,154
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 16

Feature	Value	Languages sharing it
Polar Questions	Interrogative verb morphology	164 of 955
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
Alignment of Case Marking of Full Noun Phrases	Nominative - accusative (standard)	46 of 190
Third Person Zero of Verbal Person Marking	No person marking of the S	96 of 380
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
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
Order of Person Markers on the Verb	A and P do not or do not both occur on the verb	187 of 379
Ditransitive Constructions: The Verb 'Give'	Indirect-object construction	189 of 378
Zero Copula for Predicate Nominals	Zero copula is impossible	211 of 386
Passive Constructions	There is no passive construction	211 of 373
Nominal and Locational Predication	Different	269 of 386
Nonperiphrastic Causative Constructions	Morphological type but no compound type	254 of 310

Complex sentences 1

Feature	Value	Languages sharing it
'Want' Complement Subjects	The complement subject is left implicit	144 of 283

Vocabulary 1

Feature	Value	Languages sharing it
Numeral Bases	Decimal	125 of 196