Kashmiri
Indo-European family · Indic branch · Eurasia
Kashmiri is an SVO language, like 488 of the 1,376 languages WALS codes for basic word order.
On Polar Questions, WALS codes Kashmiri as “Question particle and interrogative verb morphology”, a value held by 15 of the 955 languages coded, Pirahã and Ika among them.
On Alignment of Verbal Person Marking, all 18 other Indo-European languages coded have the value “Accusative alignment”; Kashmiri has “Split alignment”.
On Number of Cases, WALS codes Kashmiri as “4 case categories”, a value held by 9 of the 261 languages coded, German and Albanian among them.
Contrast Kashmiri with Panjabi or with any other language
Uncommon values
Values that fewer than one in ten of the coded languages share with Kashmiri, rarest first.
- Indefinite PronounsSpecial indefinites22 of 326
- Asymmetrical Case-MarkingSubtractive-quantitatively asymmetrical case-marking20 of 261
- Order of Relative Clause and NounMixed types of relative clause with none dominant64 of 824
- Expression of Pronominal SubjectsSubject pronouns in different position67 of 711
- Third Person Zero of Verbal Person MarkingZero in all 3rd person forms36 of 380
Inside the Indo-European family
Kashmiri matches the most frequent Indo-European value on 45 of the 67 features where at least three other members of the family are coded (67%). Among the 39 Indo-European languages profiled here, that rate ranks 24th from the top.
Closest profiles
Languages that share the most coded values with Kashmiri; the count is out of the features both languages are coded for.
The rest of the profile
WALS codes Kashmiri for 67 of the 144 profile features used on this site. The remaining 58 are listed here, grouped by topic; within each group the value Kashmiri shares with the fewest languages comes first.
Sounds 12
| Feature | Value | Languages sharing it |
|---|---|---|
| Consonant Inventories | Moderately large | 94 of 563 |
| Vowel Quality Inventories | Large vowel inventory (7-14) | 184 of 564 |
| 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 |
| Tone | No tones | 307 of 527 |
| Lateral Consonants | /l/, no obstruent laterals | 388 of 567 |
| Glottalized Consonants | No glottalized consonants | 409 of 567 |
| 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 |
Nouns and pronouns 11
| Feature | Value | Languages sharing it |
|---|---|---|
| Gender Distinctions in Independent Personal Pronouns | 3rd person only, but also non-singular | 42 of 378 |
| Ordinal Numerals | First/one-th, two-th, three-th | 54 of 321 |
| Number of Genders | Two | 50 of 257 |
| Systems of Gender Assignment | Semantic and formal assignment | 59 of 257 |
| Politeness Distinctions in Pronouns | Second person pronouns encode a binary politeness distinction | 49 of 207 |
| Sex-based and Non-sex-based Gender Systems | Sex-based gender system | 84 of 257 |
| Distributive Numerals | Marked by reduplication | 85 of 251 |
| Distance Contrasts in Demonstratives | Two-way contrast | 126 of 234 |
| 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 |
| Pronominal and Adnominal Demonstratives | Same forms | 143 of 201 |
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 6
| Feature | Value | Languages sharing it |
|---|---|---|
| Overlap between Situational and Epistemic Modal Marking | Overlap for both possibility and necessity | 36 of 207 |
| Epistemic Possibility | Verbal constructions | 65 of 240 |
| The Prohibitive | Normal imperative + special negative | 182 of 496 |
| The Morphological Imperative | Second singular and second plural | 292 of 548 |
| Situational Possibility | Verbal constructions | 158 of 234 |
| The Optative | Inflectional optative absent | 271 of 319 |
Word order 9
| Feature | Value | Languages sharing it |
|---|---|---|
| Order of Adjective and Noun | Modifying adjective precedes noun (AdjN) | 373 of 1,367 |
| Order of Numeral and Noun | Numeral precedes noun (NumN) | 479 of 1,154 |
| Order of Object, Oblique, and Verb | Verb-object-oblique (VOX) | 210 of 500 |
| Order of Demonstrative and Noun | Demonstrative word precedes noun (DemN) | 542 of 1,225 |
| Order of Object and Verb | Object follows verb (VO) | 705 of 1,518 |
| Order of Adposition and Noun Phrase | Postpositions | 577 of 1,184 |
| Order of Genitive and Noun | Genitive-noun (GenN) | 685 of 1,249 |
| 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 12
| Feature | Value | Languages sharing it |
|---|---|---|
| Order of Person Markers on the Verb | A precedes P | 96 of 379 |
| Negative Morphemes | Negative affix | 395 of 1,157 |
| Passive Constructions | There is a passive construction | 162 of 373 |
| Comparative Constructions | Locational Comparative | 78 of 167 |
| 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 |
| Applicative Constructions | No applicative construction | 100 of 183 |
| Other Roles of Applied Objects | No applicative construction | 100 of 183 |
| 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 |
|---|---|---|
| Reason Clauses | Balanced/deranked | 37 of 169 |
| 'When' Clauses | Balanced/deranked | 39 of 174 |
| 'Want' Complement Subjects | The complement subject is left implicit | 144 of 283 |
| Purpose Clauses | Deranked | 102 of 170 |
| Utterance Complement Clauses | Balanced | 114 of 143 |
Vocabulary 2
| Feature | Value | Languages sharing it |
|---|---|---|
| Hand and Arm | Different | 389 of 617 |
| Finger and Hand | Different | 521 of 593 |