Lezgian

Nakh-Daghestanian family · Lezgic branch · Eurasia

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

On Front Rounded Vowels, WALS codes Lezgian as “High only”, a value held by 8 of the 562 languages coded, Mandarin and Albanian among them.

On Presence of Uncommon Consonants, all 7 other Nakh-Daghestanian languages coded have the value “Pharyngeals”; Lezgian has “None”.

On Weight Factors in Weight-Sensitive Stress Systems, WALS codes Lezgian as “Coda consonant: closed syllables are heavy for stress”, a value held by 18 of the 500 languages coded, Amele and German among them.

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

Contrast Lezgian with Ingush or with any other language

Uncommon values

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

Third Person Pronouns and DemonstrativesRelated to non-remote demonstratives14 of 225
Definite ArticlesNo definite article but indefinite article45 of 620
Weight-Sensitive StressLeft-edge: Stress is on the first or second syllable37 of 500
Asymmetrical Case-MarkingSyncretism in relevant NP-types21 of 261
Uvular ConsonantsUvular stops and continuants48 of 567
Expression of Pronominal SubjectsOptional pronouns in subject position61 of 711
Predicative PossessionGenitive Possessive22 of 240
Number of Cases10 or more case categories24 of 261

Inside the Nakh-Daghestanian family

Lezgian matches the most frequent Nakh-Daghestanian value on 68 of the 93 features where at least three other members of the family are coded (73%). Among the 7 Nakh-Daghestanian languages profiled here, that rate ranks fifth from the top.

Where Lezgian breaks with a clear majority of its relatives
Feature	Lezgian	Most relatives
Sex-based and Non-sex-based Gender Systems	No gender system	Sex-based gender system (6 of 6)
Nominal and Locational Predication	Different	Identical (5 of 5)

Closest profiles

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

Ingush Nakh-Daghestanian78 of 106
Nepali Indo-European39 of 52
Avar Nakh-Daghestanian36 of 48
Uzbek Altaic38 of 51
Archi Nakh-Daghestanian39 of 53

The rest of the profile

WALS codes Lezgian for 135 of the 144 profile features used on this site. The remaining 121 are listed here, grouped by topic; within each group the value Lezgian shares with the fewest languages comes first.

Sounds 13

Feature	Value	Languages sharing it
Consonant Inventories	Large	57 of 563
Glottalized Consonants	Ejectives only	58 of 567
Consonant-Vowel Ratio	High	69 of 564
Voicing in Plosives and Fricatives	Voicing contrast in both plosives and fricatives	158 of 567
Syllable Structure	Complex syllable structure	151 of 486
Fixed Stress Locations	No fixed stress (mostly weight-sensitive stress)	220 of 502
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
Vowel Nasalization	Contrastive nasal vowels absent	180 of 244
Absence of Common Consonants	All present	503 of 567

Word structure 12

Feature	Value	Languages sharing it
Case Syncretism	Core and non-core	22 of 198
Reduplication	No productive reduplication	55 of 368
Inflectional Synthesis of the Verb	2-3 categories per word	24 of 145
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	No subject person/number marking	57 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
Exponence of Tense-Aspect-Mood Inflection	monoexponential TAM	127 of 160
Zero Marking of A and P Arguments	Non-zero marking	219 of 235

Nouns and pronouns 23

Feature	Value	Languages sharing it
Pronominal and Adnominal Demonstratives	Different inflectional features	21 of 201
Ordinal Numerals	One-th, two-th, three-th	41 of 321
Indefinite Articles	Numeral for 'one' is used as indefinite article	112 of 534
Conjunctions and Universal Quantifiers	Formally similar, not involving interrogative expression	33 of 116
Position of Pronominal Possessive Affixes	No possessive affixes	260 of 902
Distributive Numerals	Marked by reduplication	85 of 251
Inclusive/Exclusive Distinction in Verbal Inflection	No person marking at all	70 of 200
Distance Contrasts in Demonstratives	Three-way contrast	88 of 234
Plurality in Independent Personal Pronouns	Person-number stem	114 of 261
Position of Case Affixes	Case suffixes	452 of 1,031
The Associative Plural	Associative plural marker also used for additive plurals	104 of 236
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
Systems of Gender Assignment	No gender system	145 of 257
Indefinite Pronouns	Interrogative-based indefinites	194 of 326
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 8

Feature	Value	Languages sharing it
Adjectives without Nouns	Adjective may occur without noun, obligatorily marked by suffix	13 of 124
Action Nominal Constructions	Sentential	25 of 168
Possessive Classification	No possessive classification	125 of 243
Nominal and Verbal Conjunction	Nominal and verbal conjunction are largely identical	161 of 301
Genitives, Adjectives and Relative Clauses	Highly differentiated	77 of 138
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 17

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
The Optative	Inflectional optative present	48 of 319
The Morphological Imperative	Second person number-neutral	89 of 548
The Prohibitive	Special imperative + special negative	146 of 496
Coding of Evidentiality	Verbal affix or clitic	131 of 418
The Perfect	Other perfect	80 of 222
Epistemic Possibility	Other	91 of 240
Semantic Distinctions of Evidentiality	Only indirect evidentials	166 of 418
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	Inflectional marking of future/non-future distinction	110 of 222
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
Situational Possibility	Verbal constructions	158 of 234
Verbal Number and Suppletion	No singular-(dual)-plural pairs/triples	159 of 193

Word order 12

Feature	Value	Languages sharing it
Order of Adverbial Subordinator and Clause	Suffixal adverbial subordinators	64 of 659
Order of Relative Clause and Noun	Relative clause precedes noun (RelN)	141 of 824
Order of Adjective and Noun	Modifying adjective precedes noun (AdjN)	373 of 1,367
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 Object and Verb	Object precedes verb (OV)	712 of 1,518
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
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 22

Feature	Value	Languages sharing it
Alignment of Case Marking of Pronouns	Ergative - absolutive	20 of 172
Alignment of Case Marking of Full Noun Phrases	Ergative - absolutive	32 of 190
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
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
Predicative Adjectives	Predicative adjectives have nonverbal encoding	132 of 386
Symmetric and Asymmetric Standard Negation	Symmetric and asymmetric standard negation: Type SymAsy	130 of 297
Comparative Constructions	Locational Comparative	78 of 167
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
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
Passive Constructions	There is no passive construction	211 of 373
Periphrastic Causative Constructions	Purposive type but no sequential type	68 of 118
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 7

Feature	Value	Languages sharing it
Utterance Complement Clauses	Balanced/deranked	18 of 143
Reason Clauses	Balanced/deranked	37 of 169
'When' Clauses	Deranked	51 of 174
Relativization on Obliques	Gap Strategy	55 of 112
'Want' Complement Subjects	The complement subject is left implicit	144 of 283
Purpose Clauses	Deranked	102 of 170
Relativization on Subjects	Gap	125 of 166

Vocabulary 7

Feature	Value	Languages sharing it
Numeral Bases	Hybrid vigesimal-decimal	22 of 196
Hand and Arm	Identity: a single word denotes both 'hand' and 'arm'	228 of 617
M in Second Person Singular	No m in second person singular	152 of 230
M in First Person Singular	No m in first person singular	177 of 230
N-M Pronouns	No N-M pronouns	194 of 230
M-T Pronouns	No M-T pronouns	200 of 230
Finger and Hand	Different	521 of 593