Malagasy
Austronesian family · Barito branch · Africa
Malagasy puts its words in verb-object-subject order (VOS), one of only 25 with that basic order among the 1,376 languages WALS codes for this feature.
On Order of Demonstrative and Noun, WALS codes Malagasy as “Demonstrative simultaneously before and after noun”, a value held by 17 of the 1,225 languages coded, Beja and Tümpisa Shoshone among them.
On Position of Case Affixes, WALS codes Malagasy as “Prepositional clitics”, a value held by 17 of the 1,031 languages coded, French and Hebrew (Modern) among them.
Contrast Malagasy with Paiwan or with any other language
Uncommon values
Values that fewer than one in ten of the coded languages share with Malagasy, rarest first.
- Distance Contrasts in DemonstrativesFive (or more)-way contrast4 of 234
- Distributive NumeralsMarked by following word5 of 251
- Locus of Marking in Possessive Noun PhrasesOther types6 of 236
- Position of Polar Question ParticlesQuestion particle in either of two positions26 of 884
- Other Roles of Applied ObjectsInstrument and locative12 of 183
- Relativization on ObliquesNot possible10 of 112
- Coding of Nominal PluralityNo plural98 of 1,066
Inside the Austronesian family
Malagasy matches the most frequent Austronesian value on 79 of the 130 features where at least three other members of the family are coded (61%). Among the 38 Austronesian languages profiled here, that rate ranks 32nd from the top.
Closest profiles
Languages that share the most coded values with Malagasy; the count is out of the features both languages are coded for.
Outside the Austronesian family, the best match is Koyraboro Senni (Songhay), with 56 of 93 features alike.
The rest of the profile
WALS codes Malagasy for 130 of the 144 profile features used on this site. The remaining 120 are listed here, grouped by topic; within each group the value Malagasy shares with the fewest languages comes first.
Sounds 19
| Feature | Value | Languages sharing it |
|---|---|---|
| Consonant-Vowel Ratio | High | 69 of 564 |
| Vowel Quality Inventories | Small vowel inventory (2-4) | 93 of 564 |
| Consonant Inventories | Moderately large | 94 of 563 |
| Fixed Stress Locations | Penultimate | 110 of 502 |
| Voicing in Plosives and Fricatives | Voicing contrast in both plosives and fricatives | 158 of 567 |
| Rhythm Types | Absent: no rhythmic stress | 98 of 323 |
| The Velar Nasal | Velar nasal, also initially | 147 of 469 |
| Voicing and Gaps in Plosive Systems | /p t k b d g/ | 255 of 567 |
| 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 |
| 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 |
|---|---|---|
| Prefixing vs. Suffixing in Inflectional Morphology | Little or no inflectional morphology | 141 of 969 |
| Locus of Marking in the Clause | P is dependent-marked | 63 of 236 |
| Inflectional Synthesis of the Verb | 4-5 categories per word | 52 of 145 |
| Syncretism in Verbal Person/Number Marking | Subject person/number marking is never syncretic | 81 of 198 |
| Exponence of Selected Inflectional Formatives | Monoexponential case | 71 of 162 |
| Locus of Marking: Whole-language Typology | Inconsistent marking or other type | 121 of 236 |
| Case Syncretism | Inflectional case marking is absent or minimal | 123 of 198 |
| 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 |
| Zero Marking of A and P Arguments | Non-zero marking | 219 of 235 |
Nouns and pronouns 21
| Feature | Value | Languages sharing it |
|---|---|---|
| Indefinite Articles | No indefinite article but definite article | 98 of 534 |
| Asymmetrical Case-Marking | Additive-quantitatively asymmetrical case-marking | 53 of 261 |
| Person Marking on Adpositions | Person marking for pronouns only | 83 of 378 |
| Indefinite Pronouns | Generic-noun-based indefinites | 85 of 326 |
| Position of Pronominal Possessive Affixes | No possessive affixes | 260 of 902 |
| 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 |
| Conjunctions and Universal Quantifiers | Formally similar, involving interrogative expression | 43 of 116 |
| Number of Cases | No morphological case-marking | 100 of 261 |
| 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 |
| 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 |
| Numeral Classifiers | Numeral classifiers are absent | 260 of 400 |
| 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 |
| Pronominal and Adnominal Demonstratives | Same forms | 143 of 201 |
Noun phrases 6
| Feature | Value | Languages sharing it |
|---|---|---|
| Adjectives without Nouns | Marked by preceding word | 18 of 124 |
| Genitives, Adjectives and Relative Clauses | Adjectives and relative clauses collapsed | 33 of 138 |
| Possessive Classification | No possessive classification | 125 of 243 |
| 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 |
|---|---|---|
| Position of Tense-Aspect Affixes | Tense-aspect prefixes | 153 of 1,131 |
| The Morphological Imperative | Second person number-neutral | 89 of 548 |
| The Prohibitive | Special imperative + special negative | 146 of 496 |
| Imperative-Hortative Systems | The language has a maximal system, but not a minimal one | 133 of 375 |
| Epistemic Possibility | Other | 91 of 240 |
| The Past Tense | No grammatical marking of past/non-past distinction | 88 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 Perfect | No perfect | 114 of 222 |
| Suppletion According to Tense and Aspect | No suppletion in tense or aspect | 123 of 193 |
| Situational Possibility | Verbal constructions | 158 of 234 |
| 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 Subject and Verb | Subject follows verb (VS) | 194 of 1,496 |
| Position of Interrogative Phrases in Content Questions | Interrogative phrases obligatorily initial | 264 of 902 |
| Order of Genitive and Noun | Noun-genitive (NGen) | 468 of 1,249 |
| Order of Object, Oblique, and Verb | Verb-object-oblique (VOX) | 210 of 500 |
| Order of Adposition and Noun Phrase | Prepositions | 511 of 1,184 |
| Order of Object and Verb | Object follows verb (VO) | 705 of 1,518 |
| Order of Numeral and Noun | Numeral follows noun (NNum) | 608 of 1,154 |
| 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 |
| Order of Relative Clause and Noun | Relative clause follows noun (NRel) | 579 of 824 |
Simple clauses 23
| Feature | Value | Languages sharing it |
|---|---|---|
| Expression of Pronominal Subjects | Obligatory pronouns in subject position | 82 of 711 |
| Comparative Constructions | Particle Comparative | 22 of 167 |
| 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 |
| Predicative Possession | Have-Possessive | 63 of 240 |
| Applicative Constructions | Benefactive and other; both bases | 49 of 183 |
| Alignment of Case Marking of Pronouns | Nominative - accusative (standard) | 61 of 172 |
| 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 |
| Predicative Adjectives | Predicative adjectives have verbal encoding | 151 of 386 |
| Negative Morphemes | Negative particle | 502 of 1,157 |
| 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 |
| Zero Copula for Predicate Nominals | Zero copula is impossible | 211 of 386 |
| Reciprocal Constructions | Distinct from reflexive | 99 of 175 |
| Periphrastic Causative Constructions | Purposive type but no sequential type | 68 of 118 |
| Polar Questions | Question particle | 585 of 955 |
| Nominal and Locational Predication | Different | 269 of 386 |
| 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 |
Complex sentences 4
| Feature | Value | Languages sharing it |
|---|---|---|
| Purpose Clauses | Balanced | 38 of 170 |
| 'When' Clauses | Balanced | 84 of 174 |
| Reason Clauses | Balanced | 90 of 169 |
| Relativization on Subjects | Gap | 125 of 166 |
Vocabulary 8
| Feature | Value | Languages sharing it |
|---|---|---|
| Tea | Words derived from Min Nan Chinese te | 84 of 230 |
| Hand and Arm | Different | 389 of 617 |
| Numeral Bases | Decimal | 125 of 196 |
| 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 |
Other 1
| Feature | Value | Languages sharing it |
|---|---|---|
| Para-Linguistic Usages of Clicks | Clicks may express affective but not logical meanings | 71 of 143 |