Mandarin

Sino-Tibetan family · Chinese branch · Eurasia

Mandarin is an SVO language, like 488 of the 1,376 languages WALS codes for basic word order.

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

On Nonperiphrastic Causative Constructions, WALS codes Mandarin as “Compound type but no morphological type”, a value held by 9 of the 310 languages coded, Kayah Li (Eastern) and Vietnamese among them.

On Purpose Clauses, all 5 other Sino-Tibetan languages coded have the value “Deranked”; Mandarin has “Balanced”.

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

Contrast Mandarin with Cantonese or with any other language

Uncommon values

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

Order of Object, Oblique, and VerbOblique-verb-object (XVO)3 of 500
Inflectional Synthesis of the Verb0-1 category per word5 of 145
Order of Adposition and Noun PhraseMore than one adposition type with none dominant58 of 1,184
Number of Basic Colour Categories8 or between 8 and 9 categories6 of 119
Weight-Sensitive StressNot predictable26 of 500
Adjectives without NounsMarked by following word7 of 124
Voicing in Plosives and FricativesVoicing contrast in fricatives alone38 of 567
Occurrence of Nominal PluralityPlural only in human nouns, optional20 of 291

Inside the Sino-Tibetan family

Mandarin matches the most frequent Sino-Tibetan value on 79 of the 133 features where at least three other members of the family are coded (59%). Among the 15 Sino-Tibetan languages profiled here, that rate ranks tenth from the top.

Where Mandarin breaks with a clear majority of its relatives
Feature	Mandarin	Most relatives
Subtypes of Asymmetric Standard Negation	In finiteness: Subtype A/Fin	In other grammatical categories: Subtype A/Cat (8 of 9)
'When' Clauses	Balanced	Deranked (4 of 5)

Closest profiles

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

Cantonese Sino-Tibetan58 of 74
Hmong Njua Hmong-Mien68 of 102
Korean family of its own84 of 128
Vietnamese Austro-Asiatic82 of 125
Thai Tai-Kadai77 of 119

The rest of the profile

WALS codes Mandarin for 138 of the 144 profile features used on this site. The remaining 124 are listed here, grouped by topic; within each group the value Mandarin shares with the fewest languages comes first.

Sounds 15

Feature	Value	Languages sharing it
Weight Factors in Weight-Sensitive Stress Systems	Lexical: lexical stress, diacritic weight	38 of 500
Tone	Complex tone system	88 of 527
The Velar Nasal	Velar nasal, but not initially	87 of 469
Consonant Inventories	Average	201 of 563
Consonant-Vowel Ratio	Average	234 of 564
Voicing and Gaps in Plosive Systems	Other	242 of 567
Fixed Stress Locations	No fixed stress (mostly weight-sensitive stress)	220 of 502
Vowel Quality Inventories	Average vowel inventory (5-6)	287 of 564
Syllable Structure	Moderately complex syllable structure	274 of 486
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

Word structure 11

Feature	Value	Languages sharing it
Fusion of Selected Inflectional Formatives	Isolating/concatenative	13 of 165
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
Case Syncretism	Inflectional case marking is absent or minimal	123 of 198
Reduplication	Productive full and partial reduplication	278 of 368
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 25

Feature	Value	Languages sharing it
Indefinite Pronouns	Mixed indefinites	23 of 326
Plurality in Independent Personal Pronouns	Person stem with a nominal plural affix	19 of 261
Third Person Pronouns and Demonstratives	Related for non-human reference	17 of 225
Ordinal Numerals	One-th, two-th, three-th	41 of 321
Gender Distinctions in Independent Personal Pronouns	Gender distinctions in 3rd person singular only	61 of 378
Numeral Classifiers	Numeral classifiers are obligatory	78 of 400
The Associative Plural	Special non-bound associative plural marker	47 of 236
Politeness Distinctions in Pronouns	Second person pronouns encode a binary politeness distinction	49 of 207
Distributive Numerals	No distributive numerals	62 of 251
Position of Pronominal Possessive Affixes	No possessive affixes	260 of 902
Asymmetrical Case-Marking	No morphological case-marking	81 of 261
Inclusive/Exclusive Distinction in Independent Pronouns	Inclusive and exclusive differentiated	63 of 200
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
Conjunctions and Universal Quantifiers	Formally similar, involving interrogative expression	43 of 116
Number of Cases	No morphological case-marking	100 of 261
Coding of Nominal Plurality	Plural suffix	513 of 1,066
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
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
Comitatives and Instrumentals	Differentiation	213 of 322
Pronominal and Adnominal Demonstratives	Same forms	143 of 201

Noun phrases 7

Feature	Value	Languages sharing it
Genitives, Adjectives and Relative Clauses	Weakly differentiated	15 of 138
Action Nominal Constructions	No action nominals	42 of 168
Nominal and Verbal Conjunction	Nominal and verbal conjunction are different	125 of 301
Noun Phrase Conjunction	WITH-languages: 'and' and 'with' are identical	103 of 234
Possessive Classification	No possessive classification	125 of 243
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
Overlap between Situational and Epistemic Modal Marking	Overlap for both possibility and necessity	36 of 207
The Morphological Imperative	No second-person imperatives	122 of 548
Epistemic Possibility	Verbal constructions	65 of 240
The Prohibitive	Normal imperative + special negative	182 of 496
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
The Perfect	No perfect	114 of 222
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
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 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	Question particle at end of sentence	314 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 follows verb (VO)	705 of 1,518
Order of Degree Word and Adjective	Degree word precedes adjective (DegAdj)	227 of 481
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 23

Feature	Value	Languages sharing it
Expression of Pronominal Subjects	Optional pronouns in subject position	61 of 711
Ditransitive Constructions: The Verb 'Give'	Mixed	40 of 378
Comparative Constructions	Exceed Comparative	33 of 167
Predicative Possession	Topic Possessive	48 of 240
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
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
Symmetric and Asymmetric Standard Negation	Symmetric and asymmetric standard negation: Type SymAsy	130 of 297
Alignment of Case Marking of Pronouns	Neutral	79 of 172
Order of Person Markers on the Verb	A and P do not or do not both occur on the verb	187 of 379
Alignment of Case Marking of Full Noun Phrases	Neutral	98 of 190
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
Reciprocal Constructions	Distinct from reflexive	99 of 175
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
Negative Indefinite Pronouns and Predicate Negation	Negative indefinites co-occur with predicate negation	170 of 206

Complex sentences 5

Feature	Value	Languages sharing it
Relativization on Obliques	Gap Strategy	55 of 112
'Want' Complement Subjects	The complement subject is left implicit	144 of 283
Reason Clauses	Balanced	90 of 169
Relativization on Subjects	Gap	125 of 166
Utterance Complement Clauses	Balanced	114 of 143

Vocabulary 11

Feature	Value	Languages sharing it
Number of Non-Derived Basic Colour Categories	6 categories	29 of 119
Green and Blue	Green and blue	30 of 120
Tea	Words derived from Sinitic cha	110 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
Red and Yellow	Red and yellow	98 of 120
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