Maori
Austronesian family · Oceanic branch · Papunesia
Maori puts its words in verb-subject-object order (VSO), one of only 95 with that basic order among the 1,376 languages WALS codes for this feature.
Within the Oceanic branch, 5 of 6 other languages coded for Alignment of Case Marking of Full Noun Phrases have the value “Neutral”; Maori has “Nominative - accusative (standard)”.
Contrast Maori with Rapanui or with any other language
Uncommon values
Values that fewer than one in ten of the coded languages share with Maori, rarest first.
- Order of Demonstrative and NounTwo or more of above types with none dominant67 of 1,225
- Negative MorphemesNegative word, unclear if verb or particle73 of 1,157
- Indefinite PronounsMixed indefinites23 of 326
- Fusion of Selected Inflectional FormativesIsolating/concatenative13 of 165
- Third Person Pronouns and DemonstrativesRelated to remote demonstratives18 of 225
- Action Nominal ConstructionsMixed: Several patterns in the same language14 of 168
- Expression of Pronominal SubjectsOptional pronouns in subject position61 of 711
- Distributive NumeralsMarked by prefix23 of 251
Inside the Austronesian family
Maori matches the most frequent Austronesian value on 79 of the 129 features where at least three other members of the family are coded (61%). Among the 38 Austronesian languages profiled here, that rate ranks 30th from the top.
Closest profiles
Languages that share the most coded values with Maori; the count is out of the features both languages are coded for.
Outside the Austronesian family, the best match is Khmer (Austro-Asiatic), with 61 of 97 features alike.
The rest of the profile
WALS codes Maori for 129 of the 144 profile features used on this site. The remaining 119 are listed here, grouped by topic; within each group the value Maori shares with the fewest languages comes first.
Sounds 18
| Feature | Value | Languages sharing it |
|---|---|---|
| Consonant-Vowel Ratio | Low | 58 of 564 |
| Weight-Sensitive Stress | Unbounded: Stress can be anywhere in the word | 54 of 500 |
| Syllable Structure | Simple syllable structure | 61 of 486 |
| Weight Factors in Weight-Sensitive Stress Systems | Long vowel: long vowels are heavy for stress | 65 of 500 |
| Consonant Inventories | Small | 89 of 563 |
| Lateral Consonants | No laterals | 95 of 567 |
| The Velar Nasal | Velar nasal, also initially | 147 of 469 |
| Voicing in Plosives and Fricatives | No voicing contrast | 182 of 567 |
| 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 |
| 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 10
| Feature | Value | Languages sharing it |
|---|---|---|
| Prefixing vs. Suffixing in Inflectional Morphology | Little or no inflectional morphology | 141 of 969 |
| 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 |
| 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 24
| Feature | Value | Languages sharing it |
|---|---|---|
| Ordinal Numerals | One-th, two-th, three-th | 41 of 321 |
| Coding of Nominal Plurality | Plural word | 170 of 1,066 |
| Plurality in Independent Personal Pronouns | Person-number stem with a pronominal plural affix | 47 of 261 |
| Indefinite Articles | Indefinite word distinct from numeral for 'one' | 102 of 534 |
| The Associative Plural | Special non-bound associative plural marker | 47 of 236 |
| 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 |
| Conjunctions and Universal Quantifiers | Formally different | 40 of 116 |
| Definite Articles | Definite word distinct from demonstrative | 216 of 620 |
| 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 |
| Distance Contrasts in Demonstratives | Three-way contrast | 88 of 234 |
| Number of Cases | No morphological case-marking | 100 of 261 |
| Intensifiers and Reflexive Pronouns | Intensifiers and reflexive pronouns are formally differentiated | 74 of 168 |
| Occurrence of Nominal Plurality | Plural in all nouns, always obligatory | 133 of 291 |
| Person Marking on Adpositions | Adpositions without person marking | 209 of 378 |
| 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 |
| 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 |
| Pronominal and Adnominal Demonstratives | Same forms | 143 of 201 |
Noun phrases 6
| Feature | Value | Languages sharing it |
|---|---|---|
| Genitives, Adjectives and Relative Clauses | Adjectives and relative clauses collapsed | 33 of 138 |
| 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 |
|---|---|---|
| Position of Tense-Aspect Affixes | No tense-aspect inflection | 152 of 1,131 |
| The Morphological Imperative | No second-person imperatives | 122 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 |
| The Perfect | Other perfect | 80 of 222 |
| Epistemic Possibility | Other | 91 of 240 |
| The Past Tense | Past/non-past distinction marked; no remoteness distinction | 94 of 222 |
| Semantic Distinctions of Evidentiality | No grammatical evidentials | 181 of 418 |
| Coding of Evidentiality | No grammatical evidentials | 181 of 418 |
| 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 |
| Perfective/Imperfective Aspect | No grammatical marking of perfective/imperfective distinction | 121 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 12
| Feature | Value | Languages sharing it |
|---|---|---|
| Order of Subject and Verb | Subject follows verb (VS) | 194 of 1,496 |
| Order of Genitive and Noun | Noun-genitive (NGen) | 468 of 1,249 |
| Order of Degree Word and Adjective | Degree word follows adjective (AdjDeg) | 192 of 481 |
| Position of Polar Question Particles | No question particle | 355 of 884 |
| 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 |
| Position of Interrogative Phrases in Content Questions | Interrogative phrases not obligatorily initial | 615 of 902 |
| Order of Relative Clause and Noun | Relative clause follows noun (NRel) | 579 of 824 |
Simple clauses 22
| Feature | Value | Languages sharing it |
|---|---|---|
| Predicative Possession | Genitive Possessive | 22 of 240 |
| Subtypes of Asymmetric Standard Negation | In finiteness: Subtype A/Fin | 40 of 297 |
| Symmetric and Asymmetric Standard Negation | Asymmetric standard negation only: Type Asy | 53 of 297 |
| Polar Questions | Interrogative intonation only | 173 of 955 |
| Comparative Constructions | Conjoined Comparative | 34 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 |
| Third Person Zero of Verbal Person Marking | No person marking of the S | 96 of 380 |
| Predicative Adjectives | Predicative adjectives have mixed encoding | 103 of 386 |
| Alignment of Case Marking of Pronouns | Nominative - accusative (standard) | 61 of 172 |
| Passive Constructions | There is a passive construction | 162 of 373 |
| Zero Copula for Predicate Nominals | Zero copula is possible | 175 of 386 |
| 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 |
| Periphrastic Causative Constructions | Purposive type but no sequential type | 68 of 118 |
| 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 |
| Negative Indefinite Pronouns and Predicate Negation | Negative indefinites co-occur with predicate negation | 170 of 206 |
Complex sentences 6
| Feature | Value | Languages sharing it |
|---|---|---|
| 'When' Clauses | Balanced/deranked | 39 of 174 |
| 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 |
| Purpose Clauses | Deranked | 102 of 170 |
| Relativization on Subjects | Gap | 125 of 166 |
Vocabulary 4
| Feature | Value | Languages sharing it |
|---|---|---|
| Tea | Words derived from Min Nan Chinese te | 84 of 230 |
| Hand and Arm | Identity: a single word denotes both 'hand' and 'arm' | 228 of 617 |
| Numeral Bases | Decimal | 125 of 196 |
| Finger and Hand | Different | 521 of 593 |