Mixtec (Chalcatongo)
Oto-Manguean family · Mixtec branch · North America
Mixtec (Chalcatongo) 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.
On Polar Questions, WALS codes Mixtec (Chalcatongo) as “No interrogative-declarative distinction”, a value held by 1 of the 955 languages coded.
On Inclusive/Exclusive Distinction in Independent Pronouns, WALS codes Mixtec (Chalcatongo) as “Only inclusive differentiated”, a value held by 5 of the 200 languages coded, Canela and Imonda among them.
On Expression of Pronominal Subjects, 6 of 7 other Oto-Manguean languages coded have the value “Pronominal subjects are expressed by affixes on verbs”; Mixtec (Chalcatongo) has “More than one of the above types with none dominant”.
Contrast Mixtec (Chalcatongo) with Chinantec (Lealao) or with any other language
Uncommon values
Values that fewer than one in ten of the coded languages share with Mixtec (Chalcatongo), rarest first.
- Inclusive/Exclusive Distinction in Verbal InflectionOnly inclusive differentiated9 of 200
- Suppletion According to Tense and AspectSuppletion according to aspect10 of 193
- Negative Indefinite Pronouns and Predicate NegationNegative indefinites preclude predicate negation11 of 206
- Adjectives without NounsAdjective may occur without noun, obligatorily marked by prefix7 of 124
- Prefixing vs. Suffixing in Inflectional MorphologyPredominantly prefixing58 of 969
- Presence of Uncommon Consonants'Th' sounds40 of 567
- Plurality in Independent Personal PronounsPerson stem with a nominal plural affix19 of 261
- Number of GendersFive or more24 of 257
Inside the Oto-Manguean family
Mixtec (Chalcatongo) matches the most frequent Oto-Manguean value on 40 of the 59 features where at least three other members of the family are coded (68%). Among the 4 Oto-Manguean languages profiled here, that rate ranks second from the top.
Closest profiles
Languages that share the most coded values with Mixtec (Chalcatongo); the count is out of the features both languages are coded for.
The rest of the profile
WALS codes Mixtec (Chalcatongo) for 118 of the 144 profile features used on this site. The remaining 106 are listed here, grouped by topic; within each group the value Mixtec (Chalcatongo) shares with the fewest languages comes first.
Sounds 14
| Feature | Value | Languages sharing it |
|---|---|---|
| Syllable Structure | Simple syllable structure | 61 of 486 |
| Tone | Complex tone system | 88 of 527 |
| Consonant Inventories | Moderately small | 122 of 563 |
| Vowel Nasalization | Contrastive nasal vowels present | 64 of 244 |
| Voicing in Plosives and Fricatives | Voicing contrast in both plosives and fricatives | 158 of 567 |
| Consonant-Vowel Ratio | Average | 234 of 564 |
| Voicing and Gaps in Plosive Systems | Other | 242 of 567 |
| The Velar Nasal | No velar nasal | 235 of 469 |
| Vowel Quality Inventories | Average vowel inventory (5-6) | 287 of 564 |
| Lateral Consonants | /l/, no obstruent laterals | 388 of 567 |
| Glottalized Consonants | No glottalized consonants | 409 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 |
|---|---|---|
| Locus of Marking in Possessive Noun Phrases | Possessor has no marking | 32 of 236 |
| Locus of Marking in the Clause | P has no marking | 42 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 | No case | 75 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 |
| 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 19
| Feature | Value | Languages sharing it |
|---|---|---|
| Ordinal Numerals | Zero: Ordinal numerals do not exist | 33 of 321 |
| The Associative Plural | Associative plural absent | 37 of 236 |
| Coding of Nominal Plurality | Plural word | 170 of 1,066 |
| Occurrence of Nominal Plurality | Plural in all nouns, always optional | 55 of 291 |
| Systems of Gender Assignment | Semantic assignment | 53 of 257 |
| Person Marking on Adpositions | Person marking for pronouns only | 83 of 378 |
| Politeness Distinctions in Pronouns | Second person pronouns encode a binary politeness distinction | 49 of 207 |
| Position of Pronominal Possessive Affixes | No possessive affixes | 260 of 902 |
| Asymmetrical Case-Marking | No morphological case-marking | 81 of 261 |
| Definite Articles | Neither definite nor indefinite article | 198 of 620 |
| Sex-based and Non-sex-based Gender Systems | Sex-based gender system | 84 of 257 |
| Position of Case Affixes | Neither case affixes nor adpositional clitics | 379 of 1,031 |
| Indefinite Articles | Neither indefinite nor definite | 198 of 534 |
| Number of Cases | No morphological case-marking | 100 of 261 |
| Third Person Pronouns and Demonstratives | Unrelated | 100 of 225 |
| Distance Contrasts in Demonstratives | Two-way contrast | 126 of 234 |
| Intensifiers and Reflexive Pronouns | Intensifiers and reflexive pronouns are formally identical | 94 of 168 |
| Numeral Classifiers | Numeral classifiers are absent | 260 of 400 |
| Gender Distinctions in Independent Personal Pronouns | No gender distinctions | 254 of 378 |
Noun phrases 5
| Feature | Value | Languages sharing it |
|---|---|---|
| Action Nominal Constructions | No action nominals | 42 of 168 |
| Possessive Classification | No possessive classification | 125 of 243 |
| Nominal and Verbal Conjunction | Nominal and verbal conjunction are largely identical | 161 of 301 |
| Obligatory Possessive Inflection | No obligatorily possessed nouns | 201 of 244 |
| Number of Possessive Nouns | None reported | 233 of 243 |
Verbs: tense, mood, evidence 16
| Feature | Value | Languages sharing it |
|---|---|---|
| Position of Tense-Aspect Affixes | Tense-aspect prefixes | 153 of 1,131 |
| Suppletion in Imperatives and Hortatives | Imperative | 29 of 193 |
| The Morphological Imperative | Second person number-neutral | 89 of 548 |
| Epistemic Possibility | Affixes on verbs | 84 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 | Inflectional marking of future/non-future distinction | 110 of 222 |
| Overlap between Situational and Epistemic Modal Marking | No overlap | 105 of 207 |
| The Perfect | No perfect | 114 of 222 |
| Imperative-Hortative Systems | The language has neither a maximal nor a minimal system | 201 of 375 |
| Situational Possibility | Verbal constructions | 158 of 234 |
| Verbal Number and Suppletion | No singular-(dual)-plural pairs/triples | 159 of 193 |
| The Optative | Inflectional optative absent | 271 of 319 |
Word order 13
| Feature | Value | Languages sharing it |
|---|---|---|
| Order of Degree Word and Adjective | Both orders occur with neither order dominant | 62 of 481 |
| 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 |
| 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 Object, Oblique, and Verb | Verb-object-oblique (VOX) | 210 of 500 |
| Order of Adposition and Noun Phrase | Prepositions | 511 of 1,184 |
| Order of Demonstrative and Noun | Demonstrative word follows noun (NDem) | 562 of 1,225 |
| Order of Object and Verb | Object follows verb (VO) | 705 of 1,518 |
| 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 17
| Feature | Value | Languages sharing it |
|---|---|---|
| Verbal Person Marking | Person marking of only the A argument | 73 of 378 |
| Periphrastic Causative Constructions | Sequential type but no purposive type | 35 of 118 |
| 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 |
| Negative Morphemes | Negative particle | 502 of 1,157 |
| Alignment of Case Marking of Pronouns | Neutral | 79 of 172 |
| Third Person Zero of Verbal Person Marking | No zero realization of third person S forms | 181 of 380 |
| 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 |
| 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 |
| Alignment of Verbal Person Marking | Accusative alignment | 212 of 380 |
| Passive Constructions | There is no passive construction | 211 of 373 |
| 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 7
| Feature | Value | Languages sharing it |
|---|---|---|
| Purpose Clauses | Balanced | 38 of 170 |
| 'Want' Complement Subjects | The complement subject is expressed overtly | 72 of 283 |
| 'When' Clauses | Balanced | 84 of 174 |
| Relativization on Obliques | Gap Strategy | 55 of 112 |
| Reason Clauses | Balanced | 90 of 169 |
| Relativization on Subjects | Gap | 125 of 166 |
| Utterance Complement Clauses | Balanced | 114 of 143 |
Vocabulary 5
| Feature | Value | Languages sharing it |
|---|---|---|
| Numeral Bases | Hybrid vigesimal-decimal | 22 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 |