Mupun
Afro-Asiatic family · West Chadic branch · Africa
Mupun is an SVO language, like 488 of the 1,376 languages WALS codes for basic word order.
On Genitives, Adjectives and Relative Clauses, WALS codes Mupun as “Moderately differentiated; other”, a value held by 3 of the 138 languages coded, the others being Thai and Batak (Karo).
The closest grammar profile to Mupun in the atlas belongs to Khmer, an Austro-Asiatic language: the two agree on 29 of the 40 features both have coded.
On Verbal Number and Suppletion, all 12 other Afro-Asiatic languages coded have the value “No singular-(dual)-plural pairs/triples”; Mupun has “Singular-plural pairs, no suppletion”.
Contrast Mupun with Khmer or with any other language
Uncommon values
Values that fewer than one in ten of the coded languages share with Mupun, rarest first.
- Gender Distinctions in Independent Personal PronounsGender distinctions in 3rd person plus 1st and/or 2nd person18 of 378
- Negative MorphemesNegative word, unclear if verb or particle73 of 1,157
- Verbal Person MarkingPerson marking of only the P argument24 of 378
- Third Person Pronouns and DemonstrativesRelated for non-human reference17 of 225
Inside the Afro-Asiatic family
Mupun matches the most frequent Afro-Asiatic value on 27 of the 49 features where at least three other members of the family are coded (55%). Among the 24 Afro-Asiatic languages profiled here, that rate ranks 21st from the top.
| Feature | Mupun | Most relatives |
|---|---|---|
| Expression of Pronominal Subjects | Obligatory pronouns in subject position | Subject pronouns in different position (4 of 5, West Chadic branch) |
Closest profiles
Languages that share the most coded values with Mupun; the count is out of the features both languages are coded for.
The rest of the profile
WALS codes Mupun for 49 of the 144 profile features used on this site. The remaining 41 are listed here, grouped by topic; within each group the value Mupun shares with the fewest languages comes first.
Word structure 1
| Feature | Value | Languages sharing it |
|---|---|---|
| Prefixing vs. Suffixing in Inflectional Morphology | Little or no inflectional morphology | 141 of 969 |
Nouns and pronouns 11
| 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 |
| Indefinite Articles | Indefinite word distinct from numeral for 'one' | 102 of 534 |
| Person Marking on Adpositions | Person marking for pronouns only | 83 of 378 |
| Position of Pronominal Possessive Affixes | No possessive affixes | 260 of 902 |
| Definite Articles | Definite word distinct from demonstrative | 216 of 620 |
| Position of Case Affixes | Neither case affixes nor adpositional clitics | 379 of 1,031 |
| 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 |
| Numeral Classifiers | Numeral classifiers are absent | 260 of 400 |
| Comitatives and Instrumentals | Differentiation | 213 of 322 |
Noun phrases 1
| Feature | Value | Languages sharing it |
|---|---|---|
| Nominal and Verbal Conjunction | Nominal and verbal conjunction are different | 125 of 301 |
Verbs: tense, mood, evidence 4
| Feature | Value | Languages sharing it |
|---|---|---|
| Position of Tense-Aspect Affixes | No tense-aspect inflection | 152 of 1,131 |
| The Morphological Imperative | Second person number-neutral | 89 of 548 |
| Suppletion According to Tense and Aspect | No suppletion in tense or aspect | 123 of 193 |
| Suppletion in Imperatives and Hortatives | None (= no suppletive imperatives reported in the reference material) | 153 of 193 |
Word order 13
| Feature | Value | Languages sharing it |
|---|---|---|
| Order of Degree Word and Adjective | Both orders occur with neither order dominant | 62 of 481 |
| Position of Polar Question Particles | Question particle at end of sentence | 314 of 884 |
| 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 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 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 |
| Order of Subject and Verb | Subject precedes verb (SV) | 1,192 of 1,496 |
Simple clauses 7
| Feature | Value | Languages sharing it |
|---|---|---|
| Predicative Possession | Conjunctional Possessive | 59 of 240 |
| Third Person Zero of Verbal Person Marking | No person marking of the S | 96 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 Verbal Person Marking | Accusative alignment | 212 of 380 |
| Passive Constructions | There is no passive construction | 211 of 373 |
| Polar Questions | Question particle | 585 of 955 |
Complex sentences 2
| Feature | Value | Languages sharing it |
|---|---|---|
| Utterance Complement Clauses | Balanced/deranked | 18 of 143 |
| 'Want' Complement Subjects | The complement subject is left implicit | 144 of 283 |
Vocabulary 2
| Feature | Value | Languages sharing it |
|---|---|---|
| Hand and Arm | Identity: a single word denotes both 'hand' and 'arm' | 228 of 617 |
| Finger and Hand | Different | 521 of 593 |