Ngalakan
Gunwinyguan family · Eastern Gunwinyguan branch · Australia
WALS records no dominant basic order of subject, object and verb for Ngalakan, a group that holds 189 of the 1,376 languages it codes for this feature.
On Order of Adposition and Noun Phrase, WALS codes Ngalakan as “No adpositions”, a value held by 30 of the 1,184 languages coded, Nunggubuyu and Kayardild among them.
The closest grammar profile to Ngalakan in the atlas belongs to Mangarrayi, a Mangarrayi-Maran language: the two agree on 26 of the 43 features both have coded.
On Coding of Nominal Plurality, 4 of 5 other Gunwinyguan languages coded have the value “Plural prefix”; Ngalakan has “No plural”.
Contrast Ngalakan with Mangarrayi or with any other language
Uncommon values
Values that fewer than one in ten of the coded languages share with Ngalakan, rarest first.
- Order of Person Markers on the VerbBoth orders of A and P occur19 of 379
- Order of Object and VerbBoth orders with neither order dominant101 of 1,518
- Occurrence of Nominal PluralityPlural only in human nouns, optional20 of 291
- Order of Subject and VerbBoth orders with neither order dominant110 of 1,496
- Alignment of Verbal Person MarkingSplit alignment28 of 380
- Order of Genitive and NounBoth orders occur with neither order dominant96 of 1,249
Inside the Gunwinyguan family
Ngalakan matches the most frequent Gunwinyguan value on 12 of the 18 features where at least three other members of the family are coded (67%).
Closest profiles
Languages that share the most coded values with Ngalakan; the count is out of the features both languages are coded for.
The rest of the profile
WALS codes Ngalakan for 50 of the 144 profile features used on this site. The remaining 41 are listed here, grouped by topic; within each group the value Ngalakan shares with the fewest languages comes first.
Sounds 4
| Feature | Value | Languages sharing it |
|---|---|---|
| Fixed Stress Locations | Penultimate | 110 of 502 |
| Rhythm Types | Trochaic: left-hand syllable in the foot is strong | 153 of 323 |
| 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 |
Word structure 2
| Feature | Value | Languages sharing it |
|---|---|---|
| Prefixing vs. Suffixing in Inflectional Morphology | Moderate preference for suffixing | 123 of 969 |
| Reduplication | Productive full and partial reduplication | 278 of 368 |
Nouns and pronouns 9
| Feature | Value | Languages sharing it |
|---|---|---|
| Comitatives and Instrumentals | Mixed | 33 of 322 |
| Gender Distinctions in Independent Personal Pronouns | Gender distinctions in 3rd person singular only | 61 of 378 |
| Person Marking on Adpositions | No adpositions | 63 of 378 |
| Definite Articles | Neither definite nor indefinite article | 198 of 620 |
| Indefinite Articles | Neither indefinite nor definite | 198 of 534 |
| Position of Pronominal Possessive Affixes | Possessive suffixes | 355 of 902 |
| Position of Case Affixes | Case suffixes | 452 of 1,031 |
| Distance Contrasts in Demonstratives | Two-way contrast | 126 of 234 |
| Pronominal and Adnominal Demonstratives | Same forms | 143 of 201 |
Noun phrases 2
| Feature | Value | Languages sharing it |
|---|---|---|
| Nominal and Verbal Conjunction | Nominal and verbal conjunction are largely identical | 161 of 301 |
| Noun Phrase Conjunction | AND-languages: 'and' and 'with' are not identical | 131 of 234 |
Verbs: tense, mood, evidence 4
| Feature | Value | Languages sharing it |
|---|---|---|
| The Morphological Imperative | No second-person imperatives | 122 of 548 |
| 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 |
| The Optative | Inflectional optative absent | 271 of 319 |
Word order 5
| Feature | Value | Languages sharing it |
|---|---|---|
| Order of Degree Word and Adjective | Both orders occur with neither order dominant | 62 of 481 |
| Order of Object, Oblique, and Verb | More than one order with none dominant | 167 of 500 |
| Order of Demonstrative and Noun | Demonstrative word precedes noun (DemN) | 542 of 1,225 |
| 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 10
| Feature | Value | Languages sharing it |
|---|---|---|
| Third Person Zero of Verbal Person Marking | Zero realization of all third person singular S forms | 45 of 380 |
| Ditransitive Constructions: The Verb 'Give' | Secondary-object construction | 65 of 378 |
| Predicative Possession | Conjunctional Possessive | 59 of 240 |
| Predicative Adjectives | Predicative adjectives have mixed encoding | 103 of 386 |
| Nominal and Locational Predication | Identical | 117 of 386 |
| Negative Morphemes | Negative affix | 395 of 1,157 |
| Zero Copula for Predicate Nominals | Zero copula is possible | 175 of 386 |
| Verbal Person Marking | Person marking of both the A and P arguments | 193 of 378 |
| Passive Constructions | There is no passive construction | 211 of 373 |
| Nonperiphrastic Causative Constructions | Morphological type but no compound type | 254 of 310 |
Complex sentences 1
| Feature | Value | Languages sharing it |
|---|---|---|
| 'Want' Complement Subjects | 'Want' is expressed as a desiderative verbal affix | 45 of 283 |
Vocabulary 4
| Feature | Value | Languages sharing it |
|---|---|---|
| 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 |