Nicobarese (Car)
Austro-Asiatic family · Nicobarese branch · Eurasia
Nicobarese (Car) puts its words in verb-object-subject order (VOS), one of only 25 with that basic order among the 1,376 languages WALS codes for this feature.
The closest grammar profile to Nicobarese (Car) in the atlas belongs to Chamorro, an Austronesian language: the two agree on 30 of the 46 features both have coded.
On Imperative-Hortative Systems, all 5 other Austro-Asiatic languages coded have the value “The language has neither a maximal nor a minimal system”; Nicobarese (Car) has “The language has a maximal system, but not a minimal one”.
On Position of Interrogative Phrases in Content Questions, WALS codes Nicobarese (Car) as “Mixed, some interrogative phrases obligatorily initial, some not”, a value held by 23 of the 902 languages coded, Indonesian and Hausa among them.
Contrast Nicobarese (Car) with Chamorro or with any other language
Uncommon values
Values that fewer than one in ten of the coded languages share with Nicobarese (Car), rarest first.
- Distributive NumeralsMarked by prefix23 of 251
- Coding of Nominal PluralityNo plural98 of 1,066
Inside the Austro-Asiatic family
Nicobarese (Car) matches the most frequent Austro-Asiatic value on 27 of the 48 features where at least three other members of the family are coded (56%). Among the 9 Austro-Asiatic languages profiled here, that rate ranks eighth from the top.
Closest profiles
Languages that share the most coded values with Nicobarese (Car); the count is out of the features both languages are coded for.
The rest of the profile
WALS codes Nicobarese (Car) for 51 of the 144 profile features used on this site. The remaining 46 are listed here, grouped by topic; within each group the value Nicobarese (Car) shares with the fewest languages comes first.
Word structure 6
| 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 | 6-7 categories per word | 31 of 145 |
| Prefixing vs. Suffixing in Inflectional Morphology | Predominantly suffixing | 406 of 969 |
| Locus of Marking: Whole-language Typology | Inconsistent marking or other type | 121 of 236 |
| Zero Marking of A and P Arguments | Non-zero marking | 219 of 235 |
Nouns and pronouns 8
| Feature | Value | Languages sharing it |
|---|---|---|
| Number of Genders | Three | 26 of 257 |
| Sex-based and Non-sex-based Gender Systems | Non-sex-based gender system | 28 of 257 |
| Numeral Classifiers | Numeral classifiers are optional | 62 of 400 |
| Systems of Gender Assignment | Semantic assignment | 53 of 257 |
| Indefinite Articles | Numeral for 'one' is used as indefinite article | 112 of 534 |
| 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 |
Noun phrases 4
| Feature | Value | Languages sharing it |
|---|---|---|
| Possessive Classification | No possessive classification | 125 of 243 |
| Noun Phrase Conjunction | AND-languages: 'and' and 'with' are not identical | 131 of 234 |
| Obligatory Possessive Inflection | No obligatorily possessed nouns | 201 of 244 |
| Number of Possessive Nouns | None reported | 233 of 243 |
Verbs: tense, mood, evidence 7
| Feature | Value | Languages sharing it |
|---|---|---|
| The Morphological Imperative | No second-person imperatives | 122 of 548 |
| The Prohibitive | Normal imperative + special negative | 182 of 496 |
| The Past Tense | No grammatical marking of past/non-past distinction | 88 of 222 |
| The Future Tense | No inflectional marking of future/non-future distinction | 112 of 222 |
| The Perfect | No perfect | 114 of 222 |
| Perfective/Imperfective Aspect | No grammatical marking of perfective/imperfective distinction | 121 of 222 |
| Position of Tense-Aspect Affixes | Tense-aspect suffixes | 667 of 1,131 |
Word order 10
| Feature | Value | Languages sharing it |
|---|---|---|
| Order of Subject and Verb | Subject follows verb (VS) | 194 of 1,496 |
| Order of Adjective and Noun | Modifying adjective precedes noun (AdjN) | 373 of 1,367 |
| 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 |
| 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 precedes noun (DemN) | 542 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 |
Simple clauses 7
| Feature | Value | Languages sharing it |
|---|---|---|
| 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 |
| Predicative Adjectives | Predicative adjectives have verbal encoding | 151 of 386 |
| Negative Morphemes | Negative particle | 502 of 1,157 |
| Zero Copula for Predicate Nominals | Zero copula is impossible | 211 of 386 |
| Nominal and Locational Predication | Different | 269 of 386 |
| Nonperiphrastic Causative Constructions | Morphological type but no compound type | 254 of 310 |
Vocabulary 4
| Feature | Value | Languages sharing it |
|---|---|---|
| M in Second Person Singular | m in second person singular | 78 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 |