Quileute
Chimakuan family · North America
Quileute 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 Absence of Common Consonants, WALS codes Quileute as “No nasals”, a value held by 10 of the 567 languages coded, Pirahã and Epena Pedee among them.
The closest grammar profile to Quileute in the atlas belongs to Squamish, a Salishan language: the two agree on 33 of the 53 features both have coded.
On Distance Contrasts in Demonstratives, WALS codes Quileute as “Four-way contrast”, a value held by 9 of the 234 languages coded, Hausa and Asmat among them.
Contrast Quileute with Squamish or with any other language
Uncommon values
Values that fewer than one in ten of the coded languages share with Quileute, rarest first.
- Negative MorphemesNegative auxiliary verb47 of 1,157
- Lateral Consonants/l/ and lateral obstruents47 of 567
- Uvular ConsonantsUvular stops and continuants48 of 567
Closest profiles
Languages that share the most coded values with Quileute; the count is out of the features both languages are coded for.
The rest of the profile
WALS codes Quileute for 59 of the 144 profile features used on this site. The remaining 53 are listed here, grouped by topic; within each group the value Quileute shares with the fewest languages comes first.
Sounds 10
| Feature | Value | Languages sharing it |
|---|---|---|
| Glottalized Consonants | Ejectives only | 58 of 567 |
| Consonant-Vowel Ratio | High | 69 of 564 |
| Vowel Quality Inventories | Small vowel inventory (2-4) | 93 of 564 |
| Consonant Inventories | Moderately large | 94 of 563 |
| Tone | Simple tone system | 132 of 527 |
| Voicing in Plosives and Fricatives | Voicing contrast in plosives alone | 189 of 567 |
| Voicing and Gaps in Plosive Systems | /p t k b d g/ | 255 of 567 |
| The Velar Nasal | No velar nasal | 235 of 469 |
| Presence of Uncommon Consonants | None | 449 of 567 |
| Front Rounded Vowels | None | 525 of 562 |
Word structure 6
| Feature | Value | Languages sharing it |
|---|---|---|
| Prefixing vs. Suffixing in Inflectional Morphology | Moderate preference for suffixing | 123 of 969 |
| Locus of Marking in the Clause | P is double-marked | 58 of 236 |
| Locus of Marking in Possessive Noun Phrases | Possessor is head-marked | 78 of 236 |
| Locus of Marking: Whole-language Typology | Inconsistent marking or other type | 121 of 236 |
| Reduplication | Productive full and partial reduplication | 278 of 368 |
| Zero Marking of A and P Arguments | Non-zero marking | 219 of 235 |
Nouns and pronouns 7
| Feature | Value | Languages sharing it |
|---|---|---|
| Gender Distinctions in Independent Personal Pronouns | 3rd person only, but also non-singular | 42 of 378 |
| Coding of Nominal Plurality | Plural prefix | 126 of 1,066 |
| Person Marking on Adpositions | No adpositions | 63 of 378 |
| Indefinite Articles | Indefinite word distinct from numeral for 'one' | 102 of 534 |
| Position of Pronominal Possessive Affixes | Possessive suffixes | 355 of 902 |
| Position of Case Affixes | Case suffixes | 452 of 1,031 |
| Numeral Classifiers | Numeral classifiers are absent | 260 of 400 |
Noun phrases 3
| Feature | Value | Languages sharing it |
|---|---|---|
| Obligatory Possessive Inflection | Obligatorily possessed nouns exist | 43 of 244 |
| Possessive Classification | Two classes | 94 of 243 |
| Number of Possessive Nouns | None reported | 233 of 243 |
Verbs: tense, mood, evidence 2
| Feature | Value | Languages sharing it |
|---|---|---|
| Coding of Evidentiality | Verbal affix or clitic | 131 of 418 |
| Semantic Distinctions of Evidentiality | Only indirect evidentials | 166 of 418 |
Word order 9
| 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 |
| 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 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 9
| Feature | Value | Languages sharing it |
|---|---|---|
| Subtypes of Asymmetric Standard Negation | In finiteness: Subtype A/Fin | 40 of 297 |
| Order of Person Markers on the Verb | P precedes A | 57 of 379 |
| Polar Questions | Interrogative verb morphology | 164 of 955 |
| Symmetric and Asymmetric Standard Negation | Asymmetric standard negation only: Type Asy | 53 of 297 |
| Predicative Possession | Topic Possessive | 48 of 240 |
| Passive Constructions | There is a passive construction | 162 of 373 |
| Third Person Zero of Verbal Person Marking | No zero realization of third person S forms | 181 of 380 |
| Verbal Person Marking | Person marking of both the A and P arguments | 193 of 378 |
| Alignment of Verbal Person Marking | Accusative alignment | 212 of 380 |
Vocabulary 7
| Feature | Value | Languages sharing it |
|---|---|---|
| Finger and Hand | Identical | 72 of 593 |
| Hand and Arm | Identity: a single word denotes both 'hand' and 'arm' | 228 of 617 |
| Numeral Bases | Decimal | 125 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 |