Semelai
Austro-Asiatic family · Aslian branch · Eurasia
WALS records no dominant basic order of subject, object and verb for Semelai, a group that holds 189 of the 1,376 languages it codes for this feature.
On Glottalized Consonants, WALS codes Semelai as “Glottalized resonants only”, a value held by 4 of the 567 languages coded, Wari' among them.
On Alignment of Case Marking of Pronouns, WALS codes Semelai as “Tripartite”, a value held by 3 of the 172 languages coded, the others being Hindi and Nez Perce.
The closest grammar profile to Semelai in the atlas belongs to West Makian, a North Halmaheran language: the two agree on 31 of the 41 features both have coded.
Contrast Semelai with West Makian or with any other language
Uncommon values
Values that fewer than one in ten of the coded languages share with Semelai, rarest first.
- Alignment of Case Marking of Full Noun PhrasesTripartite4 of 190
- Inclusive/Exclusive Distinction in Independent PronounsOnly inclusive differentiated5 of 200
- Number of Cases3 case categories9 of 261
- Inclusive/Exclusive Distinction in Verbal InflectionOnly inclusive differentiated9 of 200
- Adjectives without NounsAdjective may occur without noun, obligatorily marked by prefix7 of 124
- Indefinite PronounsMixed indefinites23 of 326
- Order of Subject and VerbBoth orders with neither order dominant110 of 1,496
- Alignment of Verbal Person MarkingSplit alignment28 of 380
Inside the Austro-Asiatic family
Semelai matches the most frequent Austro-Asiatic value on 53 of the 86 features where at least three other members of the family are coded (62%). Among the 9 Austro-Asiatic languages profiled here, that rate ranks seventh from the top.
| Feature | Semelai | Most relatives |
|---|---|---|
| Polar Questions | Interrogative intonation only | Question particle (16 of 19) |
| Asymmetrical Case-Marking | Additive-quantitatively asymmetrical case-marking | No morphological case-marking (4 of 5) |
Closest profiles
Languages that share the most coded values with Semelai; the count is out of the features both languages are coded for.
The rest of the profile
WALS codes Semelai for 89 of the 144 profile features used on this site. The remaining 76 are listed here, grouped by topic; within each group the value Semelai shares with the fewest languages comes first.
Sounds 18
| Feature | Value | Languages sharing it |
|---|---|---|
| Fixed Stress Locations | Ultimate: stress is on the ultimate (last) syllable | 51 of 502 |
| Consonant Inventories | Moderately large | 94 of 563 |
| Vowel Nasalization | Contrastive nasal vowels present | 64 of 244 |
| Rhythm Types | Absent: no rhythmic stress | 98 of 323 |
| The Velar Nasal | Velar nasal, also initially | 147 of 469 |
| Vowel Quality Inventories | Large vowel inventory (7-14) | 184 of 564 |
| Voicing in Plosives and Fricatives | Voicing contrast in plosives alone | 189 of 567 |
| Consonant-Vowel Ratio | Average | 234 of 564 |
| Voicing and Gaps in Plosive Systems | /p t k b d g/ | 255 of 567 |
| 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 |
| Syllable Structure | Moderately complex syllable structure | 274 of 486 |
| Tone | No tones | 307 of 527 |
| Lateral Consonants | /l/, no obstruent laterals | 388 of 567 |
| Presence of Uncommon Consonants | None | 449 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 5
| 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 is dependent-marked | 63 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 13
| Feature | Value | Languages sharing it |
|---|---|---|
| Plurality in Independent Personal Pronouns | Person stem with a pronominal plural affix | 23 of 261 |
| Numeral Classifiers | Numeral classifiers are obligatory | 78 of 400 |
| Distributive Numerals | No distributive numerals | 62 of 251 |
| Conjunctions and Universal Quantifiers | Formally different | 40 of 116 |
| Position of Case Affixes | Neither case affixes nor adpositional clitics | 379 of 1,031 |
| Third Person Pronouns and Demonstratives | Unrelated | 100 of 225 |
| Distance Contrasts in Demonstratives | Two-way contrast | 126 of 234 |
| Person Marking on Adpositions | Adpositions without person marking | 209 of 378 |
| Number of Genders | None | 145 of 257 |
| Sex-based and Non-sex-based Gender Systems | No gender system | 145 of 257 |
| Systems of Gender Assignment | No gender system | 145 of 257 |
| Gender Distinctions in Independent Personal Pronouns | No gender distinctions | 254 of 378 |
| Pronominal and Adnominal Demonstratives | Same forms | 143 of 201 |
Noun phrases 1
| Feature | Value | Languages sharing it |
|---|---|---|
| Genitives, Adjectives and Relative Clauses | Weakly differentiated | 15 of 138 |
Verbs: tense, mood, evidence 14
| Feature | Value | Languages sharing it |
|---|---|---|
| The Perfect | Perfect derived from word meaning 'finish' or 'already' | 21 of 222 |
| The Morphological Imperative | No second-person imperatives | 122 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 |
| The Future Tense | No inflectional marking of future/non-future distinction | 112 of 222 |
| Overlap between Situational and Epistemic Modal Marking | No overlap | 105 of 207 |
| Imperative-Hortative Systems | The language has neither a maximal nor a minimal system | 201 of 375 |
| Perfective/Imperfective Aspect | No grammatical marking of perfective/imperfective distinction | 121 of 222 |
| Suppletion According to Tense and Aspect | No suppletion in tense or aspect | 123 of 193 |
| Situational Possibility | Verbal constructions | 158 of 234 |
| Suppletion in Imperatives and Hortatives | None (= no suppletive imperatives reported in the reference material) | 153 of 193 |
| Verbal Number and Suppletion | No singular-(dual)-plural pairs/triples | 159 of 193 |
| The Optative | Inflectional optative absent | 271 of 319 |
Word order 10
| Feature | Value | Languages sharing it |
|---|---|---|
| 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 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 |
|---|---|---|
| Verbal Person Marking | Person marking of only the A argument | 73 of 378 |
| Subtypes of Asymmetric Standard Negation | In other grammatical categories: Subtype A/Cat | 82 of 297 |
| Negative Morphemes | Negative particle | 502 of 1,157 |
| Passive Constructions | There is a passive construction | 162 of 373 |
| Symmetric and Asymmetric Standard Negation | Symmetric and asymmetric standard negation: Type SymAsy | 130 of 297 |
| 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 |
| Expression of Pronominal Subjects | Pronominal subjects are expressed by affixes on verbs | 437 of 711 |
| Nonperiphrastic Causative Constructions | Morphological type but no compound type | 254 of 310 |
Complex sentences 4
| Feature | Value | Languages sharing it |
|---|---|---|
| Purpose Clauses | Balanced | 38 of 170 |
| 'When' Clauses | Balanced | 84 of 174 |
| Reason Clauses | Balanced | 90 of 169 |
| Utterance Complement Clauses | Balanced | 114 of 143 |
Other 1
| Feature | Value | Languages sharing it |
|---|---|---|
| Para-Linguistic Usages of Clicks | Clicks may express neither affective nor logical meanings | 25 of 143 |