Serbian-Croatian
Indo-European family · Slavic branch · Eurasia
Serbian-Croatian is an SVO language, like 488 of the 1,376 languages WALS codes for basic word order.
On Position of Polar Question Particles, WALS codes Serbian-Croatian as “Question particle in either of two positions”, a value held by 26 of the 884 languages coded, Indonesian and Malagasy among them.
On Position of Tense-Aspect Affixes, 46 of 55 other Indo-European languages coded have the value “Tense-aspect suffixes”; Serbian-Croatian has “No tense-aspect inflection”.
On Suppletion in Imperatives and Hortatives, WALS codes Serbian-Croatian as “A regular and a suppletive form alternate”, a value held by 8 of the 193 languages coded, Bulgarian and Hungarian among them.
Contrast Serbian-Croatian with Russian or with any other language
Uncommon values
Values that fewer than one in ten of the coded languages share with Serbian-Croatian, rarest first.
- Number of Cases5 case categories12 of 261
- Order of Genitive and NounBoth orders occur with neither order dominant96 of 1,249
- Asymmetrical Case-MarkingSyncretism in relevant NP-types21 of 261
- Weight Factors in Weight-Sensitive Stress SystemsProminence: other factors are heavy for stress41 of 500
Inside the Indo-European family
Serbian-Croatian matches the most frequent Indo-European value on 35 of the 50 features where at least three other members of the family are coded (70%). Among the 39 Indo-European languages profiled here, that rate ranks 15th from the top.
Closest profiles
Languages that share the most coded values with Serbian-Croatian; the count is out of the features both languages are coded for.
Outside the Indo-European family, the best match is Finnish (Uralic), with 28 of 50 features alike.
The rest of the profile
WALS codes Serbian-Croatian for 50 of the 144 profile features used on this site. The remaining 42 are listed here, grouped by topic; within each group the value Serbian-Croatian shares with the fewest languages comes first.
Sounds 3
| Feature | Value | Languages sharing it |
|---|---|---|
| Weight-Sensitive Stress | Unbounded: Stress can be anywhere in the word | 54 of 500 |
| Rhythm Types | Absent: no rhythmic stress | 98 of 323 |
| Fixed Stress Locations | No fixed stress (mostly weight-sensitive stress) | 220 of 502 |
Word structure 1
| Feature | Value | Languages sharing it |
|---|---|---|
| Prefixing vs. Suffixing in Inflectional Morphology | Predominantly suffixing | 406 of 969 |
Nouns and pronouns 9
| Feature | Value | Languages sharing it |
|---|---|---|
| Ordinal Numerals | First, second, three-th | 61 of 321 |
| Position of Pronominal Possessive Affixes | No possessive affixes | 260 of 902 |
| Definite Articles | Neither definite nor indefinite article | 198 of 620 |
| Indefinite Articles | Neither indefinite nor definite | 198 of 534 |
| Position of Case Affixes | Case suffixes | 452 of 1,031 |
| Third Person Pronouns and Demonstratives | Unrelated | 100 of 225 |
| Occurrence of Nominal Plurality | Plural in all nouns, always obligatory | 133 of 291 |
| Coding of Nominal Plurality | Plural suffix | 513 of 1,066 |
| Indefinite Pronouns | Interrogative-based indefinites | 194 of 326 |
Noun phrases 1
| Feature | Value | Languages sharing it |
|---|---|---|
| Noun Phrase Conjunction | AND-languages: 'and' and 'with' are not identical | 131 of 234 |
Verbs: tense, mood, evidence 8
| Feature | Value | Languages sharing it |
|---|---|---|
| Suppletion According to Tense and Aspect | Suppletion in both tense and aspect | 24 of 193 |
| Overlap between Situational and Epistemic Modal Marking | Overlap for both possibility and necessity | 36 of 207 |
| The Prohibitive | Normal imperative + normal negative | 113 of 496 |
| Epistemic Possibility | Verbal constructions | 65 of 240 |
| The Morphological Imperative | Second singular and second plural | 292 of 548 |
| Imperative-Hortative Systems | The language has neither a maximal nor a minimal system | 201 of 375 |
| Situational Possibility | Verbal constructions | 158 of 234 |
| Verbal Number and Suppletion | No singular-(dual)-plural pairs/triples | 159 of 193 |
Word order 8
| Feature | Value | Languages sharing it |
|---|---|---|
| Order of Adjective and Noun | Modifying adjective precedes noun (AdjN) | 373 of 1,367 |
| Order of Numeral and Noun | Numeral precedes noun (NumN) | 479 of 1,154 |
| 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 Degree Word and Adjective | Degree word precedes adjective (DegAdj) | 227 of 481 |
| Order of Adverbial Subordinator and Clause | Initial subordinator word | 398 of 659 |
| Order of Subject and Verb | Subject precedes verb (SV) | 1,192 of 1,496 |
Simple clauses 8
| Feature | Value | Languages sharing it |
|---|---|---|
| Predicative Possession | Have-Possessive | 63 of 240 |
| Nominal and Locational Predication | Identical | 117 of 386 |
| Predicative Adjectives | Predicative adjectives have nonverbal encoding | 132 of 386 |
| Negative Morphemes | Negative particle | 502 of 1,157 |
| Zero Copula for Predicate Nominals | Zero copula is impossible | 211 of 386 |
| Polar Questions | Question particle | 585 of 955 |
| Expression of Pronominal Subjects | Pronominal subjects are expressed by affixes on verbs | 437 of 711 |
| Negative Indefinite Pronouns and Predicate Negation | Negative indefinites co-occur with predicate negation | 170 of 206 |
Vocabulary 3
| Feature | Value | Languages sharing it |
|---|---|---|
| Hand and Arm | Identity: a single word denotes both 'hand' and 'arm' | 228 of 617 |
| Tea | Words derived from Sinitic cha | 110 of 230 |
| Finger and Hand | Different | 521 of 593 |
Other 1
| Feature | Value | Languages sharing it |
|---|---|---|
| Para-Linguistic Usages of Clicks | Clicks may express logical meanings ('yes' and/or 'no') | 47 of 143 |