Suena

Trans-New Guinea family · Binanderean branch · Papunesia

Suena is an SOV language, like 564 of the 1,376 languages WALS codes for basic word order.

The closest grammar profile to Suena in the atlas belongs to Waorani, a language WALS places in a family of its own: the two agree on 31 of the 40 features both have coded.

On Politeness Distinctions in Pronouns, all 6 other Trans-New Guinea languages coded have the value “Second person pronouns encode no politeness distinction”; Suena has “Second person pronouns encode a binary politeness distinction”.

On Number of Cases, WALS codes Suena as “4 case categories”, a value held by 9 of the 261 languages coded, German and Murle among them.

The order Suena uses in 7 pairings of a head word and its dependent. Bars: how all languages coded for each pairing split, before or after.

Contrast Suena with Waorani or with any other language

Uncommon values

Values that fewer than one in ten of the coded languages share with Suena, rarest first.

Occurrence of Nominal PluralityPlural only in human nouns, optional20 of 291
Expression of Pronominal SubjectsOptional pronouns in subject position61 of 711
Plurality in Independent Personal PronounsPerson stem with a pronominal plural affix23 of 261
Case SyncretismInflectional case marking is syncretic for core cases only18 of 198

Inside the Trans-New Guinea family

Suena matches the most frequent Trans-New Guinea value on 51 of the 84 features where at least three other members of the family are coded (61%). Among the 16 Trans-New Guinea languages profiled here, that rate ranks 13th from the top.

Where Suena breaks with a clear majority of its relatives
Feature	Suena	Most relatives
Inclusive/Exclusive Distinction in Independent Pronouns	Inclusive and exclusive differentiated	No inclusive/exclusive opposition (9 of 10)
Inclusive/Exclusive Distinction in Verbal Inflection	Inclusive and exclusive differentiated	No inclusive/exclusive opposition (9 of 10)
Situational Possibility	Verbal constructions	Affixes on verbs (8 of 9)

Closest profiles

Languages that share the most coded values with Suena; the count is out of the features both languages are coded for.

Daga Trans-New Guinea49 of 73
Bribri Chibchan30 of 45
Wappo Wappo-Yukian27 of 40
Warao family of its own48 of 77

The rest of the profile

WALS codes Suena for 84 of the 144 profile features used on this site. The remaining 74 are listed here, grouped by topic; within each group the value Suena shares with the fewest languages comes first.

Sounds 15

Feature	Value	Languages sharing it
Syllable Structure	Simple syllable structure	61 of 486
Consonant Inventories	Small	89 of 563
Lateral Consonants	No laterals	95 of 567
Consonant-Vowel Ratio	Moderately low	101 of 564
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
Vowel Quality Inventories	Average vowel inventory (5-6)	287 of 564
Glottalized Consonants	No glottalized consonants	409 of 567
Vowel Nasalization	Contrastive nasal vowels absent	180 of 244
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 6

Feature	Value	Languages sharing it
Locus of Marking in the Clause	P has no marking	42 of 236
Syncretism in Verbal Person/Number Marking	Subject person/number marking is syncretic	60 of 198
Locus of Marking in Possessive Noun Phrases	Possessor is dependent-marked	98 of 236
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 10

Feature	Value	Languages sharing it
Asymmetrical Case-Marking	Additive-quantitatively asymmetrical case-marking	53 of 261
Position of Pronominal Possessive Affixes	No possessive affixes	260 of 902
Position of Case Affixes	Case suffixes	452 of 1,031
Person Marking on Adpositions	Adpositions without person marking	209 of 378
Intensifiers and Reflexive Pronouns	Intensifiers and reflexive pronouns are formally identical	94 of 168
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
Numeral Classifiers	Numeral classifiers are absent	260 of 400
Gender Distinctions in Independent Personal Pronouns	No gender distinctions	254 of 378

Noun phrases 4

Feature	Value	Languages sharing it
Possessive Classification	No possessive classification	125 of 243
Nominal and Verbal Conjunction	Nominal and verbal conjunction are largely identical	161 of 301
Obligatory Possessive Inflection	No obligatorily possessed nouns	201 of 244
Number of Possessive Nouns	None reported	233 of 243

Verbs: tense, mood, evidence 13

Feature	Value	Languages sharing it
Coding of Evidentiality	Separate particle	65 of 418
The Past Tense	Present, 2-3 remoteness distinctions	38 of 222
Suppletion According to Tense and Aspect	Suppletion according to tense	36 of 193
Semantic Distinctions of Evidentiality	Only indirect evidentials	166 of 418
The Future Tense	Inflectional marking of future/non-future distinction	110 of 222
The Perfect	No perfect	114 of 222
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
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
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 Polar Question Particles	No question particle	355 of 884
Order of Demonstrative and Noun	Demonstrative word follows noun (NDem)	562 of 1,225
Order of Object and Verb	Object precedes verb (OV)	712 of 1,518
Order of Adposition and Noun Phrase	Postpositions	577 of 1,184
Order of Numeral and Noun	Numeral follows noun (NNum)	608 of 1,154
Order of Genitive and Noun	Genitive-noun (GenN)	685 of 1,249
Order of Adverbial Subordinator and Clause	Initial subordinator word	398 of 659
Order of Adjective and Noun	Modifying adjective follows noun (NAdj)	879 of 1,367
Position of Interrogative Phrases in Content Questions	Interrogative phrases not obligatorily initial	615 of 902
Order of Subject and Verb	Subject precedes verb (SV)	1,192 of 1,496

Simple clauses 15

Feature	Value	Languages sharing it
Subtypes of Asymmetric Standard Negation	In finiteness: Subtype A/Fin	40 of 297
Alignment of Case Marking of Full Noun Phrases	Ergative - absolutive	32 of 190
Polar Questions	Interrogative verb morphology	164 of 955
Verbal Person Marking	Person marking of only the A argument	73 of 378
Symmetric and Asymmetric Standard Negation	Symmetric and asymmetric standard negation: Type SymAsy	130 of 297
Alignment of Case Marking of Pronouns	Neutral	79 of 172
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
Applicative Constructions	No applicative construction	100 of 183
Other Roles of Applied Objects	No applicative construction	100 of 183
Alignment of Verbal Person Marking	Accusative alignment	212 of 380
Passive Constructions	There is no passive construction	211 of 373
Antipassive Constructions	No antipassive	146 of 194
Productivity of the Antipassive Construction	no antipassive	146 of 186

Complex sentences 1

Feature	Value	Languages sharing it
'Want' Complement Subjects	The complement subject is left implicit	144 of 283