Supyire
Niger-Congo family · Senufo branch · Africa
Supyire is an SOV language, like 564 of the 1,376 languages WALS codes for basic word order.
On Position of Interrogative Phrases in Content Questions, WALS codes Supyire as “Mixed, some interrogative phrases obligatorily initial, some not”, a value held by 23 of the 902 languages coded, Indonesian and Hausa among them.
On Numeral Bases, WALS codes Supyire as “Other base”, a value held by 5 of the 196 languages coded, Ngiti and Ekari among them.
The closest grammar profile to Supyire in the atlas belongs to Bambara, a Mande language: the two agree on 49 of the 69 features both have coded.
Contrast Supyire with Bambara or with any other language
Uncommon values
Values that fewer than one in ten of the coded languages share with Supyire, rarest first.
- Order of Relative Clause and NounCorrelative relative clause7 of 824
- Distance Contrasts in DemonstrativesNo distance contrast7 of 234
- Imperative-Hortative SystemsThe language has a minimal system, but not a maximal one20 of 375
- Voicing and Gaps in Plosive SystemsMissing /g/34 of 567
- Zero Marking of A and P ArgumentsZero-marking16 of 235
- Subtypes of Asymmetric Standard NegationA/Fin and A/Cat21 of 297
- The Morphological ImperativeSecond singular43 of 548
- Action Nominal ConstructionsMixed: Several patterns in the same language14 of 168
Inside the Niger-Congo family
Supyire matches the most frequent Niger-Congo value on 76 of the 130 features where at least three other members of the family are coded (58%). Among the 27 Niger-Congo languages profiled here, that rate ranks 26th from the top.
| Feature | Supyire | Most relatives |
|---|---|---|
| Number of Cases | Exclusively borderline morphological case-marking | No morphological case-marking (14 of 14) |
| Asymmetrical Case-Marking | Symmetrical case-marking | No morphological case-marking (14 of 14) |
| Suppletion According to Tense and Aspect | Suppletion in both tense and aspect | No suppletion in tense or aspect (9 of 10) |
| N-M Pronouns | N-M pronouns, paradigmatic | No N-M pronouns (8 of 9) |
Closest profiles
Languages that share the most coded values with Supyire; the count is out of the features both languages are coded for.
The rest of the profile
WALS codes Supyire for 130 of the 144 profile features used on this site. The remaining 115 are listed here, grouped by topic; within each group the value Supyire shares with the fewest languages comes first.
Sounds 17
| Feature | Value | Languages sharing it |
|---|---|---|
| Tone | Complex tone system | 88 of 527 |
| Fixed Stress Locations | Initial: stress is on the first syllable | 92 of 502 |
| Vowel Nasalization | Contrastive nasal vowels present | 64 of 244 |
| Voicing in Plosives and Fricatives | Voicing contrast in both plosives and fricatives | 158 of 567 |
| The Velar Nasal | Velar nasal, also initially | 147 of 469 |
| Vowel Quality Inventories | Large vowel inventory (7-14) | 184 of 564 |
| Consonant Inventories | Average | 201 of 563 |
| Consonant-Vowel Ratio | Average | 234 of 564 |
| 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 |
| Lateral Consonants | /l/, no obstruent laterals | 388 of 567 |
| Glottalized Consonants | No glottalized consonants | 409 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 10
| Feature | Value | Languages sharing it |
|---|---|---|
| Fusion of Selected Inflectional Formatives | Exclusively isolating | 16 of 165 |
| Prefixing vs. Suffixing in Inflectional Morphology | Moderate preference for suffixing | 123 of 969 |
| Inflectional Synthesis of the Verb | 2-3 categories per word | 24 of 145 |
| Locus of Marking in the Clause | P has no marking | 42 of 236 |
| Syncretism in Verbal Person/Number Marking | No subject person/number marking | 57 of 198 |
| Locus of Marking in Possessive Noun Phrases | Possessor is head-marked | 78 of 236 |
| Exponence of Selected Inflectional Formatives | No case | 75 of 162 |
| Locus of Marking: Whole-language Typology | Inconsistent marking or other type | 121 of 236 |
| Case Syncretism | Inflectional case marking is absent or minimal | 123 of 198 |
| Exponence of Tense-Aspect-Mood Inflection | monoexponential TAM | 127 of 160 |
Nouns and pronouns 24
| Feature | Value | Languages sharing it |
|---|---|---|
| Number of Genders | Five or more | 24 of 257 |
| Comitatives and Instrumentals | Mixed | 33 of 322 |
| Sex-based and Non-sex-based Gender Systems | Non-sex-based gender system | 28 of 257 |
| Gender Distinctions in Independent Personal Pronouns | 3rd person only, but also non-singular | 42 of 378 |
| Definite Articles | Definite affix on noun | 92 of 620 |
| Indefinite Articles | Indefinite word distinct from numeral for 'one' | 102 of 534 |
| The Associative Plural | Special non-bound associative plural marker | 47 of 236 |
| Systems of Gender Assignment | Semantic and formal assignment | 59 of 257 |
| Third Person Pronouns and Demonstratives | Related for all demonstratives | 52 of 225 |
| Conjunctions and Universal Quantifiers | Formally similar, not involving interrogative expression | 33 of 116 |
| Position of Pronominal Possessive Affixes | No possessive affixes | 260 of 902 |
| Distributive Numerals | Marked by reduplication | 85 of 251 |
| Ordinal Numerals | First, two-th, three-th | 110 of 321 |
| Inclusive/Exclusive Distinction in Verbal Inflection | No person marking at all | 70 of 200 |
| Position of Case Affixes | Neither case affixes nor adpositional clitics | 379 of 1,031 |
| Plurality in Independent Personal Pronouns | Person-number stem | 114 of 261 |
| Intensifiers and Reflexive Pronouns | Intensifiers and reflexive pronouns are formally differentiated | 74 of 168 |
| Occurrence of Nominal Plurality | Plural in all nouns, always obligatory | 133 of 291 |
| Coding of Nominal Plurality | Plural suffix | 513 of 1,066 |
| Person Marking on Adpositions | Adpositions without person marking | 209 of 378 |
| Inclusive/Exclusive Distinction in Independent Pronouns | No inclusive/exclusive opposition | 120 of 200 |
| Numeral Classifiers | Numeral classifiers are absent | 260 of 400 |
| Politeness Distinctions in Pronouns | Second person pronouns encode no politeness distinction | 136 of 207 |
| Pronominal and Adnominal Demonstratives | Same forms | 143 of 201 |
Noun phrases 6
| Feature | Value | Languages sharing it |
|---|---|---|
| Nominal and Verbal Conjunction | Nominal and verbal conjunction are different | 125 of 301 |
| Possessive Classification | No possessive classification | 125 of 243 |
| Genitives, Adjectives and Relative Clauses | Highly differentiated | 77 of 138 |
| Adjectives without Nouns | Adjective may occur without noun, and without marking | 73 of 124 |
| Obligatory Possessive Inflection | No obligatorily possessed nouns | 201 of 244 |
| Number of Possessive Nouns | None reported | 233 of 243 |
Verbs: tense, mood, evidence 14
| Feature | Value | Languages sharing it |
|---|---|---|
| Position of Tense-Aspect Affixes | Combination of tense-aspect strategies with none primary | 146 of 1,131 |
| The Past Tense | Present, 2-3 remoteness distinctions | 38 of 222 |
| Epistemic Possibility | Verbal constructions | 65 of 240 |
| The Perfect | Other perfect | 80 of 222 |
| The Prohibitive | Normal imperative + special negative | 182 of 496 |
| Semantic Distinctions of Evidentiality | No grammatical evidentials | 181 of 418 |
| Coding of Evidentiality | No grammatical evidentials | 181 of 418 |
| Perfective/Imperfective Aspect | Grammatical marking of perfective/imperfective distinction | 101 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 |
| 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 |
|---|---|---|
| Order of Object, Oblique, and Verb | Object-verb-oblique (OVX) | 45 of 500 |
| Position of Polar Question Particles | Question particle at end of sentence | 314 of 884 |
| Order of Demonstrative and Noun | Demonstrative word precedes noun (DemN) | 542 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 |
| Order of Subject and Verb | Subject precedes verb (SV) | 1,192 of 1,496 |
Simple clauses 24
| Feature | Value | Languages sharing it |
|---|---|---|
| Expression of Pronominal Subjects | Obligatory pronouns in subject position | 82 of 711 |
| Periphrastic Causative Constructions | Both sequential type and purposive type | 15 of 118 |
| Verbal Person Marking | No person marking of any argument | 82 of 378 |
| Alignment of Verbal Person Marking | Neutral alignment (no verbal person marking) | 84 of 380 |
| Predicative Possession | Conjunctional Possessive | 59 of 240 |
| Reciprocal Constructions | Identical to reflexive | 44 of 175 |
| Third Person Zero of Verbal Person Marking | No person marking of the S | 96 of 380 |
| Predicative Adjectives | Predicative adjectives have mixed encoding | 103 of 386 |
| Negative Morphemes | Negative particle | 502 of 1,157 |
| 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 |
| 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 |
| Alignment of Case Marking of Full Noun Phrases | Neutral | 98 of 190 |
| Applicative Constructions | No applicative construction | 100 of 183 |
| Other Roles of Applied Objects | No applicative construction | 100 of 183 |
| Zero Copula for Predicate Nominals | Zero copula is impossible | 211 of 386 |
| Passive Constructions | There is no passive construction | 211 of 373 |
| Polar Questions | Question particle | 585 of 955 |
| Nominal and Locational Predication | Different | 269 of 386 |
| Antipassive Constructions | No antipassive | 146 of 194 |
| Productivity of the Antipassive Construction | no antipassive | 146 of 186 |
| Nonperiphrastic Causative Constructions | Morphological type but no compound type | 254 of 310 |
| Negative Indefinite Pronouns and Predicate Negation | Negative indefinites co-occur with predicate negation | 170 of 206 |
Complex sentences 7
| Feature | Value | Languages sharing it |
|---|---|---|
| Relativization on Obliques | Non-Reduction Strategy | 14 of 112 |
| Relativization on Subjects | Non-reduction | 24 of 166 |
| Purpose Clauses | Balanced/deranked | 30 of 170 |
| 'When' Clauses | Balanced/deranked | 39 of 174 |
| 'Want' Complement Subjects | The complement subject is left implicit | 144 of 283 |
| Reason Clauses | Balanced | 90 of 169 |
| Utterance Complement Clauses | Balanced | 114 of 143 |
Vocabulary 3
| Feature | Value | Languages sharing it |
|---|---|---|
| M in First Person Singular | m in first person singular | 53 of 230 |
| M in Second Person Singular | m in second person singular | 78 of 230 |
| M-T Pronouns | No M-T pronouns | 200 of 230 |