Tlingit
Na-Dene family · Tlingit branch · North America
Tlingit is an SOV language, like 564 of the 1,376 languages WALS codes for basic word order.
On Absence of Common Consonants, WALS codes Tlingit as “No bilabials”, a value held by 4 of the 567 languages coded, Oneida and Wichita among them.
On Lateral Consonants, WALS codes Tlingit as “No /l/, but lateral obstruents”, a value held by 8 of the 567 languages coded, Chukchi and Kutenai among them.
The closest grammar profile to Tlingit in the atlas belongs to Quechua (Imbabura), a Quechuan language: the two agree on 39 of the 65 features both have coded.
Contrast Tlingit with Quechua (Imbabura) or with any other language
Uncommon values
Values that fewer than one in ten of the coded languages share with Tlingit, rarest first.
- Subtypes of Asymmetric Standard NegationA/NonReal and A/Cat11 of 297
- Distance Contrasts in DemonstrativesFour-way contrast9 of 234
- Person Marking on AdpositionsPerson marking for pronouns and nouns23 of 378
- Alignment of Verbal Person MarkingActive alignment26 of 380
- Order of Adjective and NounNo dominant order110 of 1,367
- Uvular ConsonantsUvular stops and continuants48 of 567
- Number of Cases8-9 case categories23 of 261
- Third Person Zero of Verbal Person MarkingZero in all 3rd person forms36 of 380
Inside the Na-Dene family
Tlingit matches the most frequent Na-Dene value on 26 of the 42 features where at least three other members of the family are coded (62%). Among the 4 Na-Dene languages profiled here, that rate ranks third from the top.
Closest profiles
Languages that share the most coded values with Tlingit; the count is out of the features both languages are coded for.
The rest of the profile
WALS codes Tlingit for 79 of the 144 profile features used on this site. The remaining 68 are listed here, grouped by topic; within each group the value Tlingit shares with the fewest languages comes first.
Sounds 12
| Feature | Value | Languages sharing it |
|---|---|---|
| Consonant Inventories | Large | 57 of 563 |
| 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 |
| Tone | Simple tone system | 132 of 527 |
| Syllable Structure | Complex syllable structure | 151 of 486 |
| Voicing in Plosives and Fricatives | No voicing contrast | 182 of 567 |
| Voicing and Gaps in Plosive Systems | Other | 242 of 567 |
| The Velar Nasal | No velar nasal | 235 of 469 |
| Vowel Nasalization | Contrastive nasal vowels absent | 180 of 244 |
| Presence of Uncommon Consonants | None | 449 of 567 |
| Front Rounded Vowels | None | 525 of 562 |
Word structure 10
| Feature | Value | Languages sharing it |
|---|---|---|
| Prefixing vs. Suffixing in Inflectional Morphology | Approximately equal amounts of suffixing and prefixing | 147 of 969 |
| Locus of Marking: Whole-language Typology | Consistently head-marking | 47 of 236 |
| Locus of Marking in the Clause | P is head-marked | 71 of 236 |
| Locus of Marking in Possessive Noun Phrases | Possessor is head-marked | 78 of 236 |
| Syncretism in Verbal Person/Number Marking | Subject person/number marking is never syncretic | 81 of 198 |
| Exponence of Selected Inflectional Formatives | Monoexponential case | 71 of 162 |
| Case Syncretism | Inflectional case marking is absent or minimal | 123 of 198 |
| Fusion of Selected Inflectional Formatives | Exclusively concatenative | 125 of 165 |
| Exponence of Tense-Aspect-Mood Inflection | monoexponential TAM | 127 of 160 |
| Zero Marking of A and P Arguments | Non-zero marking | 219 of 235 |
Nouns and pronouns 11
| Feature | Value | Languages sharing it |
|---|---|---|
| Numeral Classifiers | Numeral classifiers are obligatory | 78 of 400 |
| Asymmetrical Case-Marking | Additive-quantitatively asymmetrical case-marking | 53 of 261 |
| Position of Pronominal Possessive Affixes | Possessive prefixes | 255 of 902 |
| Inclusive/Exclusive Distinction in Verbal Inflection | No inclusive/exclusive opposition | 79 of 200 |
| Plurality in Independent Personal Pronouns | Person-number stem | 114 of 261 |
| Position of Case Affixes | Case suffixes | 452 of 1,031 |
| Coding of Nominal Plurality | Plural suffix | 513 of 1,066 |
| Inclusive/Exclusive Distinction in Independent Pronouns | No inclusive/exclusive opposition | 120 of 200 |
| Politeness Distinctions in Pronouns | Second person pronouns encode no politeness distinction | 136 of 207 |
| Comitatives and Instrumentals | Differentiation | 213 of 322 |
| Gender Distinctions in Independent Personal Pronouns | No gender distinctions | 254 of 378 |
Noun phrases 4
| Feature | Value | Languages sharing it |
|---|---|---|
| Possessive Classification | Two classes | 94 of 243 |
| Noun Phrase Conjunction | AND-languages: 'and' and 'with' are not identical | 131 of 234 |
| Obligatory Possessive Inflection | No obligatorily possessed nouns | 201 of 244 |
| Number of Possessive Nouns | None reported | 233 of 243 |
Verbs: tense, mood, evidence 7
| Feature | Value | Languages sharing it |
|---|---|---|
| Position of Tense-Aspect Affixes | Combination of tense-aspect strategies with none primary | 146 of 1,131 |
| The Morphological Imperative | No second-person imperatives | 122 of 548 |
| Situational Possibility | Affixes on verbs | 63 of 234 |
| Epistemic Possibility | Other | 91 of 240 |
| Semantic Distinctions of Evidentiality | No grammatical evidentials | 181 of 418 |
| Coding of Evidentiality | No grammatical evidentials | 181 of 418 |
| Overlap between Situational and Epistemic Modal Marking | No overlap | 105 of 207 |
Word order 9
| Feature | Value | Languages sharing it |
|---|---|---|
| Order of Adverbial Subordinator and Clause | Final subordinator word | 96 of 659 |
| Order of Relative Clause and Noun | Relative clause precedes noun (RelN) | 141 of 824 |
| 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 precedes verb (OV) | 712 of 1,518 |
| Order of Degree Word and Adjective | Degree word precedes adjective (DegAdj) | 227 of 481 |
| Order of Adposition and Noun Phrase | Postpositions | 577 of 1,184 |
| Order of Genitive and Noun | Genitive-noun (GenN) | 685 of 1,249 |
| Order of Subject and Verb | Subject precedes verb (SV) | 1,192 of 1,496 |
Simple clauses 10
| Feature | Value | Languages sharing it |
|---|---|---|
| Order of Person Markers on the Verb | P precedes A | 57 of 379 |
| Nominal and Locational Predication | Identical | 117 of 386 |
| Predicative Adjectives | Predicative adjectives have verbal encoding | 151 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 |
| Verbal Person Marking | Person marking of both the A and P arguments | 193 of 378 |
| Zero Copula for Predicate Nominals | Zero copula is impossible | 211 of 386 |
| Passive Constructions | There is no passive construction | 211 of 373 |
| 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 |
Vocabulary 5
| Feature | Value | Languages sharing it |
|---|---|---|
| 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 |