Tonkawa
a family of its own in WALS · North America
WALS records no dominant basic order of subject, object and verb for Tonkawa, a group that holds 189 of the 1,376 languages it codes for this feature.
WALS lists no other language in the family it assigns to Tonkawa.
On Order of Demonstrative and Noun, WALS codes Tonkawa as “Demonstrative suffix on noun”, a value held by 28 of the 1,225 languages coded, Somali and Nandi among them.
The closest grammar profile to Tonkawa in the atlas belongs to Maidu (Northeast), a Penutian language: the two agree on 33 of the 47 features both have coded.
Contrast Tonkawa with Maidu (Northeast) or with any other language
Uncommon values
Values that fewer than one in ten of the coded languages share with Tonkawa, rarest first.
- Alignment of Verbal Person MarkingActive alignment26 of 380
- The Morphological ImperativeSecond singular43 of 548
- Plurality in Independent Personal PronounsPerson-number stem with a nominal plural affix22 of 261
- Order of Adverbial Subordinator and ClauseSuffixal adverbial subordinators64 of 659
Closest profiles
Languages that share the most coded values with Tonkawa; the count is out of the features both languages are coded for.
The rest of the profile
WALS codes Tonkawa for 61 of the 144 profile features used on this site. The remaining 55 are listed here, grouped by topic; within each group the value Tonkawa shares with the fewest languages comes first.
Sounds 13
| Feature | Value | Languages sharing it |
|---|---|---|
| Consonant Inventories | Moderately small | 122 of 563 |
| Voicing in Plosives and Fricatives | No voicing contrast | 182 of 567 |
| Consonant-Vowel Ratio | Average | 234 of 564 |
| Voicing and Gaps in Plosive Systems | Other | 242 of 567 |
| Vowel Quality Inventories | Average vowel inventory (5-6) | 287 of 564 |
| Syllable Structure | Moderately complex syllable structure | 274 of 486 |
| Tone | No tones | 307 of 527 |
| 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 5
| Feature | Value | Languages sharing it |
|---|---|---|
| Prefixing vs. Suffixing in Inflectional Morphology | Moderate preference for suffixing | 123 of 969 |
| Locus of Marking in the Clause | P is double-marked | 58 of 236 |
| Locus of Marking in Possessive Noun Phrases | Possessor is dependent-marked | 98 of 236 |
| 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 9
| Feature | Value | Languages sharing it |
|---|---|---|
| Position of Case Affixes | Postpositional clitics | 123 of 1,031 |
| Position of Pronominal Possessive Affixes | Possessive prefixes | 255 of 902 |
| Distance Contrasts in Demonstratives | Three-way contrast | 88 of 234 |
| Third Person Pronouns and Demonstratives | Unrelated | 100 of 225 |
| Coding of Nominal Plurality | Plural suffix | 513 of 1,066 |
| Person Marking on Adpositions | Adpositions without person marking | 209 of 378 |
| Indefinite Pronouns | Interrogative-based indefinites | 194 of 326 |
| Numeral Classifiers | Numeral classifiers are absent | 260 of 400 |
| Gender Distinctions in Independent Personal Pronouns | No gender distinctions | 254 of 378 |
Noun phrases 3
| Feature | Value | Languages sharing it |
|---|---|---|
| Possessive Classification | Two classes | 94 of 243 |
| Obligatory Possessive Inflection | No obligatorily possessed nouns | 201 of 244 |
| Number of Possessive Nouns | None reported | 233 of 243 |
Verbs: tense, mood, evidence 4
| Feature | Value | Languages sharing it |
|---|---|---|
| The Prohibitive | Normal imperative + normal negative | 113 of 496 |
| Coding of Evidentiality | Verbal affix or clitic | 131 of 418 |
| Semantic Distinctions of Evidentiality | Only indirect evidentials | 166 of 418 |
| Position of Tense-Aspect Affixes | Tense-aspect suffixes | 667 of 1,131 |
Word order 7
| Feature | Value | Languages sharing it |
|---|---|---|
| Order of Object, Oblique, and Verb | More than one order with none dominant | 167 of 500 |
| Position of Polar Question Particles | No question particle | 355 of 884 |
| 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 Genitive and Noun | Genitive-noun (GenN) | 685 of 1,249 |
| 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 10
| Feature | Value | Languages sharing it |
|---|---|---|
| Third Person Zero of Verbal Person Marking | Zero realization of all third person singular S forms | 45 of 380 |
| Order of Person Markers on the Verb | P precedes A | 57 of 379 |
| Polar Questions | Interrogative verb morphology | 164 of 955 |
| Negative Morphemes | Negative affix | 395 of 1,157 |
| Symmetric and Asymmetric Standard Negation | Symmetric standard negation only: Type Sym | 114 of 297 |
| Subtypes of Asymmetric Standard Negation | Non-assignable (no asymmetry found) | 114 of 297 |
| Verbal Person Marking | Person marking of both the A and P arguments | 193 of 378 |
| 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 4
| Feature | Value | Languages sharing it |
|---|---|---|
| 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 |