Wintu
Penutian family · Wintuan branch · North America
WALS records no dominant basic order of subject, object and verb for Wintu, a group that holds 189 of the 1,376 languages it codes for this feature.
The closest grammar profile to Wintu in the atlas belongs to Evenki, an Altaic language: the two agree on 31 of the 52 features both have coded.
Of the 5 Penutian languages profiled here, Wintu departs most often from the family’s usual values.
On Third Person Zero of Verbal Person Marking, 4 of 5 other Penutian languages coded have the value “No zero realization of third person S forms”; Wintu has “Zero in all 3rd person forms”.
Contrast Wintu with Evenki or with any other language
Uncommon values
Values that fewer than one in ten of the coded languages share with Wintu, rarest first.
- Number of Cases4 case categories9 of 261
- Voicing and Gaps in Plosive SystemsMissing /g/34 of 567
- Third Person Pronouns and DemonstrativesRelated to non-remote demonstratives14 of 225
- Order of Object and VerbBoth orders with neither order dominant101 of 1,518
- Order of Subject and VerbBoth orders with neither order dominant110 of 1,496
- Lateral Consonants/l/ and lateral obstruents47 of 567
- Uvular ConsonantsUvular stops and continuants48 of 567
- Order of Adverbial Subordinator and ClauseSuffixal adverbial subordinators64 of 659
Inside the Penutian family
Wintu matches the most frequent Penutian value on 27 of the 50 features where at least three other members of the family are coded (54%).
| Feature | Wintu | Most relatives |
|---|---|---|
| Symmetric and Asymmetric Standard Negation | Asymmetric standard negation only: Type Asy | Symmetric standard negation only: Type Sym (6 of 6) |
| Subtypes of Asymmetric Standard Negation | In finiteness: Subtype A/Fin | Non-assignable (no asymmetry found) (6 of 6) |
Closest profiles
Languages that share the most coded values with Wintu; the count is out of the features both languages are coded for.
The rest of the profile
WALS codes Wintu for 57 of the 144 profile features used on this site. The remaining 45 are listed here, grouped by topic; within each group the value Wintu shares with the fewest languages comes first.
Sounds 11
| Feature | Value | Languages sharing it |
|---|---|---|
| Glottalized Consonants | Ejectives only | 58 of 567 |
| Consonant Inventories | Moderately large | 94 of 563 |
| Consonant-Vowel Ratio | Moderately high | 102 of 564 |
| Voicing in Plosives and Fricatives | Voicing contrast in plosives alone | 189 of 567 |
| The Velar Nasal | No velar nasal | 235 of 469 |
| 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 |
| Presence of Uncommon Consonants | None | 449 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 |
|---|---|---|
| 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 |
| 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 7
| Feature | Value | Languages sharing it |
|---|---|---|
| Person Marking on Adpositions | No adpositions | 63 of 378 |
| 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 |
| Numeral Classifiers | Numeral classifiers are absent | 260 of 400 |
| Comitatives and Instrumentals | Differentiation | 213 of 322 |
| Gender Distinctions in Independent Personal Pronouns | No gender distinctions | 254 of 378 |
Noun phrases 3
| Feature | Value | Languages sharing it |
|---|---|---|
| Obligatory Possessive Inflection | Obligatorily possessed nouns exist | 43 of 244 |
| Possessive Classification | Two classes | 94 of 243 |
| Number of Possessive Nouns | None reported | 233 of 243 |
Verbs: tense, mood, evidence 5
| Feature | Value | Languages sharing it |
|---|---|---|
| The Optative | Inflectional optative present | 48 of 319 |
| Semantic Distinctions of Evidentiality | Both direct and indirect evidentials | 71 of 418 |
| Coding of Evidentiality | Verbal affix or clitic | 131 of 418 |
| Imperative-Hortative Systems | The language has a maximal system, but not a minimal one | 133 of 375 |
| Position of Tense-Aspect Affixes | Tense-aspect suffixes | 667 of 1,131 |
Word order 2
| Feature | Value | Languages sharing it |
|---|---|---|
| Order of Object, Oblique, and Verb | More than one order with none dominant | 167 of 500 |
| Order of Genitive and Noun | Genitive-noun (GenN) | 685 of 1,249 |
Simple clauses 6
| Feature | Value | Languages sharing it |
|---|---|---|
| Negative Morphemes | Double negation | 119 of 1,157 |
| Verbal Person Marking | Person marking of only the A argument | 73 of 378 |
| Passive Constructions | There is a passive construction | 162 of 373 |
| Order of Person Markers on the Verb | A and P do not or do not both occur on the verb | 187 of 379 |
| Alignment of Verbal Person Marking | Accusative alignment | 212 of 380 |
| Reciprocal Constructions | Distinct from reflexive | 99 of 175 |
Vocabulary 6
| Feature | Value | Languages sharing it |
|---|---|---|
| N-M Pronouns | N-M pronouns, paradigmatic | 25 of 230 |
| Finger and Hand | Identical | 72 of 593 |
| M in Second Person Singular | m in second person singular | 78 of 230 |
| Hand and Arm | Different | 389 of 617 |
| M in First Person Singular | No m in first person singular | 177 of 230 |
| M-T Pronouns | No M-T pronouns | 200 of 230 |