Das grammatische Raritätenkabinett
A catalogue of rare and unusual grammatical phenomena documented across the world’s languages. 147 published entries.
147 entries · page 1 of 3
| # | Phenomenon | Found in | Domain | Keywords |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| 1 | b-ö-f 'ox' | French | lexicon / sound-meaning matching | cattle |
| 2 | a basic colour term for TURQUOISE | Tsakhur (Nakh-Daghestanian) | lexicon / basic terms | colour terms |
| 3 | (a) two basic colour terms for BLUE and LIGHT BLUE (b) and at the same time none for PURPLE |
(a) Russian, Ukrainian, Belarusian (East Slavonic, IE); Guatemalan Spanish, Italian (Romance, IE); Nepali (Indo-Aryan, IE); Turkish (Altaic) <br> (b) Russian from 17/18th up to early 19th century | lexicon / basic terms | colour terms |
| 4 | two basic colour terms for RED1 and RED2 | Hungarian (Ugric, Uralic) | lexicon / basic terms | colour terms |
| 5 | a sizable inventory of basic smell terms, i.e., one with more than two or three items |
Des(s)ana (Tucanoan, Andean-Equatorial); Totonaca (Totonacan, Penutian); Wanzi, Nzebi, Sangu, Tsogo, Fang (all North Western area, Bantu Proper, Niger-Congo); Ser(r)er Ndut (West Atlantic, Niger-Congo); Kapsiki (aka Higi; Biu-Mandara, Chadic, Afroasiatic) | lexicon / basic terms | smell terms |
| 6 | labial flap /vb/ (See Image) |
over 60 languages in Africa (Afroasiatic: Chadic; Niger-Congo: esp. Adamawa-Ubangi, also Benue-Congo; Nilo-Saharan: Central Sudanic) and at least one in Asia (Austronesian: Sika, spoken on the island of Flores, Indonesia) | phonology / phoneme inventory | labial flap |
| 7 | bilabial trill /è/, (i) prenasalized bilabial stop with trilled release, or (ii) trilled fricated vowel as syllabic variant of labial fricative |
(i) Nias (Sundic, Western Malayo-Polynesian, Austronesian), Kele, Titan, and perhaps other members of the Admiralty subgroup (Oceanic, Eastern Malayo-Polynesian, Austronesian);<br> (ii) Luquan Yi (Tibeto-Burman, Sino-Tibetan) | phonology / phoneme inventory | bilabial, trill |
| 8 | laminal (tongue-blade) trill (see Image) |
Czech (Slavonic, IE) | phonology / phoneme inventory | laminal, trill |
| 9 | apical trills at three places of articulation (fronted alveolar, alveolar, retroflex) (see Image), both without and with palatalization | Toda (Dravidian) | phonology / phoneme inventory | apical, trill |
| 10 | velar fricative (see Image) as the sole fricative (if this is what it is), rather than the expected /s/ |
Iwaidjian (non-Pama Nyungan, Australian) | phonology / phoneme inventory | fricative, velar |
| 11 | eight or nine liquids, with three rhotics and five or six laterals |
Iwaidjian (non-Pama Nyungan, Australian) | phonology / phoneme inventory | liquid, lateral, rhotic |
| 12 | the full gamut of (voiceless) palato-alveolar, alveolar, bilabial, and (dialectally) velar affricates (see Image) | German (Germanic, IE) | phonology / phoneme inventory | affricates, alveolar, palato-alveolar, bilabial, velar |
| 13 | four-way phonemic contrast of dental, alveolar, palato-alveolar, and retroflex stops |
Nunggubuyu (non-Pama Nyungan, Australian) | phonology / phoneme inventory | stops, dental, alveolar, palato-alveolar, retroflex |
| 14 | lack of bilabial nasal and possibly bilabial stops | Iroquois; Tlingit (Na-Dene) | phonology / phoneme inventory | bilabial, nasal, stops |
| 15 | three-way quantity contrast of both vowels and consonants | Estonian (?), Livonian (?), Saami (?) (all Uralic) | phonology / quantity | vowel, consonant |
| 16 | phonemic contrast between diphthong and vowel followed by glide (see Image) |
Maastricht Dutch (Germanic, IE) | phonology / phoneme inventory | diphthong, glide |
| 17 | Resolved Moraic Trochee as foot type | (esp. older) Germanic (IE); Cayuvava (Andean-Equatorial) (?) | phonology / foot structure | moraic trochee, resolved |
| 18 | a ternary constraint on prosodic word size: minimal word must be a trimoraic foot |
Gilbertese (Micronesian) | phonology / foot structure | prosodic word, minimal word, trimoraic foot |
| 19 | trimoraic and quadrimoraic syllables as a normal syllable type in the native vocabulary, with moras as prosody-bearing units (not just units of syllabic weight) | Gilbertese (Micronesian) | phonology / foot structure, syllable structure | syllable type |
| 20 | Foot Harmony: If at least one foot of a word constitutes a canonical /∪'- / iamb, then all feet of the word are made iambic; otherwise all feet are made trochaic |
Yidiny (Pama-Nyungan, Australian) | phonology / foot structure | iamb, trochee, foot harmony |
| 21 | word-stress on postinitial syllable (or mora) | less than 3% of languages, including Araucanian and a few Uto-Aztecan languages (though reconstructed for Proto-Uto-Aztecan!) | phonology / word-stress | postinitial syllable |
| 22 | word-stress on post-postinitial syllable | Winnebago (Siouan) | phonology / word-stress | post-postinitial syllable |
| 23 | word-stress (in non-focussed or naturally focussed phrases) phonetically implemented by low rather than high pitch | Saipan and Guam dialects of Chamorro (Austronesian; the Rota dialect has high-pitch stress); Diegueño (Yuman; as a less common alternant to high-pitch stress) | phonology / word-stress | low pitch |
| 24 | a derivational rule for forming nouns denoting plants from nouns denoting their fruits, and also nouns denoting containers from nouns denoting their characteristic contents | French (Romance, IE) Dutch (esp. Flemish; Germanic IE) | morphology: word formation / derivational categories | denominal nouns |
| 25 | a derivational rule for forming nouns denoting a disease, an inflammation, or an affection of a body part from nouns denoting that body part | Ancient Greek (Hellenic, IE) and European languages borrowing this derivational rule or indeed the derived and basic nouns themselves. | morphology: word formation / derivational categories | denominal nouns |
| 26 | 'four' as a regular base for a numeral system | Nyali (aka Huku, Bantu, Niger-Congo), Afudu (affiliation?, Africa); Hawaiian (originally; Polynesian, Austronesian); Welsh (Celtic, IE) (?) | morphology: word formation / numeral systems: bases | |
| 27 | place of articulation of vowels exploited for iconic expression of size (e.g., for diminutives), but with [high, front] expressing large size and [low, back] small size | Korean (isolate); Bahnar (Mon-Khmer, Austro-Asiatic) | lexicon, phonology / sound-meaning matching: iconicity | vowel, place of articulation, size, iconicity |
| 28 | phonemic secondary 'labio-palatalization' (simultaneous labial rounding and palatal constriction) |
Twi (Kwa, Niger-Congo); French (Romance, IE) | phonology / phoneme inventory | palatalization |
| 29 | use of metathesis (CV ~ VC) for grammatical purposes, viz. to express distinctions of aspect and/or definiteness, or of word-class (noun-verb) |
Rotuman (Oceanic, Eastern Malayo-Polynesian, Austronesian); Clallam and other Straits lgs of Coast Salish; Sierra Miwok lgs and Costanoan lgs (Penutian) | phonology, morphology / types of exponents and their uses | metathesis, aspect, definiteness, word class |
| 30 | case distinction exclusively by tone | Eastern (or Para-)Nilotic (Nilo-Saharan); (some) Cushitic, (some) Omotic (?) (Afroasiatic); (some) Bantu, Bantoid, Kwa (Niger-Congo); Burmese (Tibeto-Burman, Sino-Tibetan) (?) | phonology, morphology / types of exponents and their uses | case, tone |
| 31 | reduplication of verb to form finite verb of restrictive relative clauses with non-actor head nouns | Wetan (Eastern Indonesian, Austronesian) | morphology: inflection / types of exponents and their uses | reduplication, finite verb, restrictive relative clasue |
| 32 | plural marking of a small subset of nouns (persons, kin) by lengthening of the vowel of the antepenultimate syllable, not a salient structural position otherwise (e.g., stress is on long vowels, otherwise on the penult) | Hawaiian, Samoan (Polynesian, Austronesian) | morphology: inflection / types of exponents and their uses | number, plural, vowel lengthening |
| 33 | negation expressed negatively, by omission of material present in affirmative clause (marked realis vs. unmarked irrealis mood inflection) | Tamil, Kannada, Toda, and elsewhere in South Dravidian; Malakmalak (Pama-Nyungan, Australian) (?); Achumawi (Hokan) (?) | morphology: inflection / zero | negation |
| 34 | verb inflection with non-zero exponent for 3rd person (subject or object agreement/cross-reference), but zero for all other persons | Standard English (Germanic, IE) | morphology: inflection / zero | verb inflection, person, 3rd |
| 35 | zero exponence for plural, non-zero for singular (not singulative!) as well as dual | Imonda (Trans-New Guinea, "Papuan") | morphology: inflection / zero | number, plural, singular, dual |
| 36 | inverse number marking: same exponent denoting singular, dual, or plural in different declensions, depending on which number is least expected from the basic meaning of nouns in that declension class (its prototypical members, at any rate) |
Kiowa-Tanoan family [a family possession, hence an infrequentale?] | morphology: inflection / zero | number |
| 37 | absolutive singular (marking intransitive subject) as the morphologically most complex noun form, expressed by a variety of suffixes or also by reduplication of stem | Chukchi (Chukchi-Kamchatkan) | morphology: inflection / markedness: case | absolutive, reduplication |
| 38 | absolutive (marking intransitive subject and transitive direct object) as the morphologically marked case vis-à-vis (zero-marked) ergative (marking transitive subject), (a) on NPs which are not focused or topicalized and then are not case-marked at all, (b) on NPs which are focused |
(a) Nias (Sundic, Western Malayo-Polynesian, Austronesian)<br> (b) Yukaghir (isolate or Uralic); dialects of Komi (Permic, Finno-Ugric, Uralic) Old Wardaman (Australian) (?); Kabardian (Northwest Caucasian) (?) | morphology: inflection / markedness: case | absolutive, ergative, focus |
| 39 | nominative (marking intransitive and transitive subject) as the morphologically marked case vis-à-vis (zero-marked) accusative (marking direct object), for all nouns or for some noun classes | some older Germanic lgs (IE); Old French (Italic, IE); Oromo, Dasenech, Kambata, and perhaps a few further Cushitic lgs (Afroasiatic); Zayse and perhaps a few further Omotic lgs (Afroasiatic); some Berber lgs (Afroasiatic); Old Egyptian (pronouns) (Afroasiatic); Proto-Afroasiatic (!);Eastern Nilotic lgs with tonal case (Nilo-Saharan); some Surmic lgs (Nilo-Saharan); Mojave and most other Yuman lgs (Hokan); varieties of Maidu (Penutian); Wappo (Yukian); Shokleng (Jê, Tupi, Andean-Equatorial); Malakmalak (nonPN, Australian); Houailou (Oceanic, Austronesian) | morphology: inflection / markedness: case | nominative, accusative |
| 40 | stem suppletion of an adjectival word (viz., the cardinal numeral 'one') determined by gender | Classical Greek (Hellenic, IE) | morphology: inflection / suppletion | adjective, gender |
| 41 | stem suppletion of a noun ('man, person') essentially determined by number, with one stem used for all singular cases and another stem for all plural cases, but with both stems used for the dual, distributed by cases (most taking the plural stem, but a few the singular stem). | Slovene (Slavonic, IE) | morphology: inflection / suppletion | noun, number, dual |
| 42 | number suppletion of the indefinite pronoun, with the singular form identical to the numeral 'one' and (here comes the nonesuch) the plural (and also mass) form supplied by the plural of an interrogative pronoun | Standard German (Germanic, IE) | morphology: inflection / suppletion | indefinite pronoun, interrogative pronoun, number |
| 43 | definite article co-expressing tense (past vs. non-past) | Chamicuro (Maipuran Arawakan) | morphology: inflection / cumulation, sensitivity | definite article, tense |
| 44 | internally unanalysable independent personal pronoun expressing the meaning '1st person singular non-topic acting on 2nd person singular topic' | Tagalog (Philippine Austronesian) | morphology: inflection / cumulation, sensitivity | pronoun, person, 1st, 2nd |
| 45 | tense not only marked on verbs, but simultaneously on other words too, including nouns (tense agreement?) | Kayardild, Lardil, Baagandji, Pitta-Pitta (Australian); Titan and perhaps other members of the Admiralty subgroup (Oceanic, Eastern Malayo-Polynesian, Austronesian) Malagasy (West Indonesian, Austronesian) | morphology: inflection / locus | tense, agreement |
| 46 | nouns requiring marking for person | Elamite (extinct isolate, Ancient Near East); Nama (Khoisan) | morphology: inflection / locus | noun, person |
| 47 | use of an oblique case on a non-finite verb form to express evidentiality (hearsay, inferential) | Estonian and South Estonian dialects (Uralic); Latvian (Baltic, IE); Kayardild ((non?)PN, Australian) | morphology: inflection / locus | evidentiality, case, verb, non-finite |
| 48 | words taking as many as four cases simultaneously | Kayardild ((non?)PN, Australian) | morphology: inflection / complexity | case, Suffixaufnahme |
| 49 | an extra-large case inventory, of above 20 cases | Hungarian (Ugric, Uralic) (?) | morphology: inflection / complexity | case |
| 50 | an extra-large inventory of pronominal words, of some 200 | Rennell (Futunic, Polynesian, Malayo-Polynesian, Austronesian) | morphology: inflection / complexity | pronoun |