Das grammatische Raritätenkabinett
A catalogue of rare and unusual grammatical phenomena documented across the world’s languages. 147 published entries.
55 entries · page 1 of 2
| # | Phenomenon | Found in | Domain | Keywords |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| 8 | laminal (tongue-blade) trill (see Image) |
Czech (Slavonic, IE) | phonology / phoneme inventory | laminal, 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 |
| 15 | three-way quantity contrast of both vowels and consonants | Estonian (?), Livonian (?), Saami (?) (all Uralic) | phonology / quantity | vowel, consonant |
| 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 |
| 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 |
| 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 |
| 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 |
| 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 |
| 40 | stem suppletion of an adjectival word (viz., the cardinal numeral 'one') determined by gender | Classical Greek (Hellenic, IE) | morphology: inflection / suppletion | adjective, gender |
| 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 |
| 46 | nouns requiring marking for person | Elamite (extinct isolate, Ancient Near East); Nama (Khoisan) | morphology: inflection / locus | noun, person |
| 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 |
| 53 | gender contrast of nouns, but not of pronouns (except interrogative ones, in Teop) | Turkana (Nilotic, Nilo-Saharan); Teop (Bougainville, Oceanic, Austronesian) | morphology: inflection / categories and their domains: gender, respect | noun, pronoun |
| 54 | gender contrast (MASC/FEM) in personal pronouns for 2nd, 3rd, and sometimes also 1st plural and for 2nd singular but not for 1st and 3rd singular, in some pronominal paradigms | Tàhàggart, Tuareg, Kabyle, Proto-Berber (?!) (Berber, Afroasiatic) [a family trait: limited to Berber but not shared by all members] | morphology: inflection / categories and their domains: gender, respect | personal pronoun, person, number |
| 55 | gender contrast in personal pronouns exclusively in 1st person singular | Tocharian A (IE); Thai (Daic, Austroasiatic) | morphology: inflection / categories and their domains: gender, respect | personal pronoun, 1st person |
| 61 | choice of 3rd person personal pronoun determined by gender (MASC/FEM/NEUT, contrasting in SG only and not corresponding to animacy distinctions in any consistent manner), except in adpositional phrases (with adpositions governing the dative or genitive), where the relevant contrast rather is one of animacy or related notions, with masculine and feminine pronouns now only referring to animate (or concrete, figure, salient) referents and with the neuter pronoun (both in singular and plural) replaced by local-adverbial forms (da, wo ), preceding rather than following their adpositions, for inanimate (abstract, ground, not-so-salient) referents | German (Germanic, IE) | morphology: inflection / categories and their domains: gender, respect | personal pronoun, adverb, animacy |
| 63 | pronoun of most respectful address recruited from pronoun of identity ((allerhöchst)dieselben), rather than from indefinite or least definite pronoun | 18th century German (Germanic, IE) | morphology: inflection / categories and their domains: gender, respect | pronoun of address, respect, social distance |
| 69 | a quadral number with personal pronouns | Sursurunga, Tangga (both Patpatar-Tolai, Austronesian) (?) | morphology: inflection / categories and their domains: person, number | quadral, personal pronoun |
| 70 | independent personal pronouns for 1st and 3rd (animate) person inflecting for both number and case, but that for 2nd person inflecting for neither category (defectiveness of 2nd person pronouns in number alone being more common) | Modern Standard English (Germanic, IE) | morphology: inflection / categories and their domains: person, number | personal pronoun, 1st, 2nd, 3rd, number, case |
| 72 | number marking (for plural and dual) on personal pronouns (suppletive) as well as on expressives (or ideophones; by suffix, which is unusual in Mon-Khmer, a family otherwise preferring prefixes and infixes), but not on any other word class (including nouns and verbs) | Bahnar (or Bahnaric in general?) (Mon-Khmer, Austro-Asiatic) | morphology: inflection / categories and their domains: person, number | personal pronoun, ideophone |
| 74 | endoclitics occurring not only inside morphologically complex words, but even within monomorphemic words, with the positioning of the clitic (a)regulated by one general phonological rule, (b) not regulated by a general phonological rule, although when endoclitic to simple verbs, the clitic always comes before the last segment of the verb stem (subject person-number markers are cliticized to constituents in focus, being always enclitic with arguments in focus, but en- or endo-clitic with verbs in focus) |
(a) English (Germanic, IE) (?);<br> (b) Udi (NE Caucasian) | phonology, morphology, syntax / word integrity | clitic, endoclitic |
| 76 | adverb as a distinct word class but not adjective | Kambera (Malayo-Polynesian); Kwaza (unclassified, S. Rondônia, Brazil) | syntax / word classes | adverb, adjective |
| 78 | expression of numerical approximation ('about 5', 'about the fifth') by inversion of word order from Numeral + Noun to N + Num | Russian and other East Slavonic lgs (Slavonic, IE) | syntax / word order | numeral |
| 80 | (finite) verb-second word order in main declarative clauses generally optional, but obligatory if the first constituent is the unmarked narrative consecutive adverb 'then' (∂a, homonymous with the temporal conjunction 'when' introducing subordinate clauses, whose finite verb generally is final and never second) | Old English (Germanic, IE) | syntax / word order | V2 |
| 81 | (finite) verb-second word order in main declarative clauses only if the first constituent is an adverbial with strong negative force (such as never before, hardly ever) | Modern English (Germanic, IE) | syntax / word order | V2 |
| 84 | relative pronoun as the only target for agreement in animacy | Modern Standard English (Germanic, IE) | syntax / agreement: controllers, targets, categories, domains, conditions | relative pronoun, animacy |
| 88 | plural marking of numeral (including 'one') to express that the reference of the NP is to groups of entities denoted by the accompanying noun | Finnish, Estonian (Uralic); Icelandic (Germanic, IE) (?) | syntax / numerals and number | plural |
| 89 | ergative (or neutral) case marking higher and accusative case marking lower on the referential hierarchy | PRONOUNS NOUNS<br> 1ST 2ND 3RD<br> ERG-----------> ACC Parachi and Yazguljami, past tense (Iranian, IE)<br> ERG------> ACC NEUT Iha, SG, past tense (West Bomberai, "Papuan")<br> ERG------> NEUT ACC Tirahi, past tense (Dardic, IE)<br> NEUT----------> ACC Nganasan (Samoyedic, Uralic)<br> ERG------> ACC ERG Karitiana (Tupi-Guarani) | syntax / grammatical relations: alignment | case, split, referential hierarchy |
| 91 | double-oblique alignment, with one case (or other coding device) for both subject and object in transitive clauses and another case (or other coding device) for intransitive subject |
Rushan and a few other Pamir lgs (Iranian, IE) as well as a few neighbouring Dardic lgs (Indic or Iranian, IE) | syntax / grammatical relations: alignment | double-oblique alignment |
| 94 | a benefactive applied object in a multiple objects construction behaving like the single object of a primary transitive verb, esp. with regard to extraction | Bajau (Malayo-Polynesian, Austronesian); LuHaya (Bantu, Niger-Congo) | syntax / grammatical relations: objects | benefactive object, applicative |
| 101 | VC as (the only or preferred) syllable type, with VC0CV thus syllabified as VC0C.V rather than as VC0.CV, at least at some level | Arrernte, Oykangand, Olgol, Okunjan, Kawarrangg (Pama-Nyungan, Australian); Barra dialect of Gaelic (Celtic, IE) | phonology / syllable structure | onset |
| 108 | consonant ablaut (aka "permutation" or "polarity"): phonological alternation of stem-initial consonants conditioned by suffix |
Fulani and some other Atlantic languages, but not all (Niger-Congo) | phonology / alternations: conditioning | consonant alternation, suffix |
| 113 | infix positioned after the second syllable of the stem | Dakota (Siouan) (?) | phonology, morphology / types of exponents and their uses | infix |
| 114 | stem suppletion of the verb 'say' determined by the person of the addressee | some Oto-Manguean lgs | morphology: inflection / suppletion | verb, indirect object |
| 115 | stem suppletion of 'two', as the only numeral, depending on the use of the numeral for counting or for quantifying a noun | Maltese (Semitic, Afroasiatic); Chinese (Sinitic, Sino-Tibetan) | morphology: inflection / suppletion | numeral |
| 117 | sets of local cases regularly distinguishing whether locatum is above, below, or on same level as deictic reference point | Bantawa, Belhare, Rai (Kiranti, Tibeto-Burman) | morphology: inflection / complexity | case, local cases, deixis |
| 118 | neither tense nor aspect grammaticalized at all | Maybrat, Hatam, perhaps further languages of the Bird's Head area, New Guinea (non-Austronesian) | morphology: inflection / categories and their domains: tense-aspect | tense, aspect, grammaticalization |
| 121 | adjective after the noun, rather than mirroring the order of adverb relative to verb, where basic word order is VO and adverb comes before verb | Jicaltepec Mixtec (Oto-Manguean) | syntax / word order | adjective, adverb |
| 122 | a definite article formally distinct from (one form or another of) any kind of pronoun – demonstrative, personal (free, clitic, or bound), possessive, relative, interrogative | Modern English (Germanic, IE) | syntax / pronouns, articles | definite article |
| 124 | voiceless apico-dental plosive followed by a voiceless bilabial trill behaving as a single segment (see Image) |
in about a dozen words each in Wari' and Oro Win (Chapakuran, Arawakan, Andean-Equatorial) | phonology / phoneme inventory | apico-dental plosive, bilabial trill, complex segments |
| 128 | as many as five phonological tone levels, plus two falling and one rising contour tone | Black Miao (of Ch'ing Chiang Miao (Miao-Yao, Sino-Tibetan (?)); Dan (Ivory Coast dialect; Mande, Niger-Congo) | phonology / tone | tone levels |
| 133 | 'eight' as regular base for a numeral system | Pamean lgs, esp. Northern Pame (Otomanguean) | morphology: word formation / numeral systems: bases | numeral |