Das grammatische Raritätenkabinett
A catalogue of rare and unusual grammatical phenomena documented across the world’s languages. 147 published entries.
147 entries · page 3 of 3
| # | Phenomenon | Found in | Domain | Keywords |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| 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 |
| 102 | intervocalic consonant clusters of decreasing sonority in toto assigned to onsets of second syllables | Malayalam (Dravidian) | phonology / syllable structure | onset |
| 103 | word-stress on every second mora, realized (as pitch accent) on vowel of the respective syllable, main on second mora, secondary on fourth, sixth, etc., counting from left | Ainu (isolate) | phonology / word-stress | mora |
| 104 | secondary word-stress on odd-numbered word-final syllables, but only if the word is morphologically complex, irrespective of its morphological composition; no secondary stress in monomorphemic words (primary stress is on the first syllable of content words) | Tohono O'odham (formerly known as Papago, Uto-Aztecan) | phonology / word-stress | syllable-counting, morphological complexity |
| 105 | stress accent and lexical tone as independent contrasting categories of word prosody, with contrastive tone on both stressed and unstressed syllables | Ma'ya (South Halmahera-West New Guinea, Malayo-Polynesian, Austronesian) | phonology / word-stress, tone | |
| 106 | pitch accent and lexical tone as independent contrasting categories of word prosody | Papiamentu (Iberian-based creole) | phonology / word-stress, tone | pitch accent |
| 107 | tonal patterns (initial lowering delayed by one mora, tonal alternations in inflected verb forms and in combinations of nouns with following particles) dependent on height of vowel in tone-bearing or neighbouring mora | Matsue dialect of Japanese | phonology / tone | vowel height |
| 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 |
| 109 | bound morphology (almost) exclusively prefixal | Athabaskan lgs [a family possession?] | morphology: inflection / types of exponents and their uses | prefix |
| 110 | verb-final and postpositions, but bound morphology (almost) exclusively prefixal | Athabaskan lgs [a family possession?] | morphology, syntax / types of exponents and their uses | affix order, word order |
| 111 | infix positioned after the last consonant of the onset of the stem, i.e., after the first consonant if there is only one or after a consonant cluster if there are more |
Tagalog (Philippine Austronesian), Atayal (Formosan Austronesian) | phonology, morphology / types of exponents and their uses | infix |
| 112 | infix positioned after the vowel of the penultimate syllable of the stem | Alabama (Muskogean) | phonology, morphology / types of exponents and their uses | infix |
| 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 |
| 116 | different definite article depending on whether an accompanying adjective denotes colour or another kind of property concept | Belhare (Kiranti, Tibeto-Burman) | morphology: inflection / cumulation, sensitivity | definite article, adjective, property concepts, colour |
| 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 |
| 119 | "conjunct vs. disjunct" system of (bound) person marking, with the conjunct form referring to the speaker in statements and the addressee in questions, and the disjunct form referring to everything else (addressee in statements, speaker in questions (where this makes sense), non-SAP in statements and questions) | Awa Pit, Tsafiki (Barbacoan); Newar, Lhasa-Tibetan, Lhomi (Tibeto-Burman) | morphology: inflection / categories and their domains: person, number | personal pronouns, person |
| 120 | interrogative pro verbs | Southern Paiute (Uto-Aztecan); Chukchi (Chukchi-Kamchatkan); Mandarin (Chinese, Sino-Tibetan); Yankunytjatjara (aka Western Desert (PN), Kayardild ((non?) PN), and many other Australian lgs; Hua ("Papuan"); Tagalog (Philippine), colloquial varieties of Malay/Indonesian, Tahitian (Polynesian), probably widespread throughout Austronesian; Kinyarwanda (Bantu, Niger-Congo) | syntax / word classes | verb, interrogative |
| 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 |
| 123 | the verb 'to eat' grammaticalized as middle or auto-benefactive marker ('to do something for oneself, on one's own'), possibly via a meaning 'to enjoy' | Athpare, Bantawa, Belhare, Lahu (Tibeto-Burman); Ho (Munda, Austro-Asiatic) | semantics / polysemy | grammaticalization, benefactive |
| 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 |
| 125 | when tone is privative, low tone as marked (hence phonologically active) relative to (phonologically inactive) high tone, rather than the other way round | a small group of Bantu lgs, including Ruwund, Luba, Tembo, Tonga (?) (Niger-Congo); Engenni (Edo, Kwa, Niger-Congo); Tsuut'ina (aka Sarcee, originally Northern Athabaskan, but long isolated) and (formerly) all Southern (aka Apachean) Athabaskan lgs; Tlingit (Sanya-Henya dialect) (Na-Dene); Dubea, Yabem (Oceanic, Malayo-Polynesian, Austronesian) | phonology / tone | high/low, markedness |
| 126 | tonal agreement: lexical tone of possessive pronoun (H or HL), and no other determiner or modifier, being reproduced on the noun it is in syntactic construction with, replacing the noun's own lexical tone (also H or HL, with initial L extratonal) |
Barasana (Eastern Tukanoan, Andean-Equatorial) | phonology, syntax / tone, agreement | possessive pronoun |
| 127 | word-stress sensitive to consonant voicing (such sensitivity to phonation being more characteristic of tone than of stress) | Pirahã (Mura-Pirahã, Macro-Chibchan) | phonology / word-stress, tone | consonant, voicing |
| 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 |
| 129 | eight basic colour terms, of which no less than four are for REDs: shocking pink, burgundy, reddish brown, and wine red |
Jaqaru (Andean) | lexicon / basic terms | colour |
| 130 | a basic colour term for undifferentiated YELLOW-GREEN-BLUE, as a "catch-everything-else" category in addition to BLACK, WHITE, and RED |
Arrernte (PN, Australian); Karajá (Macro-Ge); Lele (Chadic, Afroasiatic); Dazaga (Nilo-Saharan) (?); Chico (Maidu, Penutian) (?); Chinese (Sinitic) (?); Japanese (?) | lexicon / basic terms | colour |
| 131 | a phoneme inventory with more vowels than consonants (10 : 8) | Hawaiian, and probably other Polynesian lgs (Austronesian) | phonology / phoneme inventory | vowel, consonant |
| 132 | a phoneme inventory with almost 40 times as many consonants as vowels | Ubykh (Northwest Caucasian) | phonology / phoneme inventory | vowel, consonant |
| 133 | 'eight' as regular base for a numeral system | Pamean lgs, esp. Northern Pame (Otomanguean) | morphology: word formation / numeral systems: bases | numeral |
| 134 | dual forms of personal pronouns (all three persons) as the basic forms from which both singular and plural are formed by suffixation | Muisca (Chibchan) | morphology: inflection / zero | dual, plural, singular, personal pronoun |
| 135 | a definite article only present in plural, but not in singular | Tok Pisin (English-based Pacific creole) | syntax / pronouns, articles | definite article, number, singular, plural |
| 136 | verbs agreeing with subjects in person and number in non-past tenses, but in gender and number in the past tense | Slavonic (IE) [a family possession] | syntax / agreement: controllers, targets, categories. domains, conditions | verb agreement, tense, person, number, gender |
| 137 | object and subject NPs agreeing (a) in gender/class and number (b) in person |
(a) Archi (Northeast Caucasian); Ripatransone dialect of Italian (Romance, IE)<br> (b) Coahuilteco (Hokan) | syntax / agreement: controllers, targets, categories, domains, conditions | object, subject, gender, class, number, person |
| 138 | mixed ergative-accusative alignment, with person prefixes on intransitive verbs cross-referencing subject and person prefixes on transitive verbs cross-referencing object (=absolutive), while verbs also take person suffixes, which cross-reference subject both with intransitives and transitives (=nominative) |
Burushaski (isolate) | syntax / grammatical relations: alignment | nominative, absolutive, cross-reference, person, intransitive, transitive |
| 139 | adverbs agreeing in voice with the verbs they modify | Maori (Austronesian) | syntax / agreement: controllers, targets, categories, domains, conditions | adverb, verb, voice |
| 140 | number distinction (singular/plural) only on 2nd person pronouns, as well as on determiner demonstratives, and not on any other pronouns (including 1st) or nouns | Malagasy (West Indonesian, Austronesian) | morphology: inflection / categories and their domains: person, number | personal pronoun |
| 141 | gender as an agreement category only of verbs (controlled by subject), but not noun-phrase internally nor with anaphoric pronouns | Qafar (and other East Cushitic lgs, Afroasiatic) | syntax / agreement: controllers, targets, categories, domains, conditions | gender |
| 142 | only a single preposition - that is, one item of a word class distinct from other word classes (nouns, pronouns, verbs, inflectional clitics, particles, ideophones, and COMP words) and comparable to a word class of adpositions in other languages | Wari' (Chapacuran, Amazonian) | syntax / word classes | adposition |
| 143 | only a single adjective – that is, one item of a word class distinct from other word classes (in particular nouns and verbs) and comparable to a word class of adjectives in other languages | Toqabaqita (Austronesian, spoken in the Solomon Islands) | syntax / word classes | adjective |
| 144 | an asymmetric gender system, with genders distinguished in singular but not in plural, but a few words that do show a gender contrast in the plural, agreeing with nouns depending on their singular gender: the numerals 'two' and perhaps 'three', and the quantifier 'both' | older West Germanic languages (Indo-European) | morphology, syntax / agreement | gender, number, numerals |
| 145 | of all cardinal numerals, only that for 'four' agreeing in gender | Chechen, Ingush, Tsova-Tush (NE Central, or Nakh, Daghestanian) | morphology, syntax / agreement | numeral, gender |
| 146 | different forms of the verb 'to say' depending on the sex of the person whose speaking is reported: bada '[a man] said', mana '[a woman] said' |
Ket (isolate, "Paleosiberian") | morphology, lexicon / agreement | gender, speech reporting |
| 147 | an imperative of distant future, as opposed to an imperative of near future; formed from near-future imperative verb forms plus the ablative singular of the pronoun *to-, -to:d 'from there, afterwards' illustration: tu epistulam hanc a me accipe atque illi dato: (Plautus, Pseudolus) 'take you this letter from me [now] and give it to him [later]!' |
Old Indian (Sanskrit), Ancient Greek, and Latin (a family possession, i.e., jointly innovated in (a subset of) Indo-European, and lost in other members of the family?) | morphology: inflection / mood, tense | imperative, future |