Syntactic Typology Features Catalog
A WALS-style reference catalog of cross-linguistic grammatical features. Each row gives the feature, its values, attested languages exemplifying each value, and the standard citations (Greenberg 1963; Comrie 1981; Nichols 1986; Bybee, Perkins & Pagliuca 1994; Dryer 2007; Bickel & Nichols 2007; WALS Online — Dryer & Haspelmath 2013). Use this when comparing structural properties across the world’s languages or specifying a typological profile.
I. Basic Constituent Order
| Feature | Value | Attested languages | Approximate share | Citations |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Word order — basic | SOV (subject-object-verb) | Japanese, Korean, Turkish, Hindi-Urdu, Tamil, Persian, Quechua, Burmese, Latin (preferred), Pāli | ~41 % (Dryer 2013, WALS 81A; 565 of 1,377) | Greenberg 1963; Dryer 1991 |
| Word order — basic | SVO | English, French, Mandarin, Indonesian, Swahili, Yoruba, Russian (free but SVO base) | ~36 % | Dryer 2013 |
| Word order — basic | VSO | Classical Arabic, Welsh, Irish, Scottish Gaelic, Tagalog (predicate-initial), Squamish, Hawaiian | ~7 % | Greenberg 1963 |
| Word order — basic | VOS | Malagasy, Fijian, Tzotzil | ~2 % | Dryer 2013 |
| Word order — basic | OVS | Hixkaryana (Cariban; Derbyshire 1985); Urarina; Sanumá | <1 % | Derbyshire 1985 (rare-types claim) |
| Word order — basic | OSV | Warao; Nadëb; Tobati | <0.5 % | Hawkins 1983 |
| Word order — basic | No dominant order | German (V2 + free); Russian; Latin | ~13 % | Dryer 2013 |
| Verb position | Verb-final (SOV) | Japanese, Korean, Tibetan, Basque, Quechua | (subset of above) | Dryer 1992 (head-finality) |
| Verb position | Verb-initial (VSO + VOS) | Welsh, Irish, Malagasy, Hawaiian | ~9 % | Carnie 1995 |
| Verb position | Verb-medial (SVO) | English, Mandarin, Swahili | ~36 % | (basic order) |
II. Morphological Typology
| Feature | Value | Definition / example | Attested languages | Citations |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Synthesis index | Isolating | morpheme:word ratio ~1.0; mostly free morphemes | Vietnamese, Mandarin, Yoruba, Thai | Greenberg 1960 (index of synthesis) |
| Synthesis index | Mildly synthetic / fusional | 2–3 morphemes per word; single morpheme expresses multiple categories | Spanish, French, Russian, Latin, Ancient Greek | Greenberg 1960; Sapir 1921 (typology) |
| Synthesis index | Agglutinative | morpheme:word ~3+; each morpheme expresses one category transparently | Turkish, Finnish, Hungarian, Swahili, Japanese, Korean, Quechua, Mongolian | Greenberg 1960 |
| Synthesis index | Polysynthetic | morpheme:word ~4–10+; verbs incorporate arguments | West Greenlandic (Inuktitut), Mohawk, Chukchi, Nahuatl, Ainu, Sora | Mithun 1984 (noun incorporation); Baker 1996; Fortescue 1994 |
| Fusion index | Exclusively concatenative | morphemes separable | Turkish (high) | Greenberg 1960 |
| Fusion index | Fusional / non-concatenative | morphemes inseparable; one form codes several | Russian домами “with houses” instrumental.plural in one suffix; Arabic Semitic templates ktb → kataba, kitāb, kātib | Plank 1999 |
| Head-marking vs dependent-marking | Head-marking | grammatical relations marked on head (verb / noun) | Navajo, Mayan, Mohawk, Lakhota | Nichols 1986 |
| Head-marking vs dependent-marking | Dependent-marking | relations marked on dependents (case on nouns) | Latin, Russian, Turkish, Korean, Japanese | Nichols 1986 |
| Head-marking vs dependent-marking | Double-marking | both | Belhare; Maricopa; many Caucasian | Nichols 1992 |
| Head-marking vs dependent-marking | No (zero) marking | Vietnamese, Mandarin (some clause types) | Nichols 1992 |
III. Alignment Systems
| Alignment | Definition | Attested languages | Citations |
|---|---|---|---|
| Nominative–accusative | S + A (intransitive subj + transitive subj) pattern alike; O different | English, French, Russian, Mandarin, Japanese, Swahili, Latin | Comrie 1978; Dixon 1979 |
| Ergative–absolutive | S + O pattern alike (absolutive); A different (ergative) | Basque, Dyirbal, Yup’ik, most Mayan, Hindi-Urdu (split — perfective), Georgian (split — aorist), Inuktitut | Dixon 1979 (Ergativity, 1994); Comrie 1978 |
| Tripartite | S, A, O all distinct | Nez Perce; Wangkumara; Yukulta | Comrie 1981 |
| Split-S / active-stative | Some intransitive S pattern with A, others with O (based on agentivity / dynamicity) | Lakhota (Dakota), Acehnese, Tabassaran, Guarani, Eastern Pomo | Mithun 1991 (Active/Agentive); Dixon 1994 |
| Austronesian (symmetrical voice) | Multiple voices; “actor voice” + “patient voice” + “locative voice”; no single ergative or accusative | Tagalog, Cebuano, Malagasy, Atayal, Seediq | Foley & Van Valin 1984; Himmelmann 2005 |
| Direct–inverse | Agent + patient ranked on a hierarchy; verb marks whether direction matches | Algonquian (Cree, Plains Cree); Nuu-chah-nulth | DeLancey 1981; Bloomfield 1946 |
| Split ergativity | Ergative alignment in some contexts (e.g. perfective, 3rd-person), accusative in others | Hindi-Urdu (ergative in perfective only); Dyirbal (NPs split by person); Georgian | Dixon 1979, 1994; Silverstein 1976 (hierarchy) |
IV. Case Marking and Grammatical Relations
| Feature | Value | Attested languages | Citations |
|---|---|---|---|
| Number of cases | 0 | English (vestigial in pronouns); Mandarin; Vietnamese | WALS 49A |
| Number of cases | 2–4 | Modern Greek, Romanian, German (4) | WALS 49A |
| Number of cases | 5–7 | Russian (6), Latin (6), Polish (7) | WALS 49A |
| Number of cases | 8–9 | Sanskrit (8), Turkish (6 plus dative + locative + ablative = ~8) | WALS 49A |
| Number of cases | 10+ | Finnish (15), Hungarian (18), Tabasaran (claimed 46+ but contested), Tsez (~64 spatial cases) | Comrie & Polinsky 1998; Daniel & Ganenkov 2009 |
| Relativization strategy (Keenan-Comrie accessibility hierarchy) | Subject | All languages permit | Keenan & Comrie 1977 |
| Relativization strategy | Direct object | English (gap); Hindi (correlative) | Keenan & Comrie 1977 |
| Relativization strategy | Indirect object | English (with pied-piping or stranding); Malagasy fails | Keenan & Comrie 1977 |
| Relativization strategy | Oblique | English (with preposition) | Keenan & Comrie 1977 |
| Relativization strategy | Genitive | English (whose); Tagalog needs voice-shifting | Keenan & Comrie 1977 |
| Relativization strategy | Object of comparison | Few languages permit | Keenan & Comrie 1977 |
| Gap strategy | Use of resumptive pronoun | Hebrew, Arabic, Welsh in oblique positions | Comrie 1989 |
| Gap strategy | Relative pronoun | English, German, Russian | Comrie 1989 |
| Gap strategy | Internally-headed relative | Lakhota, Quechua, Korean, Japanese (some) | Cole 1987 |
| Gap strategy | Correlative | Hindi-Urdu; Sanskrit; Marathi | Bhatt 2003 |
V. Tense, Aspect, Mood, Evidentiality
| Feature | Value | Languages | Citations |
|---|---|---|---|
| Tense | Marked obligatorily | English, French, Spanish (past/non-past + past/present/future) | Bybee, Perkins & Pagliuca 1994 |
| Tense | Unmarked / aspect-prominent | Mandarin (no overt tense), Indonesian, Vietnamese, Wolof | Lin 2006 (Mandarin); Comrie 1985 |
| Aspect — grammaticalized | Imperfective/perfective | Russian; French (passé composé vs imparfait); Mandarin -le (perfective), -zhe (durative) | Comrie 1976 (Aspect) |
| Aspect — grammaticalized | Progressive | English be V-ing; Spanish estar V-iendo | Bybee et al. 1994 |
| Aspect — grammaticalized | Perfect | English have V-en; German haben/sein + V-en | Comrie 1976 |
| Mood / modality — grammaticalized | Indicative / subjunctive / imperative | Spanish (rich subjunctive); French | Bybee et al. 1994 |
| Mood / modality — grammaticalized | Optative / hortative / desiderative | Sanskrit; Turkish; Yup’ik | Palmer 2001 |
| Mood / modality — grammaticalized | Conditional / counterfactual | French -rais; Spanish -ría | Iatridou 2000 |
| Evidentiality — grammaticalized | Two-term (direct vs indirect/reportative) | Turkish -DI vs -mIş; Estonian; modern Persian | Aikhenvald 2004 |
| Evidentiality — grammaticalized | Three-term (visual/inferred/reported) | Tariana (Arawakan); Cherokee; Western Apache | Aikhenvald 2004 |
| Evidentiality — grammaticalized | Four+ terms (visual/non-visual sensory/inferred/reported) | Tariana (5-term); Tucano; Cusco Quechua | Aikhenvald 2004 (Evidentiality) |
| Evidentiality — grammaticalized | Bulgarian “renarrative” / Macedonian / Albanian “admirative” | Bulgarian; Macedonian; Albanian | Friedman 1986 |
| Evidentiality — grammaticalized | Tibetan-Lhasa verb-final evidential particles | Tibetan; Newari; Sherpa | DeLancey 1986; Tournadre 1996 |
VI. Noun Phrase Internal Order
Greenberg’s universals (1963) connect basic word order to NP internal order.
| Feature | Value | Languages | Citations |
|---|---|---|---|
| Genitive position | Gen-N | Japanese (no); Korean; Turkish; Hindi | Greenberg 1963 universal 2 (associated with verb-final) |
| Genitive position | N-Gen | French le livre de Jean; Italian; Welsh | Greenberg 1963 (associated with verb-initial / verb-medial) |
| Adjective position | Adj-N | English; German; Russian; Mandarin | Dryer 1992 |
| Adjective position | N-Adj | French; Spanish (mostly); Welsh; Indonesian; Yoruba | Dryer 1992 |
| Numeral position | Num-N | English three books; Mandarin 三本书 | Greenberg 1963 |
| Numeral position | N-Num | Welsh; Indonesian buku tiga; Yucatec | Dryer 2013 (WALS 89A) |
| Demonstrative position | Dem-N | English; Japanese; Russian; Mandarin | Dryer 2013 |
| Demonstrative position | N-Dem | French (with deictic clitic); Indonesian buku itu; Hawaiian; Welsh | Dryer 2013 |
| Adposition type | Prepositions | English; French; Spanish; Welsh; Hawaiian; Yoruba | Greenberg 1963; correlates with VO order |
| Adposition type | Postpositions | Japanese; Korean; Turkish; Hindi-Urdu; Basque; Quechua; Finnish | Greenberg 1963; correlates with OV order |
| Adposition type | Inpositions / circumpositions | German wegen … willen; some Bantu | (minor type) |
VII. Pro-drop and Subject Marking
| Feature | Value | Languages | Citations |
|---|---|---|---|
| Subject pronoun | Obligatory (non-pro-drop) | English; French; German; Mandarin (in clear contexts) | Chomsky 1981; Rizzi 1986 |
| Subject pronoun | Optional (consistent pro-drop) | Spanish, Italian, Greek, Polish, Russian, Turkish, Japanese, Korean | Rizzi 1986; Huang 1984 (Logical Relations) |
| Subject pronoun | Radical pro-drop (no verbal agreement; subject still dropped) | Mandarin; Japanese; Korean | Huang 1984; Tomioka 2003 |
| Subject pronoun | Partial pro-drop | Hebrew (1st/2nd in past + future only); Brazilian Portuguese | Holmberg 2005 |
| Subject expression | Verbal agreement obligatory | Latin; Spanish; Russian; Swahili (subject + object) | (broad survey) |
| Subject expression | No verbal agreement | Mandarin; Japanese; Korean | (broad survey) |
VIII. Other Cross-Linguistic Features
| Feature | Value | Languages | Citations |
|---|---|---|---|
| Reduplication | Full reduplication | Indonesian orang “person” → orang-orang “people”; Mandarin kankan “look-look”; Tagalog | Inkelas & Zoll 2005 |
| Reduplication | Partial reduplication | Tagalog bili “buy” → bibili “will buy”; Latin do “give” → dedi “gave” | Inkelas & Zoll 2005 |
| Reduplication | None | English (almost); German | (broad survey) |
| Numeral classifiers | Obligatory before noun | Mandarin (yi ben shu), Japanese, Korean, Vietnamese, Thai, Bengali, Burmese | Aikhenvald 2000 (Classifiers) |
| Numeral classifiers | None | English, French, Russian, Arabic, Swahili | Aikhenvald 2000 |
| Noun class / gender | None | English (vestigial); Finnish; Hungarian; Turkish; Mandarin | Corbett 1991 (Gender) |
| Noun class / gender | 2 (masculine/feminine) | French; Spanish; Hebrew; Arabic | Corbett 1991 |
| Noun class / gender | 3 (m/f/n) | Russian; German; Latin; Sanskrit | Corbett 1991 |
| Noun class / gender | 4+ (semantic noun classes) | Swahili (~15), Zulu (~17), Dyirbal (4 — “balan/bayi/balam/bala”), Fula (~25 classes) | Corbett 1991 |
| Serial verb constructions | Yes | Akan; Yoruba; Igbo; Cantonese; Hmong; Sranan | Aikhenvald & Dixon 2006 |
| Serial verb constructions | No | English; Russian; Arabic | (Aikhenvald & Dixon 2006) |
| Valency-changing — causative | Morphological | Turkish -DIr-; Japanese -sase-; Swahili -ish-/-y- | Comrie 1985; Dixon 2000 |
| Valency-changing — causative | Periphrastic | English make; French faire; Russian zastavit’ | Dixon 2000 |
| Valency-changing — applicative | Yes | Bantu (Chichewa, Swahili); Mayan; Salish; Indonesian -kan | Peterson 2007 |
| Valency-changing — antipassive | Yes (typically ergative langs) | Dyirbal; West Greenlandic; Mayan; Chukchi | Polinsky 2017 |
| Focus marking | Morphological | Hungarian (preverbal focus position); Wolof (focus particles); Tagalog | É. Kiss 1998 |
| Focus marking | Syntactic only | English (clefts, prosody) | Rooth 1992 |
| Switch reference | Yes | Pomo languages; Choctaw; Eastern Pomo; Amele (PNG); Aguaruna | Haiman & Munro 1983 (Switch Reference) |
| Switch reference | No | most Indo-European | (broad survey) |
| Logophoric pronouns | Yes (referring back to a non-local subject of speech/thought) | Ewe; Yoruba; Mundang | Hagège 1974; Clements 1975 |
| Logophoric pronouns | No | English; Mandarin (long-distance reflexives instead) | Huang & Liu 2001 |
IX. Verb Agreement
| Feature | Value | Languages | Citations |
|---|---|---|---|
| Subject agreement | Person + number on verb | Spanish; Russian; Swahili; Hindi-Urdu | (broad) |
| Subject agreement | None | Mandarin; Japanese; Vietnamese; Thai | (broad) |
| Object agreement | Yes (polypersonal) | Basque, Georgian, Swahili, Mayan, Hungarian | Anagnostopoulou 2003 |
| Number of arguments cross-referenced | 3+ (subj + obj + IO + benefactive …) | Mohawk; Chichewa; Sumerian; some Basque dialects | Baker 1996 |
X. Greenberg’s Universals (selected)
Joseph Greenberg, Some Universals of Grammar (1963). Implicational and absolute universals.
| # | Statement | Status (Hawkins 1983 critique etc.) |
|---|---|---|
| 1 | In declarative sentences with nominal subject + object, the dominant order is one in which the subject precedes the object | Absolute (with very rare counterexamples like Hixkaryana OVS) |
| 2 | In languages with prepositions, the genitive almost always follows the governing noun; with postpositions, it almost always precedes | Strong implicational |
| 3 | Languages with dominant VSO order are always prepositional | Strong implicational |
| 4 | With overwhelmingly greater than chance frequency, languages with normal SOV order are postpositional | Strong implicational; reformulated by Dryer 1992 |
| 17 | With overwhelmingly more than chance frequency, languages with dominant VSO order have adjectives after the noun | Implicational |
| 27 | If a language is exclusively suffixing, it is postpositional; if it is exclusively prefixing, it is prepositional | Reformulated by Hawkins 1983 |
| 43 | If a language has gender categories in the noun, it also has gender categories in the pronoun | Absolute |
Adjacent
- Language families catalog for which families show which typological profiles.
- IPA and phonological features catalog for the phonological sister catalog.
- Syntax and Grammar survey for the theoretical context.
- Historical Linguistics and Typology for areal patterns + change.
- Linguistics Tier 3 index · Linguistics Tier 1 root