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Sinhala language

Alternative names (including historical names and autoglottonyms): Sinhalese

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PDFVolume 17. New Indo-Aryan languages
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Genealogy

Indo-European → Indo-Iranian → Indo-Aryan → Insular Indo-Aryan

Geography

Main country: Sri Lanka (show on the map)

Area maps from the encyclopedia (in Russian)

Map designer: Yuri Koryakov

Identifiers

Features

Phonemic structure

[A‑1] Number of degrees of vowel height Four [A‑1‑3]
[A‑2] Vowel height degrees Close, mid-close, mid-open, and open [A‑2‑6]
[A‑3] Opposition in openness/closedness for vowel height degrees Mid [A‑3‑2]
[A‑4] Degrees of vowel backness Front, central and back [A‑4‑3]
[A‑5] Presence of length degrees Present [A‑5‑1]
[A‑6] Number of length degrees Two [A‑6‑1]
[A‑7] Presence of vowel opposition in labialization Absent [A‑7‑2]
[A‑9] Presence of vowel opposition in nasalization Absent [A‑9‑2]
[A‑11] Vowel opposition in pharyngealization No vowel opposition in pharyngealization [A‑11‑1]
[A‑12] Vowel opposition in ATR No vowel opposition in ATR [A‑12‑1]
[A‑13] Diphthongs and triphthongs Only diphthongs present [A‑13‑2]
[A‑15] Inventory of obstruents by laryngeal features Opposition by presence and absence of voice [A‑15‑1]
[A‑16] Inventory of obstruents by manner of articulation Plosives, affricates and fricatives [A‑16‑3]
[A‑17] Inventory of obstruents by place of articulation Labial, coronal, palatal, guttural and laryngeal [A‑17‑2]
[A‑18] Inventory of labial obstruents by place of articulation Only bilabial [A‑18‑1]
[A‑20] Inventory of guttural obstruents by place of articulation Velar [A‑20‑1]
[A‑21] Inventory of postuvular obstruents by place of articulation Only glottal [A‑21‑2]
[A‑22] Additional articulatory oppositions of obstruents By palatalization [A‑22‑3]
[A‑23] Inventory of sonorants by manner of articulation Nasal, liquid, vibrant and glide [A‑23‑6]
[A‑24] Inventory of sonorants by place of articulation Labial, coronal and dorsal [A‑24‑14]

Prosodic phenomena

[B‑2] Prosodic unit carrier Syllable [B‑2‑1]
[B‑3] Character of prosodic unit by its choice Non-phonological [B‑3‑2]
[B‑5] Stress fixedness Fixed [B‑5‑2]
[B‑16] Target of vowel harmony All vowels [B‑16‑6]
[B‑17] Feature of vowel harmony Height [B‑17‑3]

Syllable

[C‑1] Syllable onset Both null and non-null onset possible [C‑1‑4]
[C‑2] Syllable coda Both null and non-null coda possible [C‑2‑4]

Phonologic structure and phenomena

[D‑2] Types of restrictions on the phonemic structure in the initial position No consonant clusters [D‑2‑7]
[D‑5] Variants of characteristics of the syllabic structure of words Mostly bisyllabic words [D‑5‑3]
[D‑12] Functional type of alternations Accompanying and distinctive [D‑12‑4]
[D‑13] Type of altenations Vowel and consonant alternations [D‑13‑6]

Morphological type of language

[E‑1] Type of language by type of morpheme combination in a word Fusional with some agglutinative features [E‑1‑4]
[E‑2] Fusional type features Cumulative affixes [E‑2‑2]

Nominal classifications

[F‑1] Number of agreement classes Two [F‑1‑2]
[F‑7] Nouns classifying categories Person/non-person and animacy/inanimacy [F‑7‑4]
[F‑9] Expression of animacy/inanimacy Morphological [F‑9‑2]

Number

[G‑1] Number in nouns Singular and plural [G‑1‑1]
[G‑2] Single number marking Marked and unmarked [G‑2‑3]
[G‑3] Honorific forms in pronouns and verbs Neutral, polite, and impolite [G‑3‑3]
[G‑4] Agreement in number Predicative [G‑4‑2]

Case meanings

[H‑1] Number of noun cases Three-seven [H‑1‑2]
[H‑2] Subject and object marking Verbal agreement and case affixes [H‑2‑5]
[H‑8] Case marking of animate and inanimate nouns Different [H‑8‑2]

Verbal categories

[I‑1] Voice forms expression Auxiliary verb and affixes [I‑1‑6]
[I‑5] Tense forms Past [I‑5‑1]
[I‑5] Tense forms Non-past [I‑5‑5]
[I‑6] Aspect and tense expression Separate [I‑6‑1]
[I‑7] Expression of tense categories Affixes [I‑7‑1]
[I‑8] Syncretic expression of several verb meanings Tense, person and number [I‑8‑8]
[I‑9] Marking of person in present tense verbs In singular and plural [I‑9‑3]
[I‑10] Transitivity marker Absent [I‑10‑1]

Deictic categories

[J‑1] Pronominal words Pronouns-adjectives [J‑1‑12]
[J‑5] Morphological expression of (in)definiteness Noun affixes [J‑5‑2]
[J‑6] Words expressing (in)definiteness Pronouns [J‑6‑2]
[J‑7] Grammatical ways to express politeness Pronouns distinguishing polite forms [J‑7‑1]
[J‑8] Expression of negation Negative particles [J‑8‑3]
[J‑9] Negation marker position Preposition and postposition [J‑9‑9]

Parts of speech and inflection

[K‑1] Personal pronouns inflection Pronominal inflection type [K‑1‑3]
[K‑2] Articles Only definite [K‑2‑3]
[K‑4] Article place Postposition [K‑4‑2]
[K‑5] Position of article in noun phrase Single article preceding the phrase [K‑5‑1]
[K‑6] Grammar categories of article Definiteness [K‑6‑2]
[K‑7] Number of conjugation types Single type of conjugation [K‑7‑1]
[K‑8] Verb agreement types Subject [K‑8‑2]
[K‑9] Agreement categories expressed in participle Number [K‑9‑5]
[K‑12] Agreement categories expressed in adjective Absent [K‑12‑1]
[K‑16] Inflectional categories of noun Number and case [K‑16‑7]
[K‑17] Cumulative expression of several categories in noun Gender / agreement class, number and case [K‑17‑11]
[K‑18] Inflection means Affixes [K‑18‑2]
[K‑19] Word form model Mainly or only suffixal [K‑19‑4]

Word formation

[L‑1] Word formation means Derivation and compounding [L‑1‑12]
[L‑2] Derivation affixes Suffixes [L‑2‑2]

Simple sentence

[M‑1] Morphosyntactic alignment Accusative with elements of ergativity [M‑1‑7]
[M‑3] Dominant word order SOV [M‑3‑2]
[M‑4] Order of nouns and its modifier Modifier precedes noun [M‑4‑1]

Complex sentence

[N‑3] Dependent clause predicate Both finite and non-finite forms possible [N‑3‑3]
[N‑5] Compound sentence syndesis and asyndeton Asyndeton dominant [N‑5‑2]

Unfilled features

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