Bayle Shanks's website: notes-conLangsWals

when designing a conlang, it may be useful to go through the WALS attributes and choose the most common ones, or close to most common ones:

this page lets you see the feature distributions for all features: http://wals.info/feature

the definition of the feature values can be found in the corresponding 'chapter': http://wals.info/chapter/1

an example of a 'language' page is: http://wals.info/languoid/lect/wals_code_eng

the most common features are, for those features with over 80 languages surveyed, are:

Phonology: 1A Consonant Inventories: average

2A Vowel Quality Inventories: average (5-6)

3A Consonant-Vowel Ratio: average

4A Voicing in Plosives and Fricatives: each of the following is common (in the future i'll write this situation as 'either'): No voicing contrast, Voicing contrast in plosives alone, Voicing contrast in both plosives and fricatives

5A Voicing and Gaps in Plosive Systems: either Other or /p t k b d g/

6A Uvular Consonants: No uvulars 7A Glottalized Consonants : No glottalized consonants 8A Lateral Consonants : /l/, no obstruent laterals 9A The Velar Nasal : No velar nasal 10A Vowel Nasalization : Contrastive nasal vowels absent

11A Front Rounded Vowels : None 12A Syllable Structure : Moderately complex syllable structure 13A Tone : No tones 14A Fixed Stress Locations : No fixed stress (mostly weight-sensitive stress) (NOTE: "Somewhat more than half of the languages in our sample have fixed stress." however where the fixed stress is differs, so the plurality value when considering where it is is still 'no fixed stress'; however among the other choices, the next most popular is 'Penultimate: stress is on the penultimate (second from the right) syllable' 15A Weight-Sensitive Stress : Fixed stress (no weight-sensitivity) 16A Weight Factors in Weight-Sensitive Stress Systems : No weight, or weight factor unknown 17A Rhythm Types : Trochaic: left-hand syllable in the foot is strong 18A Absence of Common Consonants : All present 19A Presence of Uncommon Consonants: None

Morphology: 20A Fusion of Selected Inflectional Formatives : Exclusively concatenative 21A Exponence of Selected Inflectional Formatives: either 'No case' or 'Monoexponential case' 21B Exponence of Tense-Aspect-Mood Inflection: monoexponential TAM 22A Inflectional Synthesis of the Verb : 4-5 categories per word 23A Locus of Marking in the Clause : either P is head-marked, P is dependent-marked, P is double-marked 24A Locus of Marking in Possessive Noun Phrases: either Possessor is dependent-marked or Possessor is head-marked 25A Locus of Marking: Whole-language Typology: Inconsistent marking or other type 25B Zero Marking of A and P Arguments: Non-zero marking 26A Prefixing vs. Suffixing in Inflectional Morphology : Predominantly suffixing 27A Reduplication : Productive full and partial reduplication 28A Case Syncretism: Inflectional case marking is absent or minimal 29A Syncretism in Verbal Person/Number Marking : Subject person/number marking is never syncretic

Nominal Categories: 30A Number of Genders: None 31A Sex-based and Non-sex-based Gender Systems : No gender system 32A Systems of Gender Assignment : No gender system 33A Coding of Nominal Plurality: Plural suffix 34A Occurrence of Nominal Plurality: Plural in all nouns, always obligatory 35A Plurality in Independent Personal Pronouns : Person-number stem 36A The Associative Plural : Associative plural marker also used for additive plurals 37A Definite Articles: either 'Definite word distinct from demonstrative' or 'Neither definite nor indefinite article' 38A Indefinite Articles: Neither indefinite nor definite (note: however the sum of the following is comparable: 'Indefinite word distinct from numeral for 'one, 'Numeral for 'one' is used as indefinite article') 39A Inclusive/Exclusive Distinction in Independent Pronouns: No inclusive/exclusive opposition

40A Inclusive/Exclusive Distinction in Verbal Inflection : either 'No inclusive/exclusive opposition' or 'No person marking at all' 41A Distance Contrasts in Demonstratives : Two-way contrast 42A Pronominal and Adnominal Demonstratives: Same forms 43A Third Person Pronouns and Demonstratives : Third person pronouns and demonstratives are unrelated to demonstratives 44A Gender Distinctions in Independent Personal Pronouns : No gender distinctions 45A Politeness Distinctions in Pronouns: Second person pronouns encode no politeness distinction 46A Indefinite Pronouns: Interrogative-based indefinites 47A Intensifiers and Reflexive Pronouns : either 'Intensifiers and reflexive pronouns are formally identical' or 'Intensifiers and reflexive pronouns are formally differentiated' (this is all of the choices) 48A Person Marking on Adpositions: Adpositions without person marking 49A Number of Cases : No morphological case-marking (note: although that answer is modal, you have to take the cumulative sum of '3 or less case categories' to get a majority over its complement (that is, over '4 or more')) 50A Asymmetrical Case-Marking : either 'No morphological case-marking' or 'Symmetrical case-marking' 51A Position of Case Affixes : Case suffixes 52A Comitatives and Instrumentals: Differentiation 53A Ordinal Numerals : Two-th: Two-th: Ordinal numerals from 'two' upwards are derived from cardinal numerals, 'first' is suppletive (note: the sum of 'Zero', 'One', 'First', 'One-th', 'First/One-th' exceeds the modal 'Two-th') 54A Distributive Numerals: Marked by reduplication 55A Numeral Classifiers: Numeral classifiers are absent 56A Conjunctions and Universal Quantifiers : all choices are common: 'Formally similar, involving interrogative expression', 'Formally different', 'Formally similar, not involving interrogative expression' 57A Position of Pronominal Possessive Affixes: 'Possessive suffixes' but 'No possessive affixes' and 'Possessive prefixes' are also fairly common

Nominal Syntax: 58A Obligatory Possessive Inflection : No obligatorily possessed nouns 58B Number of Possessive Nouns : None reported 59A Possessive Classification: No possessive classification 60A Genitives, Adjectives and Relative Clauses : Highly differentiated 61A Adjectives without Nouns : Adjective may occur without noun, and without marking 62A Action Nominal Constructions : 'No action nominals' is modal, but the sum of the others greatly exceeds it, although the other values are somewhat scattered between 'Sentential: dependent-marking of the finite clause is retained for S, A and P' 'Possessive-Accusative: S/A treated as possessors, P retains sentential marking', 'Ergative-Possessive: S/P treated as possessors, A treated differently', 'Not both A and P in the same construction' 63A Noun Phrase Conjunction: all choices are common: 'AND-languages: 'and' and 'with' are not identical', 'WITH-languages: 'and' and 'with' are identical' 64A Nominal and Verbal Conjunction : either 'Nominal and verbal conjunction are largely identical' or 'Nominal and verbal conjunction are different'

Verbal Categories: 65A Perfective/Imperfective Aspect : all choices are common: 'No grammatical marking of perfective/imperfective distinction' or 'Grammatical marking of perfective/imperfective distinction' 66A The Past Tense : either 'Past/non-past distinction marked; no remoteness distinction' or 'No grammatical marking of past/non-past distinction' 67A The Future Tense : all choices are commond: 'No inflectional marking of future/non-future distinction' or 'Inflectional marking of future/non-future distinction' 68A The Perfect: either 'No perfect' or 'Other perfect' 69A Position of Tense-Aspect Affixes : Tense-aspect suffixes 70A The Morphological Imperative : The language has morphologically dedicated second singular as well as second plural imperatives 71A The Prohibitive: either 'The prohbitive uses the verbal construction of the second singular imperative and a sentential negative strategy not found in (indicative) declaratives' or 'The prohibitive uses a verbal construction other than the second singular imperative and a sentential negative strategy not found in (indicative) declaratives' 72A Imperative-Hortative Systems : either 'The language has neither a maximal nor a minimal system' or 'The language has a maximal system, but not a minimal one' 73A The Optative : Inflectional optative absent 74A Situational Possibility: The language cannot express situational possibility with affixes on verbs, but with verbal constructions 75A Epistemic Possibility: either 'The language cannot express epistemic possibility with verbal constructions or with affixes on verbs, but with other kinds of markers' or 'The language cannot express epistemic possibility with verbal constructions, but with affixes on verbs' 76A Overlap between Situational and Epistemic Modal Marking: The language has no markers that can code both situational and epistemic modality 77A Semantic Distinctions of Evidentiality : either 'No grammatical evidentials' or 'Only indirect evidentials' 78A Coding of Evidentiality: either 'No grammatical evidentials' or 'Verbal affix or clitic' 79A Suppletion According to Tense and Aspect : No suppletion in tense or aspect 79B Suppletion in Imperatives and Hortatives : None (= no suppletive imperatives reported in the reference material) 80A Verbal Number and Suppletion : No singular-(dual)-plural pairs/triples

Word Order: 81A Order of Subject, Object and Verb: either 'Subject-object-verb (SOV)' or 'Subject-verb-object (SVO)'

82A Order of Subject and Verb: Subject precedes verb (SV) 83A Order of Object and Verb : either 'Object precedes verb (OV)' or 'Object follows verb (VO)' 84A Order of Object, Oblique, and Verb : either 'Verb-object-oblique (VOX)' or 'More than one order with none dominant' 85A Order of Adposition and Noun Phrase: either 'Postpositions' or 'Prepositions' 86A Order of Genitive and Noun : Genitive-noun (GenN?) 87A Order of Adjective and Noun: Modifying adjective follows noun (NAdj) 88A Order of Demonstrative and Noun: either 'Demonstrative word follows noun (NDem)' or 'Demonstrative word precedes noun (DemN?)' 89A Order of Numeral and Noun: either 'Numeral follows noun (NNum)' or 'Numeral precedes noun (NumN?)' 90A Order of Relative Clause and Noun: Relative clause follows noun (NRel) 90B Prenominal relative clauses: Relative clause-Noun (RelN?) dominant 90C Postnominal relative clauses : Noun-Relative clause (NRel) dominant

91A Order of Degree Word and Adjective : either 'Degree word precedes adjective (DegAdj?)' or 'Degree word follows adjective (AdjDeg?)' 92A Position of Polar Question Particles : either 'No question particle' or 'Question particle at end of sentence' 93A Position of Interrogative Phrases in Content Questions : Interrogative phrases not obligatorily initial 94A Order of Adverbial Subordinator and Clause : Adverbial subordinators which are separate words and which appear at the beginning of the subordinate clause 95A Relationship between the Order of Object and Verb and the Order of Adposition and Noun Phrase: either 'Object-verb and postpositional (OV&Postp)' or 'Verb-object and prepositional (VO&Prep)' 96A Relationship between the Order of Object and Verb and the Order of Relative Clause and Noun: Verb-object and noun-relative clause (VO&NRel) 97A Relationship between the Order of Object and Verb and the Order of Adjective and Noun: Verb-object and noun-adjective (VO&NAdj)

Simple Clauses: 98A Alignment of Case Marking of Full Noun Phrases : Neutral 99A Alignment of Case Marking of Pronouns: either Neutral or Nominative - accusative (standard) 100A Alignment of Verbal Person Marking : Accusative alignment 101A Expression of Pronominal Subjects : Pronominal subjects are expressed by affixes on verbs 102A Verbal Person Marking: Person marking of both the A and P arguments 103A Third Person Zero of Verbal Person Marking : No zero realization of third person S forms 104A Order of Person Markers on the Verb: A and P do not or do not both occur on the verb 105A Ditransitive Constructions: The Verb 'Give': Indirect-object construction 106A Reciprocal Constructions : All reciprocal constructions are formally distinct from reflexive constructions 107A Passive Constructions: all choices: 'There is no passive construction' or 'There is a passive construction' 108A Antipassive Constructions: No antipassive 108B Productivity of the Antipassive Construction : No antipassive 109A Applicative Constructions: No applicative construction 109B Other Roles of Applied Objects : No applicative construction 110A Periphrastic Causative Constructions : Purposive type but no sequential type 111A Nonperiphrastic Causative Constructions : Morphological type but no compound type 112A Negative Morphemes : either 'Negative particle' or 'Negative affix' 113A Symmetric and Asymmetric Standard Negation : either 'Symmetric and asymmetric standard negation: Type SymAsy?' or 'Symmetric standard negation only: Type Sym' 114A Subtypes of Asymmetric Standard Negation : either 'Non-assignable (no asymmetry found)' or 'A/Cat' 115A Negative Indefinite Pronouns and Predicate Negation: Negative indefinites co-occur with predicate negation 116A Polar Questions : Question particle 117A Predicative Possession : scattered between most choices: 'Have-Possessive', 'Conjunctional Possessive', 'Locational Possessive', 'Topic Possessive' 118A Predicative Adjectives : all choices are common: 'Predicative adjectives have verbal encoding', 'Predicative adjectives have nonverbal encoding', 'Predicative adjectives have mixed encoding' 119A Nominal and Locational Predication : Split (i.e. different) encoding of nominal and locational predication 120A Zero Copula for Predicate Nominals : all choices are common: 'Zero copula is impossible' or 'Zero copula is possible' 121A Comparative Constructions: Locational Comparative

Complex Sentences: 122A Relativization on Subjects : Gap 123A Relativization on Obliques : Gap Strategy 124A 'Want' Complement Subjects The complement subject is left implicit 125A Purpose Clauses: Deranked 126A 'When' Clauses : Balanced 127A Reason Clauses : Balanced 128A Utterance Complement Clauses : Balanced

Lexicon: 129A Hand and Arm : both choices are commond: 'Differentiation: one word denotes 'hand' and another, different word denotes 'arm and 'Identity: a single word denotes both 'hand' and 'arm 130A Finger and Hand: Differentiation: one word denotes 'hand' and another, different word denotes 'finger' (or, very rarely, 'fingers')

131A Numeral Bases: Decimal (interestingly, the next most common choices are vigesimal or hybrid vigesimal-decimal) 132A Number of Non-Derived Basic Colour Categories : 5 categories 133A Number of Basic Colour Categories : 6 or between 6 and 7 categories 134A Green and Blue : Green-or-blue ('grue') 135A Red and Yellow : Red and yellow 136A M-T Pronouns : No M-T pronouns 136B M in First Person Singular : No m in first person singular 137A N-M Pronouns : No N-M pronouns 137B M in Second Person Singular: No m in second person singular 138A Tea: either 'Words derived from Sinitic cha' and 'Words derived from Min Nan Chinese te'

Other: 142A Para-Linguistic Usages of Clicks : Clicks may express affective but not logical meanings

Word Order: 143A Order of Negative Morpheme and Verb : NegV? 143B Obligatory Double Negation : either 'NegVNeg?', 'Neg[V-Neg]', '[Neg-V-Neg]' 143C Optional Double Negation : (Neg)VNeg

143E Preverbal Negative Morphemes : Preverbal negative word 143F Postverbal Negative Morphemes: No postverbal negative morpheme 143G Minor morphological means of signaling negation: No negative tone, infix or stem change 144A Position of Negative Word With Respect to Subject, Object, and Verb: Morphological negation only (but not double negation) 144B Position of negative words relative to beginning and end of clause and with respect to adjacency to verb : Immediately preverbal

144D The Position of Negative Morphemes in SVO Languages: either 'SNegVO?' 'SVONeg'

144H NegSVO? Order : SVO but NegSVO? does not occur

144I SNegVO? Order : either 'SVO, but SNegVO? does not occur' or 'Separate word, no double negation' 144J SVNegO? Order : SVO, but SVNegO? does not occur 144K SVONeg Order : SVO but SVONeg does not occur 144L The Position of Negative Morphemes in SOV Languages: SO[V-Neg]

144P NegSOV? Order : SOV but NegSOV? does not occur 144Q SNegOV? Order : SOV but SNegOV? does not occur 144R SONegV? Order : SOV, but SONegV? does not occur 144S SOVNeg Order : either 'SOV, but SOVNeg does not occur' or 'Suffix, no double negation' 144T The Position of Negative Morphemes in Verb-Initial Languages : NegVSO?

144V Verb-Initial with Preverbal Negative : Separate word, no double negation Word&NoDoubleNeg? 144W Verb-Initial with Negative that is Immediately Postverbal or between Subject and Object: Verb-initial but immediately postverbal negative or negative between subject and object does not occur 144X Verb-Initial with Clause-Final Negative: Verb-initial but clause-final negative does not occur

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now let's go through the preceeding WALS list and highlight those attributes for which English is 'weird', meaning that it is recorded/applicable and also either that it doesn't choose any of the most popular alternatives listed in the previous list, or maybe it chooses something but there is a simpler choice within the most popular alternatives:

http://wals.info/languoid/lect/wals_code_eng

Phonology: 2A Vowel Quality Inventories: 'large (7-14)' rather than 'average (5-6)'

3A Consonant-Vowel Ratio: 'low' rather than average

(4A Voicing in Plosives and Fricatives: 'Voicing contrast in both plosives and fricatives', which is a top choice, although a simpler top choice would have been 'No voicing contrast')

9A The Velar Nasal : 'No initial velar nasal' rather than 'No velar nasal'

12A Syllable Structure : 'complex' instead of 'Moderately complex' syllable structure 14A Fixed Stress Locations : 'No fixed stress' which is the modal choice, however most languages are fixed-stress instead of weight-sensitive 15A Weight-Sensitive Stress : 'Right-oriented: One of the last three' instead of 'Fixed stress (no weight-sensitivity)' 16A Weight Factors in Weight-Sensitive Stress Systems : 'Long vowel or coda consonant' instead of 'No weight, or weight factor unknown' 19A Presence of Uncommon Consonants: Th' sounds' instead of 'None'

Morphology: 22A Inflectional Synthesis of the Verb : '2-3 categories per word' instead of '4-5 categories per word' 25A Locus of Marking: Whole-language Typology: 'Dependent-marking' instead of 'Inconsistent marking or other type' 27A Reduplication : 'No productive reduplication' instead of 'Productive full and partial reduplication' 28A Case Syncretism: 'Core cases only' instead of 'No case marking' 29A Syncretism in Verbal Person/Number Marking : 'Syncretic' instead of 'Subject person/number marking is never syncretic'

Nominal Categories: 30A Number of Genders: 'Three' instead of 'None' 31A Sex-based and Non-sex-based Gender Systems : 'Sex-based' instead of 'No gender system' 32A Systems of Gender Assignment : 'Semantic' instead of 'No gender system' 36A The Associative Plural : 'No associative plural' instead of 'Associative plural marker also used for additive plurals' 40A Inclusive/Exclusive Distinction in Verbal Inflection : We' the same as 'I instead of (either 'No inclusive/exclusive opposition' or 'No person marking at all')

43A Third Person Pronouns and Demonstratives : 'Related for all demonstratives' instead of 'Third person pronouns and demonstratives are unrelated to demonstratives' 44A Gender Distinctions in Independent Personal Pronouns : '3rd person singular only' instead of 'No gender distinctions' 46A Indefinite Pronouns: 'Generic-noun-based' instead of 'Interrogative-based indefinites' (49A Number of Cases : '2 cases' instead of (No morphological case-marking (note: although that answer is modal, you have to take the cumulative sum of '3 or less case categories' to get a majority over its complement (that is, over '4 or more')))) 50A Asymmetrical Case-Marking : 'Additive-quantitatively asymmetrical' instead of (either 'No morphological case-marking' or 'Symmetrical case-marking') 51A Position of Case Affixes : 'No case affixes or adpositional clitics' instead of 'Case suffixes' 52A Comitatives and Instrumentals: 'Identity' instead of 'Differentiation' 53A Ordinal Numerals : 'First, second, three-th' instead of (Two-th: Ordinal numerals from 'two' upwards are derived from cardinal numerals, 'first' is suppletive (note: the sum of 'Zero', 'One', 'First', 'One-th', 'First/One-th' exceeds the modal 'Two-th')) 54A Distributive Numerals: 'No distributive numerals' instead of 'Marked by reduplication'

Nominal Syntax: 61A Adjectives without Nouns : 'Marked by following word' instead of 'Adjective may occur without noun, and without marking'

Verbal Categories: 68A The Perfect: 'From possessive' instead of (either 'No perfect' or 'Other perfect') 70A The Morphological Imperative : 'No second-person imperatives' instead of 'The language has morphologically dedicated second singular as well as second plural imperatives' 71A The Prohibitive: 'Normal imperative + normal negative' instead of (either 'The prohbitive uses the verbal construction of the second singular imperative and a sentential negative strategy not found in (indicative) declaratives' or 'The prohibitive uses a verbal construction other than the second singular imperative and a sentential negative strategy not found in (indicative) declaratives') 75A Epistemic Possibility: 'verbal constructions' instead of (either 'The language cannot express epistemic possibility with verbal constructions or with affixes on verbs, but with other kinds of markers' or 'The language cannot express epistemic possibility with verbal constructions, but with affixes on verbs') 76A Overlap between Situational and Epistemic Modal Marking: 'Overlap for both possibility and necessity' instead of 'The language has no markers that can code both situational and epistemic modality' 79A Suppletion According to Tense and Aspect : 'Tense' instead of 'No suppletion in tense or aspect'

Word Order:

86A Order of Genitive and Noun : 'No dominant order' instead of Genitive-noun (GenN?) 87A Order of Adjective and Noun: 'Adjective-Noun' instead of 'Modifying adjective follows noun (NAdj)'

93A Position of Interrogative Phrases in Content Questions : 'Initial interrogative phrase' instead of 'Interrogative phrases not obligatorily initial' 97A Relationship between the Order of Object and Verb and the Order of Adjective and Noun: 'VO and AdjN?' instead of 'Verb-object and noun-adjective (VO&NAdj)'

Simple Clauses: 101A Expression of Pronominal Subjects : 'Obligatory pronouns in subject position' instead of 'Pronominal subjects are expressed by affixes on verbs' 102A Verbal Person Marking: 'Only the A argument' instead of 'Person marking of both the A and P arguments' 105A Ditransitive Constructions: The Verb 'Give': 'mixed' instead of 'Indirect-object construction' 110A Periphrastic Causative Constructions : 'Sequential but no purposive' instead of 'Purposive type but no sequential type' 115A Negative Indefinite Pronouns and Predicate Negation: 'mixed' instead of 'Predicate negation also present; Negative indefinites co-occur with predicate negation' 116A Polar Questions : 'interrogative word order' instead of 'Question particle' 119A Nominal and Locational Predication : 'identical' instead of 'Split (i.e. different) encoding of nominal and locational predication' 121A Comparative Constructions: 'particle' instead of 'Locational Comparative'

Complex Sentences: 122A Relativization on Subjects : 'relative pronoun' instead of 'Gap' 123A Relativization on Obliques : 'relative pronoun' instead of Gap 125A Purpose Clauses: 'Balanced/deranked' instead of 'Deranked' 126A 'When' Clauses : 'Balanced/deranked' instead of 'Balanced' 127A Reason Clauses : 'Balanced/deranked' instead of 'Balanced'

Lexicon:

132A Number of Non-Derived Basic Colour Categories : '6 categories' ienstead of '5 categories' 133A Number of Basic Colour Categories : 11 instead of '6 or between 6 and 7 categories' 134A Green and Blue : 'green vs blue' instead of 'Green-or-blue ('grue')' 136B M in First Person Singular : 'm in first person singular' instead of 'No m in first person singular'

Word Order: 144A Position of Negative Word With Respect to Subject, Object, and Verb: 'SNegVO?' instead of 'Morphological negation only (but not double negation)'

ok, now out of the items for which English was weird (that is, out of the above list), which items is Spanish weird for also?

http://wals.info/languoid/lect/wals_code_spa

4A Voicing in Plosives and Fricatives: spa has 'in fricatives alone', which is not a top choice, and eng has 'Voicing contrast in both plosives and fricatives', which is a top choice, although a simpler top choice would have been 'No voicing contrast'

15A Weight-Sensitive Stress : spa has 'right-edge: ultimate or penultimate' and eng has 'Right-oriented: One of the last three' instead of the top choice, 'Fixed stress (no weight-sensitivity)' 16A Weight Factors in Weight-Sensitive Stress Systems : spa has 'combined' and eng has 'Long vowel or coda consonant' instead of the top choice 'No weight, or weight factor unknown' 19A Presence of Uncommon Consonants: both spa and eng have Th' sounds' instead of 'None'

Morphology: 27A Reduplication : both spa and eng have 'No productive reduplication' instead of 'Productive full and partial reduplication' 28A Case Syncretism: spa has 'core and non-core' and eng has 'Core cases only' instead of 'No case marking' 29A Syncretism in Verbal Person/Number Marking : both spa and eng have 'Syncretic' instead of 'Subject person/number marking is never syncretic'

Nominal Categories: 30A Number of Genders: spa has 'two' and eng has 'Three' instead of 'None' 31A Sex-based and Non-sex-based Gender Systems : both spa and eng have 'Sex-based' instead of 'No gender system' 32A Systems of Gender Assignment : spa has 'semantic and formal' and eng has 'Semantic' instead of 'No gender system' 36A The Associative Plural : both spa and eng have 'No associative plural' instead of 'Associative plural marker also used for additive plurals'

44A Gender Distinctions in Independent Personal Pronouns : spa has 'in 3rd person + 1st and /or 2nd person' and eng has '3rd person singular only' instead of 'No gender distinctions' 46A Indefinite Pronouns: spa has 'special' and eng has 'Generic-noun-based' instead of 'Interrogative-based indefinites' 50A Asymmetrical Case-Marking : both spa and eng have 'Additive-quantitatively asymmetrical' instead of (either 'No morphological case-marking' or 'Symmetrical case-marking') 51A Position of Case Affixes : both spa and eng have 'No case affixes or adpositional clitics' instead of 'Case suffixes' 52A Comitatives and Instrumentals: not recorded/N/A for spa, eng has 'Identity' instead of 'Differentiation' 53A Ordinal Numerals : both spa and eng have 'First, second, three-th' instead of (Two-th: Ordinal numerals from 'two' upwards are derived from cardinal numerals, 'first' is suppletive (note: the sum of 'Zero', 'One', 'First', 'One-th', 'First/One-th' exceeds the modal 'Two-th')) 54A Distributive Numerals: both spa and eng have 'No distributive numerals' instead of 'Marked by reduplication'

Nominal Syntax:

Verbal Categories: 68A The Perfect: both spa and eng have 'From possessive' instead of (either 'No perfect' or 'Other perfect') 75A Epistemic Possibility: both spa and eng have 'verbal constructions' instead of (either 'The language cannot express epistemic possibility with verbal constructions or with affixes on verbs, but with other kinds of markers' or 'The language cannot express epistemic possibility with verbal constructions, but with affixes on verbs') 76A Overlap between Situational and Epistemic Modal Marking: both spa and eng have 'Overlap for both possibility and necessity' instead of 'The language has no markers that can code both situational and epistemic modality' 79A Suppletion According to Tense and Aspect : spa has 'imperative' and eng has 'Tense' instead of 'No suppletion in tense or aspect'

Word Order:

86A Order of Genitive and Noun : spa has NGen and eng has 'No dominant order' instead of Genitive-noun (GenN?)

93A Position of Interrogative Phrases in Content Questions : both spa and eng have 'Initial interrogative phrase' instead of 'Interrogative phrases not obligatorily initial'

Simple Clauses: 110A Periphrastic Causative Constructions : spa has 'both' and eng has 'Sequential but no purposive' instead of 'Purposive type but no sequential type' 115A Negative Indefinite Pronouns and Predicate Negation: both spa and eng have 'mixed' instead of 'Predicate negation also present; Negative indefinites co-occur with predicate negation' 116A Polar Questions : both spa and eng have 'interrogative word order' instead of 'Question particle' 121A Comparative Constructions: both spa and eng have 'particle' instead of 'Locational Comparative'

Complex Sentences: 123A Relativization on Obliques : both spa and eng have 'relative pronoun' instead of Gap 126A 'When' Clauses : both spa and eng have 'Balanced/deranked' instead of 'Balanced' 127A Reason Clauses : both spa and eng have 'Balanced/deranked' instead of 'Balanced'

Lexicon:

132A Number of Non-Derived Basic Colour Categories : both spa and eng have '6 categories' ienstead of '5 categories' 133A Number of Basic Colour Categories : both spa and eng have 11 instead of '6 or between 6 and 7 categories' 134A Green and Blue : both spa and eng have 'green vs blue' instead of 'Green-or-blue ('grue')' 136B M in First Person Singular : both spa and eng have 'm in first person singular' instead of 'No m in first person singular'

Word Order: 144A Position of Negative Word With Respect to Subject, Object, and Verb: both spa and eng have 'SNegVO?' instead of 'Morphological negation only (but not double negation)'

now, out of those WALS attributes for which both English and Spanish (eng and spa) are 'weird' (that is, out of the previous list), which are the ones for which Mandarin Chinese is also 'weird'?:

http://wals.info/languoid/lect/wals_code_mnd

4A Voicing in Plosives and Fricatives: mnd and spa both have 'in fricatives alone', which is not a top choice, and eng has 'Voicing contrast in both plosives and fricatives', which is a top choice, although a simpler top choice would have been 'No voicing contrast'

15A Weight-Sensitive Stress : mnd has 'not predictable', spa has 'right-edge: ultimate or penultimate' and eng has 'Right-oriented: One of the last three' instead of the top choice, 'Fixed stress (no weight-sensitivity)' 16A Weight Factors in Weight-Sensitive Stress Systems : mnd has 'lexical stress', spa has 'combined' and eng has 'Long vowel or coda consonant' instead of the top choice 'No weight, or weight factor unknown'

Morphology: 29A Syncretism in Verbal Person/Number Marking : mnd has 'no subject person/number marking', and both spa and eng have 'Syncretic' instead of 'Subject person/number marking is never syncretic'

Nominal Categories: 36A The Associative Plural : mnd has 'unique periphrastic associative plural', and both spa and eng have 'No associative plural' instead of 'Associative plural marker also used for additive plurals'

44A Gender Distinctions in Independent Personal Pronouns : mnd and eng both have '3rd person singular only' and spa has 'in 3rd person + 1st and /or 2nd person' instead of 'No gender distinctions' 46A Indefinite Pronouns: mnd has 'mixed' and spa has 'special' and eng has 'Generic-noun-based' instead of 'Interrogative-based indefinites' 51A Position of Case Affixes : all of mnd and spa and eng have 'No case affixes or adpositional clitics' instead of 'Case suffixes' 53A Ordinal Numerals : mnd has 'one-th, two-th, three-th', both spa and eng have 'First, second, three-th' instead of (Two-th: Ordinal numerals from 'two' upwards are derived from cardinal numerals, 'first' is suppletive (note: the sum of 'Zero', 'One', 'First', 'One-th', 'First/One-th' exceeds the modal 'Two-th')) 54A Distributive Numerals: all of mnd and spa and eng have 'No distributive numerals' instead of 'Marked by reduplication'

Nominal Syntax:

Verbal Categories: 75A Epistemic Possibility: all of mnd and spa and eng have 'verbal constructions' instead of (either 'The language cannot express epistemic possibility with verbal constructions or with affixes on verbs, but with other kinds of markers' or 'The language cannot express epistemic possibility with verbal constructions, but with affixes on verbs') 76A Overlap between Situational and Epistemic Modal Marking: all of mnd and spa and eng have 'Overlap for both possibility and necessity' instead of 'The language has no markers that can code both situational and epistemic modality'

Word Order: (none)

Simple Clauses: 110A Periphrastic Causative Constructions : mnd is unanswered / N/A, spa has 'both' and eng has 'Sequential but no purposive' instead of 'Purposive type but no sequential type' 121A Comparative Constructions: mnd has 'exceed', both spa and eng have 'particle' instead of 'Locational Comparative'

Complex Sentences: (none)

Lexicon:

132A Number of Non-Derived Basic Colour Categories : all of mnd and spa and eng have '6 categories' ienstead of '5 categories' 133A Number of Basic Colour Categories : mnd has 8-8.5 and both spa and eng have 11 instead of '6 or between 6 and 7 categories' 134A Green and Blue : all of mnd and spa and eng have 'green vs blue' instead of 'Green-or-blue ('grue')'

Word Order: 144A Position of Negative Word With Respect to Subject, Object, and Verb: all of mnd and spa and eng have 'SNegVO?' instead of 'Morphological negation only (but not double negation)'

so the list of items for which all of eng, spa, mnd differed from the most common choice (or all of the most common choices) are:

4A Voicing in Plosives and Fricatives 15A Weight-Sensitive Stress 16A Weight Factors in Weight-Sensitive Stress Systems

Morphology: 29A Syncretism in Verbal Person/Number Marking

Nominal Categories: 36A The Associative Plural

44A Gender Distinctions in Independent Personal Pronouns 46A Indefinite Pronouns 51A Position of Case Affixes 53A Ordinal Numerals 54A Distributive Numerals

Nominal Syntax:

Verbal Categories: 75A Epistemic Possibility 76A Overlap between Situational and Epistemic Modal Marking

Simple Clauses: 110A Periphrastic Causative Constructions 121A Comparative Constructions

Lexicon:

132A Number of Non-Derived Basic Colour Categories 133A Number of Basic Colour Categories 134A Green and Blue

Word Order: 144A Position of Negative Word With Respect to Subject, Object, and Verb

in these attributes (the 'weird intersection without matching', because we're taking the intersection of question numbers which are 'weird' in eng spa mnd, without regard for whether the corresponding answers match), the 'weirdness' of English/Spanish/Mandarin is cast into doubt, because although there are a large number of languages which do things some other way, all of English/Spanish/Mandarin, which are the most spoken languages, disagree with this large number of smaller languages.

Subtracting the 'weird intersection without matching' from the list of 'weird in English', we get following items which are weird in English, yet for which either Spanish or Chinese follows the most common approach:

Phonology: 2A Vowel Quality Inventories: 'large (7-14)' rather than 'average (5-6)'

3A Consonant-Vowel Ratio: 'low' rather than average

9A The Velar Nasal : 'No initial velar nasal' rather than 'No velar nasal'

Nominal Categories: 30A Number of Genders: 'Three' instead of 'None' 31A Sex-based and Non-sex-based Gender Systems : 'Sex-based' instead of 'No gender system' 32A Systems of Gender Assignment : 'Semantic' instead of 'No gender system' 40A Inclusive/Exclusive Distinction in Verbal Inflection : We' the same as 'I instead of (either 'No inclusive/exclusive opposition' or 'No person marking at all')

43A Third Person Pronouns and Demonstratives : 'Related for all demonstratives' instead of 'Third person pronouns and demonstratives are unrelated to demonstratives' 50A Asymmetrical Case-Marking : 'Additive-quantitatively asymmetrical' instead of (either 'No morphological case-marking' or 'Symmetrical case-marking') 52A Comitatives and Instrumentals: 'Identity' instead of 'Differentiation'

Nominal Syntax: 61A Adjectives without Nouns : 'Marked by following word' instead of 'Adjective may occur without noun, and without marking'

Word Order:

86A Order of Genitive and Noun : 'No dominant order' instead of Genitive-noun (GenN?) 87A Order of Adjective and Noun: 'Adjective-Noun' instead of 'Modifying adjective follows noun (NAdj)'

Simple Clauses: 101A Expression of Pronominal Subjects : 'Obligatory pronouns in subject position' instead of 'Pronominal subjects are expressed by affixes on verbs' 102A Verbal Person Marking: 'Only the A argument' instead of 'Person marking of both the A and P arguments' 105A Ditransitive Constructions: The Verb 'Give': 'mixed' instead of 'Indirect-object construction' 115A Negative Indefinite Pronouns and Predicate Negation: 'mixed' instead of 'Predicate negation also present; Negative indefinites co-occur with predicate negation' 116A Polar Questions : 'interrogative word order' instead of 'Question particle' 119A Nominal and Locational Predication : 'identical' instead of 'Split (i.e. different) encoding of nominal and locational predication'

Lexicon:

136B M in First Person Singular : 'm in first person singular' instead of 'No m in first person singular'

Assuming that we prefer to simplify, this suggests that an ideal conlang would have at least the following differences from English:

Phonology:

have 5-6 vowels instead of 7-14
slightly increase consonant-vowel ratio
eliminate velar nasal
slightly simplify syllable structure
eliminate 'th' sound

Morphology:

consider adding reduplication? See http://wals.info/chapter/27
eliminate grammatical case (? even possessive? even dative?)

Nominal Categories:

eliminate grammatical gender
eliminate person marking. I don't quite understand what this means. Maybe see http://wals.info/chapter/102 , http://wals.info/chapter/40, http://www.grammaticalfeatures.net/features/person.html .
(43: seems like it's simpler to keep 3rd person pronouns related to demonstratives, so let's keep that? not sure i understand though; see http://wals.info/chapter/43 )
differentiate comitatives and instrumentals: 'he went on a walk WITH his brother' vs 'he wrote a letter WITH a pen'; we should not allow WITH in the second (instrumental) situation (instead use 'using' i guess)

Nominal Syntax:

(61: seems like it's more regular to force a dummy noun instead of letting an adjective implicitly take the place of a noun; so let's keep this the way English does it)

Verbal Categories:

eliminate perfect tense
(70: seems simpler to not have morphological second-person imperatives, so let's keep this the way English does it)
(71: seems simpler to not do anything special for a negative imperative, so let's keep this the way English does it)
eliminate suppletion ('suppletion' is just a word of irregularity that we'd probably catch anyways while trying to regularize; examples are 'buy vs bought' and 'go vs went')

Word Order:

eliminate multiple ways to indicate possesion (alice's father vs the father of alice; i guess i would prefer "father of alice", although it takes too long, so maybe have a possessive suffix like 's)
modifying adjectives should follow their nouns, rather than precede them
non-obligatory inital interrogative phrases in Position of Interrogative Phrases in Content Questions: (content questions are ones with answers beyond 'yes/no'). For example, 'You are leaving when?' should be normal (it is currently allowed in English but suggests it's an 'echo question', where the speaker is repeating something that they just heard)

Simple Clauses:

(101: seems more regular to have obligatory pronouns in subject position, so let's stick with the way English does it here)
for ditransitive verbs (like give, sell, bring, tell), where there is both a 'theme' (eg the thing being given) and a recipient (eg the person to whom the thing is being given), code the theme like an ordinary direct object, and code the receipient in some special way; for example: "I gave water to Alice". Disallow the other thing that English sometimes does, the 'double-object construction', eg 'I gave the dog meat', where the recipient is also coded as a direct object. See http://wals.info/chapter/105
require predicate negation even when there are negative indefinites. Eg in Russian, the translation of "Nobody came" is "Nikto ne prisel"; 'Nikto' is 'nobody' (a negative indefinite) but the 'ne' (negation) is still required.
for polar questions (ones that can be answered with yes/no), invent a 'question particle' to mark it as a question, instead of marking it with interrogative word order.
(i can't decide if nominal and locational predication should be grammatically different. See http://wals.info/chapter/119 . This seems like it's related to the question of should we grammatically distinguish between 'essential' and 'temporary' attributes of objects? I'm leaning towards not distinguishing them (in this case, that suggests keeping it the way English does it now, rather than grammatically distinguishing nominal predication ('Alice is a student') from locational ('Alice is by the ocean'))

Complex Sentences: "A relative clause is a clause narrowing the potential reference of a referring expression by restricting the reference to those referents of which a particular proposition is true" eg "I teach the girl who just greeted us." [1]

(122: the relative pronoun is eg the 'who' in 'the girl who just greeted us'. Let's keep the relative pronoun (which English has but many languages don't) because it seems more regular/less demanding of contextual inference on the part of the listener; see http://wals.info/chapter/122 )
(Relativization on Obliques : not sure i understand this. I want whatever is most explicit here, but i dont know which one it is; relative pronoun? non-reduction? pronoun-retention?. See http://wals.info/chapter/123 )
(purpose clauses: A 'purpose clause' is eg 'to buy books' in 'i went downtown to buy books'. If they are 'balanced' then you dont do anything special but if they are 'deranked' then you do something special to the purpose clause. I want to say that they should be 'balanced', because that seems to be the most regular, but neither English nor the most common choice is 'balanced')
'when' clauses and 'reason' clauses should also be 'balanced' (that is, regular). Eg currently in English you'd say "When writing the next chapter, you should deal with these issues."; but you wouldn't say 'writing the next chapter' on its own; you changed the verb tense because of the 'when'. It should instead be like 'When I go there, there is hardly anybody around.', where 'I go there' could be said the same way independently. Another example is English 'Being so busy, I couldn't do anything else.'; if it were on its own, you wouldn't say 'being so busy', you'd say 'i am so busy', so this is irregular.

it may also be useful to look at places where Spanish diverges from the most common choice, but is simpler, and places where Mandarin Chinese diverges from the most common choice, but is simpler or more regular, and adopt the union of simplifications/regularity.

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