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Kamayurá language
The Kamayurá language (Kamaiurá in Portuguese) belongs to the Tupi–Guarani family, and is spoken by the Kamayurá people of Brazil – who numbered about 600 individuals in 2014.[2] There is speculation that as the indigenous peoples who spoke the Tupi languages mingled with other indigenous peoples, their languages gradually changed accordingly. This speculation is consistent with research done by linguists who study languages in different regions in order to find similarities and differences between languages.[3] The Kamayurá people live in the Mato Grosso region of Brazil, specifically in the Upper Xingu area.[4] The Kamayurá people do not have their own specific schools and rely on teaching each other the language, however, there have been a couple of youths, since the year 2000, that have participated in the Teacher Training Course. The Teacher Training Course strives to keep an indigenous language alive as well as educates individuals in the current national language of Brazil, in this case Portuguese.[5] Currently, there are many transcribed works of the Kamayurá language as well as many grammatical concepts. Lucy Seki, is credited with the completion of a book detailing the grammar of the Kamayurá language In her book “Gramatica do Kamaiura” (“Grammar of the Kamaiura”) Lucy goes into detail on morphological structures and various phonological features of the Kamayurá language,[6] however, Lucy's work does not stop there, she is also responsible for having documented many works that were otherwise undocumented, this allows for the preservation of the Kamayurá as a language and as a culture.[7] Through her work with the Kamayurá she has also earned the status of an honorary member in the Linguistic Society of America. In an interview done by “Nova Raiz” in September 2011 it appears that Lucy Seki has retired, but continues to speak positively of her work with the Kamayurá.[8] PhonologyVowels
Consonant
The "glottal approximants" /h/ and /hʷ/ assume the quality of the following vowel.
MorphologyKamayurá is one of the few languages in the world with two mechanisms for causation that differ in how involved the causer is in the action. The prefix mo- indicates that the causer was not involved in the activity ("he stopped in the canoe when he was outside it") while the prefix (e)ro- expresses that it was involved ("he stopped in the canoe when he was inside it").[11] This is common in general in the languages of the Tupian stock, and both causatives have been posited to exist in Proto-Tupian.[12] In the Kamayurá language, affixes, clitics, order of constituents, postpositions, derivational processes and certain particles are all needed in order to express the syntactic and semantic functions of the noun.
PronounsPersonal Pronouns present certain characteristics which justify its treatment separately. It constitutes a closed class of elements, which unlike nouns, do not receive casual suffixes. There are two different pronouns with syntactic distribution consistently distinct, these are: the series of free pronouns and the series of clitic pronouns which are described below:[14] Free personal pronounsThese are accented and syntactically occur in the following functions, and do not occur in subordinate sentences and also not as the possessor with nouns or as object of postpositions. There are also restrictions of the use of these pronouns in copulative sentences: i) As a single constituent, whether or not accompanied by particles, in elliptical sentences: A:
kunu'um/ boy ne 2SG =upe =DAT a-'e 1SG-to say "Hey boy, I am talking to you" B: awa/ ije “Who, me?” ii) As the subject of sentences with a nominal predicate: ije am morerekwat boss “I am boss” iii) As the emphatic subject or contrastive subject, in other types of independent sentences: ije I a- 1SG- je’eŋ talk ene you ere- 2SG- karãj write “I talk and you write” ore 1EXCL t EXH -oro -1EXCL -jomono -go “we are who goes” iv) As a topicalized object, in independent sentences: ene you ruẽj NEG oro-etsak 1/2-see “it is not you who I see” Clitic pronounsThese are not used alone, but they always appear syntactically linked to other elements occurring in the following functions.[14] i) As a possessor with possessive nouns je 1SG =r =REL -ekowe -heart “my heart” ii) As an object of postpositions: je 1SG =r =REL -ehe -because “because of me” iii) as a subject with descriptive verbs je 1SG =Ø =REL -katu -be good “I am good” iv) as an object, with transitive verbs: je 1SG =r =REL -etsak -see “You see me” v) as a subject and an object, with certain verbal dependent forms: je 1SG =tsaro =get =k =VOL ne= 2S= mano die -ramuẽ -SBJV a’e NINTERR =wa =MS jyjryp friend -Ø -Ø “Come get me when you die, friend!” As discussed above, in verbal morphology the verb receives affixes, clitics, constituents and particles. The affixes include prefixes and suffixes. The first are indicators of person, causes, reflexives and reciprocals. The suffixes indicate the mode, negation, and the causes of transitive. The clitics indicates person, negation, and the exhortative mode. The constituents and the particles signal distinctions in time, aspect and modality.[15] In Kamayurá, a derivation of elements of a category from others of the same or distinct categories occurs through the addition of affixes to radicals and through a combination of roots and radicals. Both the affixation and the derivation can be used in a morphological level and a syntactic level. A prefix is used in the derivation of nominals while a suffix is used in other cases. In the verbal derivation, prefixes are used. Below we will only look at the diminutive and the augmentative forms of words.[15] In the endocentric derivation of nouns, the following suffixes are used, all of them tonics:[16]
Case and agreementsThe Kamayurá language is composed of combined aspects of the nominative-accusative, active-stative and the establishment of a final verb with initial interrogative words.[17] The Kamayurá language is also hierarchical, for example: The forms in series I with transitive verbs in the indicative and exhortative modes are used to codify A, the clitic pronouns to codify O and the prefixes of series IV to indicate A and O simultaneously.[18]
It is important to note that the choice of the participant is being governed by the hierarchy of reference indicated in following which:
Depending on the hierarchy, given by both the A and O participants, the one higher hierarchical, will be expressed with the verb by the corresponding pronominal element. The following example explains lines 1 – 5 in the above hierarchical reference.[20]
QuantificationWords for numbers and quantifiers which work as adverbialsWords for numerals and quantifiers like “everyone” and “few” are understood as being associated with a countable item, and can be nominal in function of the subject, or of the object, or even an event, however, they do not occur as nominal determinants, but they present adverbial properties:[21] mokõj two kunu'um boys -a -N o- 3- yk arrive “two boys arrived” mo'apyt three moytsowy beads -a -N r- REL- iru packs -a -N a- 1SG- mepy buy "I bought three packs of beads" mojepete one rak AT a- 1SG- jot come são paulo N.PR. katy ALL "I have come to Sao Paulo once” Descriptive verb elementsThere are two descriptive verb elements which occur as quantifiers “be very, very, many times” and -eta “be numerous”. The first only occurs with a third person indicator and, like other descriptive, can occur as an adverb:[22] i'ajaŋ QUANT i- 3- karu eat -w -CIRC "He ate a lot [many times]" i'ajaŋ QUANT apykaw bench -a -N a- 1SG- erut bring "I will bring many benches" ParticlesDifferent from adverbs, particles do not occur isolated like a constituent and do not present adverbial characteristic properties. They are syntagmatically connected to the constituent which is or contains the element of which has scope. The particles can modify nominal, adverbial or the verb. This group of particles includes: tete “only”, meme “each”, atsã “little, small”, utsu “a lot”, a’ia’ip “much”. Below are examples of the tete particle:[23] ene you tete PTC ere- 2SG- ko to be "it is only you?" ka'aruk afternoon -amuẽ -SBJV tete PTC a- 1SG- ha go 'y water -p -LOC "Only in the afternoon I’m going to bathe" Roots suffixed to the verbIn the verbal roots which are suffixed to the verb pointing out aspectual distinctions, the root -pap “end, finish, complete” expresses universal quantification associated to the subject arguments of the transitive verbs and the objects of transitive verbs. With the suffix -pap it is understood that the event/action covers the totality of the item, considered in its unit or the totality of the items. In the last case, in general, the indicator of number is present in construction:[24] ywyra stick o-kaj 3-burn -pap -COMPL "the stick burned completely" o- 3- jomono to go (PL) -pap -COMPL =awa =PL "Everyone went" ReduplicationReduplication is a recourse used to express distinctions of an aspect and other types of quantification. It can reduplicate radical nominals, adverbials and verbals, generally marked the iterative, distributive and intensive:[25]
Sample textThe following sample is taken from Seki (2000), p. 438. It is a small excerpt of a folk take about hero Arawitará, who is summoned by his deceased friend to help the souls of the dead in their eternal war against the birds. Here Arawitará has returned to the world of the living, and his describing his journey to the friend's old mother.
Notes:
References
BibliographyBooks
Papers
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