Hixkaryana language
From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
| Hixkaryána | ||
|---|---|---|
| Spoken in: | Brazil | |
| Region: | Upper Nhamundá River, Amazonas | |
| Total speakers: | 500–600 | |
| Language family: | Carib Southern Southern Guiana Hixkaryána |
|
| Language codes | ||
| ISO 639-1: | none | |
| ISO 639-2: | sai | |
| ISO 639-3: | hix | |
| Note: This page may contain IPA phonetic symbols in Unicode. See IPA chart for English for an English-based pronunciation key. | ||
Hixkaryana is one of the Carib languages, spoken by just over 500 people on the Nhamundá river, a tributary of the Amazon River in Brazil. It is one of a few known natural languages that normally use Object Verb Subject word order, and may have been the first such language to be described (by linguist Desmond C. Derbyshire).
| toto | yonoye | kamara | ||
| toto | y- | ono | -ye | kamara |
| person | 3SG- | eat | -DIST.PAST.COMPL | jaguar |
| "The jaguar ate the man." | ||||
Indirect objects, however, follow the subject:
| bɨryekomo | yotahahono | wosɨ | tɨnyo | wya | |||
| bɨryekomo | y- | otaha | -ho | -no | wosɨ | tɨnyo | wya |
| boy | 3SG- | hit | -CAUS | -IMM.PAST | woman | her-husband | by |
| "The woman caused her husband to hit the boy." | |||||||
Moreover, word order in nonfinite embedded clauses is SOV. [1]. Like most other languages with objects preceding the verb, it is postpositional.
Contents |
[edit] Phonology
Hixkaryana has the following phonemic inventory:
| Labial | Alveolar | Postalveolar | Velar | Glottal | ||||
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Plosive | p | b | t | d | tʃ | ɟ | k | |
| Fricative | ɸ | s | ʃ | h | ||||
| Nasal | m | n | ɲ | |||||
| Tap | ɾ | ɽˡ | ||||||
| Semivowel | w | j | ||||||
/ɽˡ/ is a retroflex tap with a lateral release. The orthography used is as follows: /ʧ ɟ/ = <tx dy>; /ɸ ʃ/ = <f x>; /ɲ/ = <ny>; /ɽˡ/ = <ry>; /j/ = <y>. The vowels are /e/, /ɯ/, /u/, /ɔ/, and /æ/, written <e>, <ɨ>, <u>, <o>, and <a>.
[edit] Grammar
In Hixkaryana, arguments are indexed on the verb by means of person prefixes. These prefixes form an inverse-like pattern in which the argument highest in the hierarchy 2nd > 1st > 3rd is indexed on the verb. If the object of a transitive verb outranks the subject according to this hierarchy, the appropriate O-prefix is used; otherwise, an A-prefix is used.
| A-prefixes | O-prefixes | ||
| 1A | /ɨ- | 1O | r(o) |
| 2A | m(ɨ)- | 2O | o(j)-/a(j)- |
| 1+2A | t(ɨ)- | 1+2O | k(ɨ)- |
| 3A | n(ɨ)-/j- | ||
Intransitive verbs take prefixes mostly similar to the transitive prefixes given above. The arguments' grammatical number is indexed on the verb by means of portmanteau suffixes that combine tense, aspect, mood, and number.
In most cases, the person prefixes unambiguously determine which of the arguments in the subject and which is the object. When both the subject and the object are third person, however, the person prefix is inadequate to fully determine the identity of the arguments. In these situations, therefore, word order is crucial in determining their identity. The example above, 'toto yonoye kamara', cannot be given the SVO reading "the man ate the jaguar; the OVS reading -- "the jaguar ate the man" -- is the only possible one.
[edit] External links
[edit] References
- Aikhenvald, A. & Dixon, R. (Eds.) (1999). The Amazonian Languages. Oxford: Oxford University Press. ISBN 0-521-57021-2.
- Derbyshire, D. (1979). Hixkaryana. Amsterdam: North-Holland Publishing. ISBN.
- Derbyshire, D. (1985). Hixkaryana and Linguistic Typology. Dallas, TX: Summer Institute of Linguistics. ISBN 0-88312-082-8.
