| Hixkaryána | ||||
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Spoken in | Brazil | |||
| Region | Upper Nhamundá River, Amazonas | |||
| Native speakers | 500–600 (date missing) | |||
| Language family |
Carib
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| Language codes | ||||
| ISO 639-3 | hix | |||
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Hixkaryana ( /ˌhɪʃkɑrˈjænə/) 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).
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Hixkaryana has the following consonant phonemes:
| Labial | Alveolar | Postalveolar or palatal |
Velar | Glottal | ||||
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Nasal | m | n | ɲ | |||||
| Plosive | p | b | t | d | tʃ | ɟ | k | |
| Fricative | ɸ | s | ʃ | h | ||||
| Tap | ɾ | ɽˡ | ||||||
| Approximant | j | w | ||||||
The vowels are /e/, /ɯ/, /u/, /ɔ/, and /æ/, written ⟨e⟩, ⟨ɨ⟩, ⟨u⟩, ⟨o⟩, and ⟨a⟩.
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 | 0-/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 is 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 below, "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.
Hixkaryana has a object–verb–subject word order.
| 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 non-finite embedded clauses is SOV. [1] Like most other languages with objects preceding the verb, it is postpositional.