Karajá language

Dialects are Northern Karajá, Southern Karajá, Xambioá, and Javaé. Karajá proper Karajá proper is spoken on the main course of the Araguaia River in and around Bananal Island. Phonologically, it is set apart from the other dialects (Javaé and Xambioá) by the occurrence of the vowel /ə/ (not represented in the orthography), which corresponds to a full vowel in Javaé and Xambioá whose quality is a copy of the vowel of the next syllable. For example, Karajá // ‘honey’, // ‘causative suffix’, // ‘to tie’, // ‘banzeiro’, // ‘termite’, // ‘gourd’ correspond to Javaé and Xambioá //, //, //, //, //, //. There are few differences between Northern and Southern Karajá. Examples of lexical differences include N(orthern) / S(outhern) ‘I’, ==Phonology==

Karajá has ten oral vowels, , and three nasal vowels, . The Javaé and Xambioá dialects differ from Karajá in lacking . is nasalized word initially and when preceded by or a voiced stop (except in Xambioá): → 'grass', → 'armadillo'. also triggers the occurrence of the nasal allophones of preceding or : → 'group', → 'my mother'. This language has ATR vowel harmony which causes the non-ATR vowels to become more tense () by the influence of a ATR vowel (one of ) located further to the right. The vowels are opaque and is transparent to harmony. Note that undergo the harmony in an iterative manner (as in → ‘I ate it’), whether may optionally block the further spread of the [+ATR] feature: or ‘I drove it away’. V → [+ATR] / _ (C)-V[+ATR] The chart below contains the consonant sounds used in Karajá. The consonants are palatalized to when adjacent to [+ATR] high vowels. Consonants have nasal allophones when occurring before . In addition, in the Karajá proper dialect only, are progressively palatalized to following a . In fact, almost all occurrences of can be explained by the operation of these two processes; for these reasons, Ribeiro (2012) argues that have no phonemic status. Under this analysis, Karajá has only twelve consonant phonemes, eight of which are coronal. The chart below illustrates the phonemic inventory of Karajá assuming are not phonemic. ==Men's and women's speech==

Some examples of the differences between men's and women's speech, especially the presence or lack of (including in borrowings from Portuguese), It is hypothesized (Ribeiro 2012) that in the past this process of the k-drop became a sign of masculinity and women resisted it in order to keep a more conservative form of speech. ==Morphology==

Verb The verb in Karajá grammar always agrees with the subject of the sentence, as it does in French for example; these agreements are determined by the past and present tense (also known as realis) or future, potential, and admonitory tenses (also known as irrealis). Verbs have no lexical opposites (such as in vs. out) and direction is represented through inflection; all Karajá verbs can inflect for direction. Verbs are either transitive or intransitive and the valence of each verb, therefore, may increase or decrease depending on their status as transitive or intransitive. Noun Nouns can be incorporated into verbs to create noun-verb compounds with the noun being placed into the verb. Any noun can be turned into a verb with the use of a suffix and action nouns can be created with the use of the verb stem. Pronoun There are three personal pronouns: • First person (‘I’): ♀ , ♂ (Southern Karajá: ♀ , ♂ ) • Second person (‘you’): • Third person (‘he/she/it’): (♂ optional male form: ) • These pronouns can be pluralized with the use of the pluralizer . When pluralized, the first person plural has both an inclusive and exclusive interpretation as in the following examples: {{interlinear TRANS:transitive|Iny boho {kdùra rkiròrènykre.}|/idə̃ boho {kədʊɾa ɾək-ɪ-ɾɔɾ-ɛdə̃kɾe/}|{Karajá PL} fish 1PL.INCL-TRANS-eatPOT|‘We (inclusive) will eat fish.’ }} Possessive pronouns are not used but are instead marked by affixes (ie. = ‘my’) and there are three demonstrative pronouns: • - ‘this’ • - ‘that (close to the addressee)’ • - ‘that (distant from both the speaker and the addressee)’ Direction Direction in the Karajá language does not have any lexical opposites, such as in and out or go and come. Direction, rather, is marked by a set of prefixes that determine whether the event in the sentence is happening away from or toward the speaker. Centrifugal direction (away from the speaker) is characterized by means of the prefix r- while centripetal direction (toward the speaker) is characterized by means of the prefix d-. All the verbs in the Karajá language — even those that do not convey the semantics of movement — obligatorily inflect for direction. • Centrifugal: • Centripetal: ==Syntax==

Valence Karajá language is characterized both by the reduction of valence and by the increase in valence. Valence increase happens through causitivization and through oblique promotion while valence decrease happens through reflixivatization, passivization, and antipassivization (Ribeiro 2012). Valence increase Unergative verbs may be causativized by means of suffixing the causativizer suffix plus the verbalizer suffix to the nominalized verb. In the example below, the verb ‘to walk’ is first nominalized by means of the process of consonantal replacement, yielding , and then causativized. The man in this example is the causer who makes the child, the causee, walk. Valence-decreasing morphology In Karajá, it is possible to demote a patient of a transitive verb to peripheral status by means of the antipassive prefix : Reflexivity in the Karajá language is marked by the reflexive prefix with two allomorphs, ̣(on verbs) and (on postpositions): In these examples, the patient is coreferential with the agent (that is, they refer to the same individual). Passivization Passives are described as the change of a clause from a transitive to an intransitive sentence through the demotion of the subject. Passive verbs are marked either by the prefix (or by its zero allomorph in the vowel-initial stems that belong to the so called ɗ-class): Here, the subject ‘mother’ is demoted in the second example. ==Number==

When referring to nouns, plurality is expressed through three processes: reduplication, the pluralizer , and the use of the noun ‘people, group’. In verbs, plurality is marked through the use of the pluralizer . Reduplication In the Karajá language, reduplication occurs with nouns and is used to convey plurality: Pluralizer The pluralizer is used to pluralize the three personal pronouns: In addition, the latter example shows how the pluralizer , when combined with the noun for people (), functions as a first person plural inclusive pronoun to include those outside of a specific group. According to Ribeiro, serves the same function as the phrase , commonly found in Brazilian Portuguese. ====== In contrast to the pluralizer , the noun word is not used with pronouns but rather functions as a noun to pluralize a group of people, as shown in the following example: In the above sentence, ‘Karajá’ () becomes pluralized through the use of . Pluralizer As mentioned above, the pluralizer functions to pluralize verbs as shown in the following example: ‘Came’, in this example, is pluralized to indicate that many individuals came. ==Vocabulary==

Language contact Ribeiro (2012) finds a number of Apyãwa loanwords in Karajá (such as ‘carrying basket’, ’beans’, ‘macaw (sp.)’, ‘parakeet (sp.)’, ‘Txakohi ceremonial mask’, ‘garbage (Javaé dialect)’) as well as several Karajá loans in Apyãwa ( ‘banana’, ‘White man’, ‘turtle stew’, ‘Irabure ceremonial mask’), Parakanã, and Asuriní of Trocará ( ‘banana’, ‘White man’). ==Notes==