Kamayurá 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"). This is common in general in the languages of the Tupian stock, and both causatives have been posited to exist in Proto-Tupian. 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. • Affixes: a set of casual suffixes that indicate the noun in a nuclear function, locative, attributive, and external, and a set of relational prefixes including prefixes which encode the specified and indefinite third-person, reflexive and non-reflexive as well as the subject and object of the third person. • Clitics: there are a set of flexible clitics which indicates a person and the number of the possessor as well as the subject of the object of verbs and postpositions. • Order of constituents: are relevant to distinguish “a” (feminine the) and “o” (masculine the) when both are expressed by nominal, both receive the same suffix [-a]. The basic order of the constituents are “AOV” in the transitive sentence and “SV” in the intransitive sentences, which vary in certain contexts. • Postpositions: Postpositions are used to express a variety of syntactic and semantic functions. • Derivational Processes: there are a series of derivational affixes which form complex nominal from verbs and adverbs and of which are used to indicate syntactic and semantics roles of the noun. • Particles: Certain particles ae used to indicate semantic/syntactic roles of the noun. There are several relations that are expressed in Portuguese by nominal or postpositional phrases which in Kamayurá, are expressed by adverbs and other types of constructions.
Pronouns Personal 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:
Free personal pronouns These 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:
Clitic pronouns These are not used alone, but they always appear syntactically linked to other elements occurring in the following functions. 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. • “diminutive” with two allomorphs: -i in oral context and -ĩ in nasal context: :: • “diminutive”: :: • “augmentative”. This is -u in the oral condition and -ũ in the nasal condition: :: • augmentative corresponds as well with “true genuine”: :: == Case and agreement ==