Northern Jê languages

The term Northern Jê has been sometimes used to refer to a broader group of languages, which also includes Panará and Southern Kayapó.^{[3]: 547 [2]} In this article, the label Northern Jê is used in the narrow sense (that is, excluding Panará and Southern Kayapó).

Phonology

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The Northern Jê languages have been noted for their outstanding relation between the nasality vs. orality of the nuclei and the allophonic realization of the adjacent nasal consonants. In

The following table shows the usual reflexes of the Proto-Northern Jê onsets in the individual languages. The reconstructions are cited after Nikulin & Salanova (2019)[7]^{: Appendix A} in the Macro-Jê alphabet, whereas for the reflexes in the contemporary languages the official orthographies in use by the respective language communities are preferred. The underlying representations are given in the International Phonetic Alphabet.

Codas

In all Northern Jê languages, the syllables may be either open or closed. The maximum number of consonants in the coda position is one (that is, only simplex codas are allowed). The nasal codas which follow oral nuclei may be subject to nasal shielding in some languages, whereby the initial phase of the nasal consonant is oralized, as in

The inventory of Proto-Northern Jê monophthongs is reconstructed as follows.[7]^{: Appendix A}

In addition, six complex nuclei can be reconstructed, of which three are falling (*/ɨwă/, */uwă/, */ijă/, represented by Nikulin & Salanova (2019) as *ŷ, *û, *î^[7]: 534) and three are raising (*/wa/, */ja/, */je/).

The following table shows the usual reflexes of the Proto-Northern Jê nuclei in the individual languages. The reconstructions are cited after Nikulin & Salanova (2019)^{[7]: Appendix A} in the Macro-Jê alphabet as well as in the International Phonetic Alphabet. For the reflexes in the contemporary languages, the official orthographies in use by the respective language communities have been preferred.

Morphology

Finiteness morphology

In all Northern Jê languages verbs inflect for finiteness and thus have a basic opposition between a finite form and a nonfinite form. Finite forms are used in matrix clauses only, whereas nonfinite forms are used in all types of subordinate clauses as well as in some matrix clauses (at least in some languages). Nonfinite forms are most often formed via suffixation and/or prefix substitution.^[7] Some verbs (including all descriptives with the exception of *kato ‘to exit’, whose nonfinite form is *kator) lack an overt finiteness distinction.

For the protolanguage, five nonfinite suffixes have been reconstructed: *-r (the most common option, found in many transitive and intransitive verbs), *-ñ (found in some transitive verbs), as well as *-k, *-m, and *-c (found in a handful of intransitive verbs which take a nominative subject when finite).^[7]: 543

In a handful of verbs, all of which end in an underlying stop, the nonfinite form does not receive any overt suffixes, but it is nevertheless distinct from the finite form because the latter lenites the stem-final consonant (*-t, *-c, *-k → *-r, *-j, *-r).^[7]: 544

Palatalizing prefix

A small set of verbs form their nonfinite forms by employing one of the aforementioned processes and a morphophonological process whereby the onset of the stressed syllable becomes palatal, and the nucleus of the stressed syllable is raised (if possible); this has been attributed to the influence of an underlying palatalizing nonfinite prefix.^[7]

Prefix substitution or loss

In addition to the aforementioned processes, the finiteness inflection may involve prefix substitution or loss. For example, the valency-reducing prefixes are *a(j)- (

All Northern Jê languages make use of at least one diminutive suffix (Proto-Northern Jê *-re) and of an augmentative suffix (*-ti), which may occur in nouns and descriptives.^{[11]: 257–9 [9]: 36–7 [10]: 69, 79–81 [12]: 52} These are widely used in the names of animal and plant species.

For most Northern Jê languages,

In Northern Jê languages, many predicates appear to contain fossilized prefixes of different shapes (such as Proto-Northern Jê *ka-, *ñõ-, *ku-, *py-/*pu-, *ja-, *ju-, *ñĩ-), whose semantic contribution is not always straightforward. These have been variously referred to as formatives[13]^: 116–28 or transitivity prefixes.^{[7]: 539–40}

Syntax

All Northern Jê languages are head-final.

Morphosyntactic alignment

Prototypically, finite

The following table summarizes the proposed classes of predicates in Northern Jê languages.[7]

Transitive verbs

In the Northern Jê languages, transitive verbs take accusative or absolutive patients in finite clauses, depending on the verb class. In nonfinite clauses, all transitive verbs take absolutive patients. Note that nouns do not receive any overt marking either in the accusative or in the absolutive case; the difference between these two cases is seen in the third person index, which is reconstructed as *ku- in the accusative case and as *c- in the absolutive case.

The transitive verbs which index their patient in the accusative case (in finite clauses) are known as *ku-verbs. All *ku-verbs are monosyllabic^{[13]: 181, 219} and have distinct finite and nonfinite forms.^{[5]: 13, 133} The remaining transitive verbs index their patient in the absolutive case. All verbs that belong to this class satisfy at least one of the following conditions:

• they contain at least two syllables (for example, *pumbu ‘to see’, *kacô ‘to suck’, *kuˀcõ ‘to wash (solid objects)’),
• their finite and nonfinite forms are identical (for example, *côk ‘to paint’, *kre ‘to plant’, *ĵũn ‘to insult’).

Finite *ku- verbs further differ from all other transitive verbs in that under certain circumstances they index their

^: 104–5

Canonical (active) intransitive verbs

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Descriptives

All Northern Jê languages have intransitive predicates which take absolutive (rather than nominative) subjects, known as descriptives. They have been variously described as verbs^[11][13][15] or nouns.^[14] An example of a reconstructed Proto-Northern Jê clause headed by a descriptive is *ij-ŋgryk ‘I am angry’ (literally 1SG^ABS-be.angry).

Verba sentiendi and dative subjects

Verba sentiendi with

The Northern Jê languages commonly employ different lexemes for the so-called singular and plural predicates. As Nikulin and Salanova (2019) put it,

Archetypally, certain verbs have distinct forms according to the number of the absolutive argument (if the argument in question is not human, number is not marked independently on it but rather only on the verb). In addition, verbal number can indicate repeated action, even if all participants are singular. Further nuances of the plural include a more prolonged or sluggish carrying out of an action, incomplete or ineffective carrying out of the action, and perhaps even indirect evidence for the action.^[7]: 540

There are several dozen pairs of predicates which contrast in number. Plural predicates are not regularly derived from their singular counterparts but are rather expressed by unrelated lexemes (in a handful of verbs, it is possible to the fossilized prefix *ja- encoding plural). Some examples of Proto-Northern Jê verbs which differ in number include:^[7]: 541

References