Yawalapití language
Yawalapiti | |
---|---|
Native to | Arawakan
|
Language codes | |
ISO 639-3 | yaw – inclusive codeIndividual code: avo – Agavotaguerra |
Glottolog | yawa1261 Yawalapitíagav1236 Agavotaguerra (bibliographic info) |
ELP |
Yawalapiti (Jaulapiti) is an
Phonology
Consonants
Yawalapiti and Waurá, an Arawakan language belonging to the same subgroup, share a very similar phonemic inventory. The main segments are classified in the following table.
Bilabial | Alveolar | Retroflex | Palatal | Velar | Glottal | |
---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
Nasal | m | n |
ɲ | |||
Plosive | p | t |
(c) | k | ʔ | |
Affricate | ts | tʃ | ||||
Fricative | ʂ ~ ʐ | ʃ | h | |||
Lateral | l |
ʎ | ||||
Vibrant | r̥ | |||||
Flap
|
ɾ | |||||
Semivowel | w | j |
There are no voiced plosives or affricates in the language. The palatal [c] appears to be an allophone of /k/ occurring before the front vowel /i/, e.g. [puˈluka] "countryside" vs. [naˈciɾu] "my aunt". Also, the fricative /ʂ/ is in free variation with its voiced counterpart and /ʐ/ respectively, e.g. [iˈʂa ~ iˈʐa] "canoe".[5]
There are also some phonotactic constraints that dictate what types of consonants are allowed to appear in certain positions inside a word. For instance, the sounds /tʃ, l, ɾ/ cannot occur before the vowel /ɨ/, and the latter two are restricted to the medial position. In a similar manner, the liquid /ʎ/ is only observed in medial position and never before /a/. As for the voiceless /r̥/, it is the only rhotic segment that is allowed to appear in any position and before any vowel. The semivowel /w/ is found in initial, medial and final position, while /j/ does not occur in final position.[6]
The glottal stop is automatic in words beginning or ending in a vowel, i.e. a word like /u/ "water" is pronounced as [ˈʔuʔ].[7]
Vowels
The Yawalapiti language has both oral and nasal vowels, as shown below.
Front | Central | Back | ||||
---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
oral |
nasal | oral |
nasal | oral |
nasal | |
High
|
i | ĩ | ɨ | ɨ̃ | u | ũ |
Low
|
a | ã |
Although nasal vowels mostly occur before or after nasal consonants, e.g. [ˈĩmi] "
Contrary to Waurá, Yawalapiti has no /e/ sound. This is because Proto-Arawak *e has evolved as /ɨ/ while, at the same time, Proto-Arawak *i and *ɨ have merged resulting into /i/ in Yawalapiti.[11]
Phonotactics
Syllables in Yawalapiti can be of the type V, CV and, only in word-final position, (C)Vʔ. The stress may fall on the penultimate or on the last syllable of a word.[10]
Morphology
Classifiers and derivational suffixes
As other
The main classifiers found in Yawalapiti refer to the shape of an object or some other characteristic of it, like texture, length and position.[12]
classifier | semantics |
---|---|
-ja | liquid |
-ti | elongated |
-ta | circular or spherical |
-ka | flat |
-pana | leaf-shaped |
-lu | wrapping |
These morphemes attach to adjectives when they refer to a noun that needs a classifier, as in the following example.
kulata-ja
hot-CL.liquid
u.
water
Hot water.
natʃa
clothes
autsa-lu
new-CL.wrapping
New clothes.
Derivational suffixes are applied to primitive nouns to form new compound nouns. Sometimes, however, the meaning of the original noun is not known.
tsɨmɨ-r̥i
tapir-DS.long
boa constrictor
ina-pi
?-DS.pointed
fish bone
Possessives
Nominal and verbal prefixes intervene in the formation of possessive phrases, and can indicate the subject or the object of a verb phrase. The set of possessive prefixes of Yawalapiti is very similar to those of the other languages of the Arawakan branch.
Before vowels | ||
---|---|---|
Singular | Plural | |
1st person | n-, ni- | a-, aw- |
2nd person | p-, pi- | i- |
3rd person | in- | in- ... -pa |
Before consonants | ||
Singular | Plural | |
1st person | nu- | a- |
2nd person | hi-, ti- | i- |
3rd person | i- | i- ... -pa |
In vowel initial nouns and verbs, the forms ni- and pi- are frequently used with roots beginning in u, while the prefix aw- appears systematically before a. In nouns and verbs beginning in consonant, the form ti- occurs only when the root starts with h (in all the other cases, hi- is used). The third person plural is actually a
- p → ɾ
- k → tʃ
- t → ts
- m → ɲ
- n → ɲ
- w → Ø
- j → Ø
Thus, for example, -kuʃu "head" becomes hi-tʃuʃu "your head" (but nu-kuʃu "my head"), -palaka "face" becomes hi-ɾalaka "your face" (but nu-palata "my face") and -jakanati "saliva" becomes hi-akanati "your saliva" (but nu-jakanati "my saliva").
Apart from possessive prefixes,
Independent pronouns
Independent pronouns of first and second person are listed in the table below.[15]
Singular | Plural | |
---|---|---|
1st person | natu | aʂu |
2nd person | tiʂu | iʂu |
For the third person, Yawalapiti speakers use demonstrative pronouns, which are also marked for gender.[15]
Masculine | Feminine | |
---|---|---|
Near | iɾi | iɾu |
Far | itiɾa | iɾutiɾa |
Syntax
From a
Notes
- ^ Yawalapiti at Ethnologue (18th ed., 2015) (subscription required)
Agavotaguerra at Ethnologue (18th ed., 2015) (subscription required) - ^ Hammarström (2015) Ethnologue 16/17/18th editions: a comprehensive review: online appendices
- ^ Mujica (1992), p. 4.
- ^ Mujica (1992), p. 24.
- ^ Mujica (1992), pp. 26–27.
- ^ a b Mujica (1992), pp. 14–24.
- ^ Mujica (1992), p. 42.
- ^ Mujica (1992), p. 25
- ^ Mujica (1992), p. 43.
- ^ a b Mujica (1992), p. 38.
- ^ Seki (1999), p. 427.
- ^ Mujica (1992), pp. 44–51.
- ^ Mujica (1992), p. 60.
- ^ Mujica (1992), p. 61.
- ^ a b Mujica (1992), pp. 56–60.
- ^ Mujica (1992), pp. 52–53.
References
- Mujica, Mitzila Isabel Ortega (1992). Aspectos fonológicos e gramaticais da língua yawalapiti (aruak) (PDF) (M.A. thesis) (in Portuguese). Campinas: Universidade Estadual de Campinas. Archived from the original (PDF) on 2020-07-09.
- Seki, Lucy (1999). "The Upper Xingu as an incipient linguistic area". In Dixon, R. M. W.; Aikhenvald, Alexandra Y. (eds.). The Amazonian Languages. New York: Cambridge University Press. pp. 417–430. ISBN 0-521-57893-0.
Further reading
- Carvalho, Fernando O. de. 2016. Internal and Comparative Reconstruction in Yawalapiti: Palatalization and Rule Telescoping. International Journal of American Linguistics 82 (3).