Fernando O De Carvalho
Biographic Data
| ID | 664174 |
|---|---|
| NAME | Fernando O De Carvalho |
| GIVEN NAMES | Fernando |
| FAMILY NAME | O De Carvalho |
| SIGNATURE | DE CARVALHO F O |
| AFFILIATIONS | Universidade Federal do Amapá |
| ORCID | 0000-0002-2115-7416 |
| VERIFIED | Yes |
| TOTAL WORKS | 44 |
| TOTAL CITATIONS | 39 |
| AUTHOR COUNT | 44 |
| EDITOR COUNT | 0 |
| FIRST PUBLICATION YEAR | 2006 |
| LATEST PUBLICATION YEAR | 2026 |
| H-INDEX | 4 |
Uma discussão crítica da hipótese Goya-Malabrigo/Arawak e de algumas bases para a investigação arqueolinguística
Este trabalho tem como propósito apresentar uma avaliação, a partir de uma perspectiva linguística, da proposta de associação “arqueolinguística” entre a entidade arqueológica Goya-Malabrigo e a família linguística Arawak. A conclusão é essencialmente negativa e ocorre em dois sentidos principais: no primeiro, observamos que a proposta é limitada, pois não permite qualquer tipo de inferência a respeito dos eventos históricos subjacentes à expansã…
The diachrony of fortis and lenis stop consonants in Ikpeng and Arara (Cariban)
This paper addresses the diachrony of two closely-related Cariban languages, Ikpeng and Arara. I reconstruct the stop consonant inventory, and a set of alternations, for Proto-Kampot (pK), their shared ancestor. Ikpeng innovated by merging part of the set of pK voiced (or lenis ) stops with two homorganic approximants. As a result, cognate morphophonological alternations involve stops in Arara, but stops and approximants in Ikpeng. PK *g , which …
The (morpho)phonology of oral stop consonants in Proto-Tupi-Guarani: Open issues, closed issues and new issues
This paper provides an account of certain alternations that characterize all conservative Tupi-Guarani (TG) languages. Three processes are reconstructed for Proto-Tupi-Guarani (PTG): pre-vocalic oral stop lenition, pre-consonantal stop deletion, and glottal stop metathesis. Both oral stop lenition and glottal metathesis are singled out for more extensive discussion, as previous research has overlooked important issues. I argue that PTG must be re…
An Outline of the Phonology and Morphophonology of Ikpeng (Cariban)
On the lexical evidence for a genealogical relationship between múra-pirahã and matanawi
This paper shows that the lexical evidence in favor of a genealogical relation between Múra-Pirahã and Matanawi is stronger than so far suspected. It takes into account evidence from the full set of attested doculects making the Múra-Pirahã languoid. And, more importantly, it incorporates information about the nature of attested formal mismatches in evaluating the comparative sets that feature Matanawi lexical elements. I identify a series of for…
Linguistic evidence and Tupi-Guarani/Cariban contacts in the Eastern Guianas: Wajãpi kasi 'be strong', pipi 'father's sister' and kasuru 'pearl
This brief paper proposes a Cariban etymology for the Wajãpi (Tupi-Guarani) verb -kasi 'be strong', which has been incorrectly suggested as being of Tupi-Guarani provenance. It is proposed that the source language for this diffusion event was Apalai, and not Wayana, as is usually claimed when the issue of the Cariban influx into Wajãpi is addressed. Two other Cariban loans are discussed, pipi 'father's sister' and kasuru 'pearl', and in these cas…
Proto-Tupi-Guarani had no palatalized velar stop
This paper addresses one of the open issues in the reconstruction of Proto-Tupi-Guarani (PTG) segmental phonology: The status of the *k -*kj opposition. We argue that the contrast is artifactual and that the presumed evidence in favor of PTG *kj can be considered as secondary developments of PTG *k in Kayabí, Guarayu, Kagwahiva, Tenetehára, Kamayurá, and Ka'apor. We establish additional facts regarding the structure of PTG and the historical phon…
Payne's rule and the late *o > a shift in Mojeño Ignaciano: A response to Ramirez & França (2019) - or, how (not) to do historical linguistics
Ramirez & França's (2019) claim that a change *a > o took place multiple times and without any discernible conditioning factor - which the authors present as an explicit counterproposal to a series of claims made in Carvalho & Rose (2018) - is methodologically and empirically flawed. We show here that the supposed evidence from loanwords is artifactual, that the comparison between 18th Guaná and modern Terena rests on an arbitrarily selective and…
A new sound change for Guarani(an): Glottal prothesis, internal classification, and the explanation of synchronic irregularities
A so far overlooked sound change in the historical phonology of the Guaranian branch of the Tupi-Guarani language family is discussed in the present paper. The sound change in question, which accounts for certain synchronic morphological irregularities, consists of the insertion of the glottal fricative h in word-initial position any time the next (right-adjacent) syllable has a glottal stop ʔ as its onset consonant. Allomorphy resulting from thi…
A revised reconstruction of the Proto-Tupian vowel system
This contribution is concerned with the reconstruction of the vowel qualities of Proto-Tupian, the ancestral language of the Tupian language family. The study is grounded in a bottom-up application of the comparative method and seeks to offer a more balanced reconstruction that avoids an overreliance on the Tupí-Guaraní branch. It is first shown that the height opposition traditionally reconstructed for the rounded vowel series (*o vs. *u) is bes…
A Diachronic Account of Paresi (Arawakan) Person Marking and Alignment Change
This article offers a diachronic account of some of the core features of the alignment system of Paresi (Arawakan), in whose history an intransitive split between agentive (sa) and non-agentive (so) arguments was reintroduced, after the initial split intransitivity was replaced by an accusative phase (resulting from the loss of o=so-coding verbal enclitics). The split class of s arguments (sa, so) coexists with a tripartite alignment (a=sa≠so≠o).…
A comparative reconstruction of Proto-Tupi-Guarani kinship terminology
This paper proposes a reconstruction of the kinship terminology system of Proto-Tupi-Guarani (PTG). The focus of the contribution lies in presenting a solid core of cognate sets and argumentation for the reconstruction of formal and semantic aspects for each relevant etymon. The etymologies are preceded by a review of our current understanding of PTG kinship terms and by a selective overview of those aspects of PTG structure that will play out mo…
A fonética dos encontros consonantais no Mebêngôkre Xikrín (Jê): Evidência Instrumental
Este trabalho apresenta os resultados de uma investigação sobre a fonética da resolução de clusters consonantais em Mebêngôkre, uma língua do ramo setentrional da família Jê. Além das propriedades dos segmentos consonantais em contextos pré-vocálicos e precedendo pausa, buscamos descrever as modificações sofridas pelos mesmos em contextos pré-consonantal, seja envolvendo uma sequência de oclusivas orais (C1 + C2), seja envolvendo uma soante em po…
On the diachronic origins of the accentual contrast in Terena (Arawakan)
This paper presents internal and comparative evidence showing that the origin of the accentual contrast of modern Terena, an Arawakan language of southwestern Brazil, is related to a diachronic process of word‐initial vowel loss. Alternations internal to the language involve a relation between vowel‐initial trisyllabic allomorphs and consonant‐initial disyllabic allomorphs, the latter bearing a tonal accent. Comparative evidence from Mojeño, one …
Tocantins Apiaká, Parirí and Yarumá as Members of the Pekodian Branch (Cariban)
This brief paper expands on the discussion of the evidence for including the sparsely attested Parirí and (Tocantins) Apiaká doculects as part of the Pekodian branch of the Cariban language family, within a sub-branch that includes the Arára-Ikpeng dialect cluster but excludes Bakairí. The present discussion goes beyond mere formal/semantic similarities in the comparanda and shows that both Parirí and Apiaká share a number of sporadic development…
A Comparative Reconstruction of Proto-Purus (Arawakan) Segmental Phonology
This paper offers a comparative reconstruction of the segmental phonology of Proto-Purus (PP), the common ancestor of Iñapari, Apurinã, and Yine. The reconstruction presented here differs in many ways from current proposals on PP phonology: the author argues that the contrast between r and l is a secondary development in Yine, that there is no need for reconstructing a vowel *I, and that most if not all instances of initial h in Yine reflect PP *…
Descriptive Kinship Terms in Arawakan Languages: An Etymological Approach
This paper discusses the generality of descriptive kinship terms for affines in Arawakan languages, readdressing an open problem in the historical linguistics of this family. I show that the Mojeño terms for affines of the parental generation originate in descriptive kinship terms meaning ‘grandparent of Ego’s child’. Next, I demonstrate that this account offers striking support for the independently proposed sound-symbolic origin of the affricat…
Coronal codas and phonotactics in Tupi-Guarani languages
This paper discusses the phonotactic organization of conservative Tupi-Guarani languages, and of Proto-Tupi-Guarani, by focusing on the analysis of the word-final/pre-pausal coronal approximant [j]. After illustrating how confusion prevails in currently accepted analyses of this segment, which is often considered both a consonant and a member of a diphthong, the author argues that the analysis of [j] as a consonant is preferable. This claim, coup…
South America
This chapter discusses the prosodic systems of South American native languages. It provides the state of the art of the current knowledge and lays out promising directions for future research. The main focus of the discussion concerns the phonetics and phonology of word-level prosody, given the limited information about prosody beyond the word in this part of the world. A typology of stress, tone, and mixed systems is presented that summarizes th…
On the Etymology of the Ethnonym Katukina
The present paper proposes an etymology for the troublesome ethnonym , used, for over a century, to designate a series of western Amazonian indigenous groups. I propose that the term originates in a Purus Arawakan denominal monovalent predicate (“adjective”) *ka-tukanɨ , meaning “speaker of an indigenous language”. This etymology is explicitly argued to be superior to existing alternatives on formal, semantic and distributional grounds. The typic…
Estudos Diacrônicos De Línguas Indígenas Brasileiras: Um Panorama
O artigo possui o duplo objetivo de introduzir o leitor a um panorama do estado da arte em estudos diacrônicos das línguas indígenas brasileiras, além de promover uma aplicação rigorosa dos métodos já consolidados da linguística histórica a essas línguas. Para tanto, abordamos separadamente os problemas de demonstração de parentesco genético entre as línguas, de subagrupamento , de reconstrução fonológica e sintática de proto-línguas e de estudos…
Demorphologization of the proto-arawakan privative *ma- in Terena
This paper discusses the etymology of two lexical items of Terena, an Arawakan language from southwestern Brazil. Etymologization of the nouns mojénoti 'orphan' and moʃêu 'barren, sterile' shows that they preserve traces of the Proto-Arawakan Privative prefix *ma-, now demorphologized as part of synchronically unanalyzable roots. Since PA *ma- appears as mo- in Pre-Terena, Proto-Mojeño and Baure, the present work also provides evidence for the sh…
Etymology Meets Ethnohistory: Linguistic Evidence for the Prehistoric Origin of the Guaná-Chané in the Northwestern Chaco
This article discusses linguistic evidence on the migrations of Arawakan groups to the Paraguay region of South America. The fact that Guaicuruan loanwords in the language of the Guaná-Chané cluster semantically in domains related to bodies of water is best explained by tracing the origins of the Guaná-Chané to dryer environments, these loanwords referring to novel aspects of the Paraguay landscape that they encountered as they moved into it. The…
Diachronic split and phoneme borrowing in Resígaro (Arawakan)
This paper examines a previously identified but so far imprecisely defined split in the historical phonology of Resígaro (Arawakan). I argue that this development was a simple case of allophonic redistribution or primary split, in which word-final allophones of *a merged with ɯ . However, comparative data offers no evidence for the existence of ɯ before the operation of the split in question. This apparent paradox can be resolved by the plausible…
The historical phonology of Paunaka (Arawakan)
This paper applies the comparative method to unravel the historical development of the segmental phonology of Paunaka, an Arawakan language of Bolivia. Although the Paunaka vowel system features a single back rounded vowel, it is rather simple to show that it derives from a system with two back rounded qualities *u and *o, but that the former segment shifted to a high central unrounded vowel ɨ. The language has lost *r unconditionally, implying t…
Arawakan-Guaicuruan Language Contact in The South American Chaco
Relations between Arawakan and Guaicuruan groups in the Chaco region of South America have been widely discussed in ethnohistorical and anthropological sources. This paper offers the first systematic investigation of the linguistic effects of these interactions, relying on, and contributing to, the historical study of both language families. I discuss a number of nominal lexemes in Terena, the extant descendant of Guaná, that lack plausible Arawa…
Terena, Chané, Guaná and Kinikinau are one and the same language: Setting the record straight on southern Arawak linguistic diversity
Este estudo parte da avaliação dos materiais existentes sobre as línguas Chané, Guaná e Kinikinau, usualmente apresentadas, juntamente com o Terena, como línguas distintas do ramo meridional da família Arawak, e propõe uma avaliação do grau de distanciamento entre essas variedades. Argumento que a evidência existente - em muitos casos restrita a poucos itens vocabulares - não permite considerar esses rótulos como denotando línguas distintas da lí…
On The Realization Of Nominal Possession In Mehinaku: A Diachronic Account
The aim of this paper is to furnish a diachronic account of selected aspects of the morphophonology of nominal possession in Mehinaku, an Arawak language spoken in central Brazil. The phenomena explained here include the systematic occurrence of word-final main stress in Absolute and Genitive forms of nouns, the nasalization of stem-final vowels in a subclass of the Genitive forms, and some vowel quality changes in the paradigms of Inalienable no…
Ensurdecimento vocálico em Zo'é
Neste trabalho apresentamos uma descrição do fenômeno deensurdecimento vocálico na língua Zo'é (Tupi-Guarani). Sãoapresentadas ainda hipóteses acerca das restrições sincrônicas ativasno condicionamento deste fenômeno, além de uma hipótese acercada origem histórica do mesmo
The historical phonology of Paunaka (Arawakan)
This paper applies the comparative method to unravel the historical development of the segmental phonology of Paunaka, an Arawakan language of Bolivia. Although the Paunaka vowel system features a single back rounded vowel, it is rather simple to show that it derives from a system with two back rounded qualities *u and *o, but that the former segment shifted to a high central unrounded vowel ɨ. The language has lost *r unconditionally, implying t…
Comparative Reconstruction of Proto-Mojeño and the Diversification of Mojeño Dialects
This paper addresses nine open issues in the historical phonology of Mojeño, an Arawakan language of Bolivia. We propose solutions to these problems by postulating reconstructed forms for Proto-Mojeño based on a comparison of the two extant varieties of the language, Ignaciano and Trinitario, and on 17th century sources on Old Mojeño. Contrarily to a recent claim, we argue that the contrast between *n and *ɲ can be straightforwardly reconstructed…
Philological evidence for phonemic affricates and diachronic debuccalization in Early Terena (Arawak)
This paper argues that early Terena ('Guaná') had a contrast between fricative and affricate consonants that has been lost in modern Terena. Evidence for this claim comes from the examination of late 19th century and early 20th century documents on the language. The existence of the relevant phonemic contrast is revealed not only by an analysis of the transcriptions employed in these early sources but, more importantly, by a demonstration that fr…
Fricative Debuccalization and Primary Split in Terena (Arawak) Historical Phonology
This paper discusses a set of morphophonemic alternations in Terena, an Arawak language of Brazil. I propose a number of non-alternating Pre-Terena forms and a sound change in a diachronic account of these alternations. Using internal, comparative, and philological (early documentary) evidence, I trace the development of these alternations from its precursors in allophonic variation to its partial morphologization. The proposed change debuccalize…
The diachrony of person-number marking in the Lokono-Wayuunaiki subgroup of the Arawak family: Reconstruction, Sound Change and Analogy
Proto-Tupi-Guarani had no palatalized velar stop
This paper addresses one of the open issues in the reconstruction of Proto-Tupi-Guarani (PTG) segmental phonology: The status of the *k -*kj opposition. We argue that the contrast is artifactual and that the presumed evidence in favor of PTG *kj can be considered as secondary developments of PTG *k in Kayabí, Guarayu, Kagwahiva, Tenetehára, Kamayurá, and Ka'apor. We establish additional facts regarding the structure of PTG and the historical phon…
A revised reconstruction of the Proto-Tupian vowel system
This contribution is concerned with the reconstruction of the vowel qualities of Proto-Tupian, the ancestral language of the Tupian language family. The study is grounded in a bottom-up application of the comparative method and seeks to offer a more balanced reconstruction that avoids an overreliance on the Tupí-Guaraní branch. It is first shown that the height opposition traditionally reconstructed for the rounded vowel series (*o vs. *u) is bes…
A Comparative Reconstruction of Proto-Purus (Arawakan) Segmental Phonology
This paper offers a comparative reconstruction of the segmental phonology of Proto-Purus (PP), the common ancestor of Iñapari, Apurinã, and Yine. The reconstruction presented here differs in many ways from current proposals on PP phonology: the author argues that the contrast between r and l is a secondary development in Yine, that there is no need for reconstructing a vowel *I, and that most if not all instances of initial h in Yine reflect PP *…
Coronal codas and phonotactics in Tupi-Guarani languages
This paper discusses the phonotactic organization of conservative Tupi-Guarani languages, and of Proto-Tupi-Guarani, by focusing on the analysis of the word-final/pre-pausal coronal approximant [j]. After illustrating how confusion prevails in currently accepted analyses of this segment, which is often considered both a consonant and a member of a diphthong, the author argues that the analysis of [j] as a consonant is preferable. This claim, coup…
Tupi-Guarani loanwords in Southern Arawak: Taking Contact Etymologies Seriously
This paper seeks to rigorously evaluate a set of claims that lexical items in Southern Arawak languages are loanwords from Tupi-Guarani languages. I show that, in most cases, these hypotheses can be rejected because the Arawak forms in question either have clear internal etymologies or because the noted similarities are too superfcial and no coherent or plausible picture for the phonological deviation between the putative loans and their presumed…
Obscure cognates and lexical reconstruction: Notes on the diachrony of the Xinguan Arawak languages
The present paper discusses evidence supporting the claim that the common Xinguan Arawak noun for ‘hand’, *wɨʂɨku, is a shared lexical innovation of this subgroup and that, in addition, a formation for ‘finger’ derived from a nominal compound with the roots for ‘hand’ and ‘head’, *kapɨ-tɨwɨ, sets Waurá, Mehinaku and Kustenaú apart from other languages of the family, including Yawalapiti. The reconstructed Proto-Arawak etymon for ‘hand’, *khapɨ, i…
Internal and Comparative Reconstruction in Yawalapiti: Palatalization and Rule Telescoping
This paper presents an investigation of the historical phonology of Yawalapiti, an Arawak language spoken in central Brazil. After internal reconstruction is applied to a set of alternations observed in the language, comparative evidence for the proposed reconstructions is addressed. The alternations in question can be loosely described as involving some sort of palatalization process, but the adequacy of this label is obscured by some properties…
Diachronic labial palatalization in Xinguan Arawak
O objetivo desta breve contribuição é o de abordar fatos adicionais relativos ao processo de palatalização (ou coronalização) de consoantes labiais proposto em Carvalho (2016a) para o Yawalapiti, uma língua Arawak do Brasil central. Após discutir a relevância mais ampla dos processos de coronalização de labiais para a tipologia e a teoria da mudança sonora, mostrarei que a identificação das correspondências segmentais que evidenciam este desenvol…
On the Development of the Proto-Northern Jê Rhotic in Panará Historical Phonology
Comparative evidence is provided for a number of developments in the historical phonology of Panará, a Jê language spoken in central Brazil, in particular for the reflexes of the rhotic *ɾ reconstructed for the Proto–Northern Jê ancestral language (and, in many cases, for Proto-Jê as well). Aside from their contributions to the understanding of a family much of whose history remains unknown, the diachronic hypotheses presented and evaluated here …
Filogenia da Linguagem e a Evolução da Complexidade Semântica
Vowel Acoustics in Pirahã
Os resultados de uma investigação preliminar acerca das propriedadesacústicas das vogais da lingual Pirahã são apresentados. Por meio derepresentações gráficas e escores numéricos, as características do espaçovocálico da lingua são expressas em termos das dimensões padrão deF1, F2, F1-F0 e F2-F1 assim como em termos de medidas centrais devalores transformados para a escala Bark. Padrões de diferenças sexuaissão avaliados tanto para as distribuiçõ…
Ensurdecimento vocálico em Zo'é
Neste trabalho apresentamos uma descrição do fenômeno deensurdecimento vocálico na língua Zo'é (Tupi-Guarani). Sãoapresentadas ainda hipóteses acerca das restrições sincrônicas ativasno condicionamento deste fenômeno, além de uma hipótese acercada origem histórica do mesmo
Variação de VOT, duração e equações de lócus em função do contexto prosódico nas oclusivas do Tikúna
Neste artigo os resultados de uma investigação experimental acerca dos parâmetros acústicos que expressam algumas das categorias fonológicas da língua Tikúna são apresentados. Especial ênfase é atribuída à discussão e apresentação de variações de duração, VOT e Equações de Lócus nas oclusivas que podem ser compreendidas em função da sua relação com a colocação do acento primário de palavra. Os resultados aparentemente não esperados de acomodação …
On Záparoan as a valid genetic unity: Preliminary correspondences and the status of Omurano
The Záparoan linguistic family has been so far acknowledged as constituting a genetic group only on the basis of lexical similarity and grammatical parallels. We present here a preliminary statement of recurring sound correspondences holding among the basic lexical and grammatical vocabularies of three languages usually seen as belonging into the Záparoan family: Iquito, Arabela and Záparo. Though still a preliminary effort towards a more complet…
As hipóteses de Aryon Rodrigues: Validade, Valor E Papel No Cenário Dos Estudos De Línguas Indígenas E De Linguística Histórica
Tendo como seu ponto de partida o estado da arte dos estudos de línguas indígenas e de linguística histórica na atualidade e ultrapassando, portanto, as fronteiras de estados nacionais, o presente artigo revisita hipóteses importantes de Aryon Rodrigues, cuja obra é uma das mais constantes - senão uma das maiores - referências nos estudos de linguística e línguas indígenas, deste lado e do outro lado do Atlântico e no contexto deste século e da s…
On The Realization Of Nominal Possession In Mehinaku: A Diachronic Account
The aim of this paper is to furnish a diachronic account of selected aspects of the morphophonology of nominal possession in Mehinaku, an Arawak language spoken in central Brazil. The phenomena explained here include the systematic occurrence of word-final main stress in Absolute and Genitive forms of nouns, the nasalization of stem-final vowels in a subclass of the Genitive forms, and some vowel quality changes in the paradigms of Inalienable no…
Obscure cognates and lexical reconstruction: Notes on the diachrony of the Xinguan Arawak languages
The present paper discusses evidence supporting the claim that the common Xinguan Arawak noun for ‘hand’, *wɨʂɨku, is a shared lexical innovation of this subgroup and that, in addition, a formation for ‘finger’ derived from a nominal compound with the roots for ‘hand’ and ‘head’, *kapɨ-tɨwɨ, sets Waurá, Mehinaku and Kustenaú apart from other languages of the family, including Yawalapiti. The reconstructed Proto-Arawak etymon for ‘hand’, *khapɨ, i…
The diachrony of person-number marking in the Lokono-Wayuunaiki subgroup of the Arawak family: Reconstruction, Sound Change and Analogy
Internal and Comparative Reconstruction in Yawalapiti: Palatalization and Rule Telescoping
This paper presents an investigation of the historical phonology of Yawalapiti, an Arawak language spoken in central Brazil. After internal reconstruction is applied to a set of alternations observed in the language, comparative evidence for the proposed reconstructions is addressed. The alternations in question can be loosely described as involving some sort of palatalization process, but the adequacy of this label is obscured by some properties…
Diachronic labial palatalization in Xinguan Arawak
O objetivo desta breve contribuição é o de abordar fatos adicionais relativos ao processo de palatalização (ou coronalização) de consoantes labiais proposto em Carvalho (2016a) para o Yawalapiti, uma língua Arawak do Brasil central. Após discutir a relevância mais ampla dos processos de coronalização de labiais para a tipologia e a teoria da mudança sonora, mostrarei que a identificação das correspondências segmentais que evidenciam este desenvol…
Terena, Chané, Guaná and Kinikinau are one and the same language: Setting the record straight on southern Arawak linguistic diversity
Este estudo parte da avaliação dos materiais existentes sobre as línguas Chané, Guaná e Kinikinau, usualmente apresentadas, juntamente com o Terena, como línguas distintas do ramo meridional da família Arawak, e propõe uma avaliação do grau de distanciamento entre essas variedades. Argumento que a evidência existente - em muitos casos restrita a poucos itens vocabulares - não permite considerar esses rótulos como denotando línguas distintas da lí…
On the Development of the Proto-Northern Jê Rhotic in Panará Historical Phonology
Comparative evidence is provided for a number of developments in the historical phonology of Panará, a Jê language spoken in central Brazil, in particular for the reflexes of the rhotic *ɾ reconstructed for the Proto–Northern Jê ancestral language (and, in many cases, for Proto-Jê as well). Aside from their contributions to the understanding of a family much of whose history remains unknown, the diachronic hypotheses presented and evaluated here …
Análise Acústica Das Vogais Orais Da Língua Akuntsú
O presente artigo focaliza a descrição acústica preliminar das vogais orais em Akuntsú, língua indígena brasileira da família Tuparí, falada no Sueste de Rondônia. Apresenta-se uma descrição quantitativa das características fonéticas das vogais e uma versão inicial do espaço vocálico da língua. Os resultados contribuem significativamente para reavaliar o status da vogal [ø ] com respeito a sua função no sistema fonológico do Akuntsú
Philological evidence for phonemic affricates and diachronic debuccalization in Early Terena (Arawak)
This paper argues that early Terena ('Guaná') had a contrast between fricative and affricate consonants that has been lost in modern Terena. Evidence for this claim comes from the examination of late 19th century and early 20th century documents on the language. The existence of the relevant phonemic contrast is revealed not only by an analysis of the transcriptions employed in these early sources but, more importantly, by a demonstration that fr…
Tupi-Guarani loanwords in Southern Arawak: Taking Contact Etymologies Seriously
This paper seeks to rigorously evaluate a set of claims that lexical items in Southern Arawak languages are loanwords from Tupi-Guarani languages. I show that, in most cases, these hypotheses can be rejected because the Arawak forms in question either have clear internal etymologies or because the noted similarities are too superfcial and no coherent or plausible picture for the phonological deviation between the putative loans and their presumed…
Fricative Debuccalization and Primary Split in Terena (Arawak) Historical Phonology
This paper discusses a set of morphophonemic alternations in Terena, an Arawak language of Brazil. I propose a number of non-alternating Pre-Terena forms and a sound change in a diachronic account of these alternations. Using internal, comparative, and philological (early documentary) evidence, I trace the development of these alternations from its precursors in allophonic variation to its partial morphologization. The proposed change debuccalize…
Diachronic split and phoneme borrowing in Resígaro (Arawakan)
This paper examines a previously identified but so far imprecisely defined split in the historical phonology of Resígaro (Arawakan). I argue that this development was a simple case of allophonic redistribution or primary split, in which word-final allophones of *a merged with ɯ . However, comparative data offers no evidence for the existence of ɯ before the operation of the split in question. This apparent paradox can be resolved by the plausible…
The historical phonology of Paunaka (Arawakan)
This paper applies the comparative method to unravel the historical development of the segmental phonology of Paunaka, an Arawakan language of Bolivia. Although the Paunaka vowel system features a single back rounded vowel, it is rather simple to show that it derives from a system with two back rounded qualities *u and *o, but that the former segment shifted to a high central unrounded vowel ɨ. The language has lost *r unconditionally, implying t…
Arawakan-Guaicuruan Language Contact in The South American Chaco
Relations between Arawakan and Guaicuruan groups in the Chaco region of South America have been widely discussed in ethnohistorical and anthropological sources. This paper offers the first systematic investigation of the linguistic effects of these interactions, relying on, and contributing to, the historical study of both language families. I discuss a number of nominal lexemes in Terena, the extant descendant of Guaná, that lack plausible Arawa…
Comparative Reconstruction of Proto-Mojeño and the Diversification of Mojeño Dialects
This paper addresses nine open issues in the historical phonology of Mojeño, an Arawakan language of Bolivia. We propose solutions to these problems by postulating reconstructed forms for Proto-Mojeño based on a comparison of the two extant varieties of the language, Ignaciano and Trinitario, and on 17th century sources on Old Mojeño. Contrarily to a recent claim, we argue that the contrast between *n and *ɲ can be straightforwardly reconstructed…
Estudos Diacrônicos De Línguas Indígenas Brasileiras: Um Panorama
O artigo possui o duplo objetivo de introduzir o leitor a um panorama do estado da arte em estudos diacrônicos das línguas indígenas brasileiras, além de promover uma aplicação rigorosa dos métodos já consolidados da linguística histórica a essas línguas. Para tanto, abordamos separadamente os problemas de demonstração de parentesco genético entre as línguas, de subagrupamento , de reconstrução fonológica e sintática de proto-línguas e de estudos…
Demorphologization of the proto-arawakan privative *ma- in Terena
This paper discusses the etymology of two lexical items of Terena, an Arawakan language from southwestern Brazil. Etymologization of the nouns mojénoti 'orphan' and moʃêu 'barren, sterile' shows that they preserve traces of the Proto-Arawakan Privative prefix *ma-, now demorphologized as part of synchronically unanalyzable roots. Since PA *ma- appears as mo- in Pre-Terena, Proto-Mojeño and Baure, the present work also provides evidence for the sh…
Etymology Meets Ethnohistory: Linguistic Evidence for the Prehistoric Origin of the Guaná-Chané in the Northwestern Chaco
This article discusses linguistic evidence on the migrations of Arawakan groups to the Paraguay region of South America. The fact that Guaicuruan loanwords in the language of the Guaná-Chané cluster semantically in domains related to bodies of water is best explained by tracing the origins of the Guaná-Chané to dryer environments, these loanwords referring to novel aspects of the Paraguay landscape that they encountered as they moved into it. The…
South America
This chapter discusses the prosodic systems of South American native languages. It provides the state of the art of the current knowledge and lays out promising directions for future research. The main focus of the discussion concerns the phonetics and phonology of word-level prosody, given the limited information about prosody beyond the word in this part of the world. A typology of stress, tone, and mixed systems is presented that summarizes th…
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