Panará language
Panará (Panará panãra pẽẽ [panə̃ˈɾa ˈpẽj̃] [3]:131), also known as Kreen Akarore (from Mẽbêngôkre Krã jakàràre [ˈkɾʌ̃ jaˈkʌɾʌɾɛ]), is a Jê language spoken by the Panará people of Mato Grosso, Brazil. It is a direct descendant of Southern Kayapó.[4] Although classified as a Northern Jê language in earlier scholarship,[5]:547[6] Panará differs considerably from the Northern Jê languages in its morphosyntax[7]:454 and has been argued to be a sister language to Northern Jê rather than a member of that group.[8][9]
Panará | |
---|---|
Kreen Akarore | |
panãra pẽẽ | |
Pronunciation | [panə̃ˈɾa ˈpẽj̃]] |
Native to | Brazil |
Region | Mato Grosso |
Ethnicity | Panará |
Native speakers | 380 (2008)[1] |
Macro-Jê
| |
Language codes | |
ISO 639-3 | kre |
Glottolog | pana1307 |
ELP | Kreen-Akarore [2] |
Phonology
Consonants
The consonantal inventory of Panará is as follows.[10]
labial | dental | alveolar | velar | |
---|---|---|---|---|
obstruents | p <p> | t <t> | s <s> | k <k> |
geminate obstruents | pp <pp> | tt <tt> | ss <ss> | kk <kk> |
nasals | m <m, np> | n <n, nt> | ɲ <ns> | ŋ <nk> |
geminate nasals | mm <mm> | nn <nn> | ||
approximants | w <w> | ɾ <r> | j <j> |
The underlying nasals /m n ɲ ŋ/ are post-oralized to [mp nt ns ŋk] preceding an oral vowel or one of /w ɾ j/,[11]:18 as in intwêê /nweː/ [iˈntɥej] ‘new’.
The geminates occur both in underived roots (such as ippẽ /ppẽ/ [ipˈpẽ] ‘foreigner’) and at morpheme junctions, as in tepi /tɛp/ ‘fish’ + ty /tɯ/ ‘dead’ → [tɛtˈtɯ] ‘dead fish’.[11]:19 The geminate /ss/ is realized as [ts] by many speakers.[11]:21
Vowels
The vowel phonemes of Panará are as follows.[11]:21
oral | nasal | |||||
---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
! front | central | back | front | central | back | |
high | i <i>, iː <ii> | ɯ <y>, ɯː <yy> | u <u>, uː <uu> | ĩ <ĩ>, ĩː <ĩĩ> | ɯ̃ <ỹ>, (ɯ̃ː <ỹỹ>) | ũ <ũ>, ũː <ũũ> |
mid | e <ê>, eː <êê> | ə <â>, əː <ââ> | o <ô>, oː <ôô> | ẽ <ẽ>, ẽː <ẽẽ> | ə̃ <ã>, ə̃ː <ãã> | õ <õ>, õː <õõ> |
low | ɛ <e>, ɛː <ee> | a <a>, aː <aa> | ɔ <o>, ɔː <oo> |
The default realization of /oː ɔː õː eː ẽː/ is [ow ɔw õw̃ ej ẽj̃], as in pôô /poː/ [pow] ‘to arrive’, sõsêê /sõseː/ [sõsej] ‘fishing line’. The vowel /a/ may suffer reduction to [ɐ] or [ə] when unstressed.[11]:23
[i] epenthesis
It has been argued that many word-initial and word-final instances of [i] are epenthetic in Panará.[10] [i] is inserted in the following environments:
- word-initially before a geminate (obligatory in monosyllabic words, such as ikkjyti /kkjɯt/ [ikˈkjɯːti] ‘tapir’, issê /sse/ [isˈse ~ itˈse] ‘bow’; optional in polysyllabic words, such as pẽkâ ~ ippẽkâ /ppẽkɤ/ [pẽˈkɤ ~ ippẽˈkɤ] ‘clothes’, sêsê ~ issêsê /ssese/ [seˈse ~ isseˈse ~ itseˈse] ‘bow string’);
- word-initially before a postoralized allophone of an underlying nasal stop (obligatory in monosyllabic words, such as into /nɔ/ [inˈtɔ] ‘eye’, inkô /ŋo/ [iŋˈko] ‘water’; optional in polysyllabic words, such as pojĩ ~ inpojĩ /mɔɲĩ/ [pɔˈɲĩ ~ impɔˈɲĩ] ‘beef’, topãã ~ intopãã /nɔpə̃ː/ [tɔˈpə̃ː ~ intɔˈpə̃ː] ‘small hole’);
- word-initially before a singleton consonant in monosyllabic words (optional, as in tu ~ itu /tu/ [tu ~ iˈtu] ‘belly’, pẽẽ ~ ipẽẽ /pẽː/ [ˈpẽj̃ ~ iˈpẽj̃] ‘language’);
- word-finally after obstruent codas, as in tepi /tɛp/ [ˈtɛːpi] ‘fish’, pâritoti /pəɾtɔt/ [pəɾiˈtɔːti] ‘chair’, soti /sɔt/ [ˈsɔːti] ‘stuff’.
Stress
Stress falls on the last underlying vowel of a phonological word (the epenthetic [i] is never stressed).[10] If after the application of the epenthesis the stress falls of the penultimate vowel, the stressed vowel is lengthened: aprẽpi /apɾẽp/ [aˈpɾẽːpi] ‘picture, spirit’, tepakriti /tɛpakɾit/ [tɛpaˈkɾiːti] ‘an aquatic monster’, joopy /jɔp/ [ˈjɔwpɯ] ‘dog, jaguar’.
Morphology
Nominal number
Nominals inflect for number in Panará. Singular is unmarked, dual is marked with the suffix -ra, and plural is marked with the suffix -mẽra. These suffixes may be attached to nouns and pronouns alike: ka ‘you (singular)’, kara ‘you two’, ka ‘you guys (plural)’.[11]:27–9 The expression of number via suffixes is optional (this contrasts with the indexation of the argument number on verbs via clitics, which is obligatory).
Clause type and mood
Verbs in Panará may receive inflectional suffixes that have been analyzed as encoding mood (the available values being realis and irrealis, as in realis rõwa / irrealis rõwari ‘to kill’, realis too / irrealis tooj ‘to fly, to dance’) and clause type (paratactic vs. hypotactic, as in paratactic pĩri / hypotactic pĩra ‘to kill’).[11]:34–9
Syntax
In Panará, the roles of the arguments in a clause are indicated both by postpositional case marking and by a series of proclitics which encode the role of the arguments as well as their person and/or number features.
Postpositional case-marking
The case marking in Panará follows an ergative-absolutive pattern. Transitive agents (A) are marked by the ergative posposition hẽ, whereas transitive patients (P) and the sole arguments of intransitive verbs (S) are unmarked.
Clitics
Proclitics encode a wide array of features in Panará, including the role and the person/number features of the arguments (person indexes), mood, voice, and direction. The person indexes are organized ergatively in the realis mood and accusatively in the irrealis mood.
The table below shows the slots found in realis or conditional clauses.[12]:281[11]:111
9 | 8 | 7 | 6 | 5 | 4 | 3 | 2 | 1 | 0 |
---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
mood | A | 2PL (A/S/P) | voice | direction | recipient | incorporated postpositional phrase (or person index) | dual (A/S/P) | absolutive index | verb |
jy= RLS.INTR ta= COND tu= COND.INTR | rê= 1SG/DU nẽ= 1/3PL ka= 2 ti= 3SG/DU | rê= 2PL | pĩ= RCPR jĩ=/jã= REFL | py= REGR/ITER mỹn= CTPT |
kjẽ= 1SG/DU pan= 1PL kãn= 2 mã= 3SG mẽ= 3DU ran= 3PL |
mẽ DU | ra-/r- 1SG/DU a-/k- 2 ∅-/s- 3SG/DU ra-/p- 1PL ra-/r- 3PL |
verb (realis form) |
Irrealis clauses receive the mood marker ka.[11]:110
References
![]() |
Panará language test of Wikipedia at Wikimedia Incubator |
- Panará at Ethnologue (18th ed., 2015)
- Endangered Languages Project data for Kreen-Akarore.
- Bechelany, Fabiano; Sturlini, Manuela Otero (2019). Kâprẽpa puu popoti hã Kia. O livro da roça redonda dos Panará (PDF) (1 ed.). São Paulo/Altamira: Instituto Socioambiental/Associação Iakiô.
- Vasconcelos, Eduardo Alves (2013). Investigando a hipótese Cayapó do Sul-Panará (PDF) (Ph.D. dissertation). Campinas: Universidade Estadual de Campinas.
- Ribeiro, Eduardo Rivail (October 2010). "Nimuendajú was right: The inclusion of the Jabutí language family in the Macro-Jê stock". International Journal of American Linguistics. 76 (4): 517–570. doi:10.1086/658056.
- Nikulin, Andrey (2017). "A phonological reconstruction of Proto-Cerrado (Jê family)". Journal of Language Relationship. 15 (3): 147–180. doi:10.31826/jlr-2018-153-404. S2CID 212688784.
- Castro Alves, Flávia de (October 2010). "Evolution of Alignment in Timbira". International Journal of American Linguistics. 76 (4): 439–475. doi:10.1086/658054.
- Nikulin, Andrey (1 February 2019). "A reconstruction of Proto-Jê phonology and lexicon". Journal of Language Relationship. 17 (1–2): 93–127. doi:10.31826/jlr-2019-171-211. S2CID 212689094.
- Nikulin, Andrey; Salanova, Andrés Pablo (October 2019). "Northern Jê Verb Morphology and the Reconstruction of Finiteness Alternations". International Journal of American Linguistics. 85 (4): 533–567. doi:10.1086/704565.
- Lapierre, Myriam. "Word-initial [i] epenthesis in Panãra (poster presented at Sound Systems of Latin America III, University of Massachussets Amherst)". Academia.edu.
- Bardagil-Mas, Bernat (2018). Case and agreement in Panará (PDF) (Ph.D. dissertation). Utrecht: LOT. ISBN 978-94-6093-296-0.
- Nikulin, Andrey (2020). Proto-Macro-Jê: um estudo reconstrutivo (PDF) (Ph.D. dissertation). Brasília: Universidade de Brasília.
External links
- ELAR collection: A Digital Documentation of Panará deposited by Bernat Bardagil Mas
- Lapierre, Myriam. 2017. Panära Field Materials. Survey of California and Other Indian Languages. doi:10.7297/X20R9MWN