Suyá language

Kĩsêdjê(Suyá, Kĩsêdjê:Khĩsêtjê kapẽrẽ[kʰĩˈsedʒekaˈpẽɽẽ]) is aNorthern Jêlanguage (Jê,Macro-Jê) spoken inMato Grosso,Brazil. It is closely related toTapayúna; together, they form theTapajósbranch of Northern Jê.
Kĩsêdjê is closely related toTapayúna;the common past on theTapajós River, shared by the Kĩsêdjê and the Tapayúna, is still part of their oral history.Phonological differences between the languages include the reflexes ofProto-Northern Jê*m/*mb,*mr/*mbr,*c(in onsets),*ñ(in codas), and*b(in stressed syllables). In Kĩsêdjê, these consonants are reflected asm/mb,mr/mbr,s,n, andp, respectively, whereas Tapayúna hasw([w̃]),nr([ɾ̃]),t([t̪]),j([j]), andw([w]) in the same words.
Kĩsêdjê preserved the consonants ofProto-Tapajósalmost intact, with the exception of the sound change*t̪ʰ>s.
The following table lists some of the possible onsets of Kĩsêdjê;in addition, most of these can further combine with /w/ or /ɲ/ (in words whoseProto-Northern Jêetyma contain one of*wa,*wə̂, or*jê, which are analyzed as complex nuclei). Underlying nasals acquire an oral phase preceding an oral nucleus.
The vowel inventory of Kĩsêdjê is shown below (the orthographic representation is given in italics; the characters in slashes stand for theIPAvalues of each vowel).Nonato (2014) reports that there is no allophonic variation.By convention, thetilde, which is part of the graphemes that denote nasal vowels, is left out in the orthography following <m>, <n>, and <nh> (but not <ng>), as in <mo> [mɔ̃] ‘to go (plural)’. In addition, the vowels /ɘ̃/ and /ã/ are not differentiated in the orthography (both are written as <ã>).
Kĩsêdjê has a phenomenon whereby anecho vowelis obligatorily inserted in utterance-final words whose underlying form ends in a consonant;that way, all utterances end in vowels on surface in Kĩsêdjê. Vowel epenthesis often causes the underlying coda to lenite. The resulting alternations are represented orthographically, as inthep[ˈt̠ʰɛp̚] /thewe[ˈt̠ʰɛwɛ] ‘fish’,wit[ˈwit̚] /wiri[ˈwiɾi] ‘only’,ngrôt[ˈŋgɹot̚] /ngrôrô[ˈŋgɹoɾo] ‘the Pleiades’,khẽn[ˈkʰɛ̃n̚] /khẽne[ˈkʰɛ̃nɛ̃] ‘stone’,hwysysôm[hʷɨsɨˈsom̚] /hwysysômy[hʷɨsɨˈsomɨ] ‘mosquito’.In words that end in an underlyingrhoticcoda, echo vowels are inserted regardless of whether the word is in the utterance-final position, as inngõrõ[ˈŋɔ̃ɽɔ̃] ‘to sleep’ (forms such as *[ˈŋɔ̃ɽ] are unattested).
As in all other Northern Jê languages, verbs inflect forfinitenessand thus have a basic opposition between afiniteform (alsoform Bandmain form) and anonfinite form(alsoform Aandembedded form). Finite forms are used in matrix clauses only, whereas nonfinite forms are used in all types of subordinate clausesas well as in some matrix clauses.Nonfinite forms are most often formed via suffixation and/or prefix substitution. Some verbs (including all descriptives with the exception ofkatho‘to leave’, whose nonfinite form iskathoro) lack an overt finiteness distinction.
The available nonfinite suffixes are/-ɽ/(the most common option, found in many transitive and intransitive verbs, with its allomorph/-j/after the vowel/a/),/-n/(found in some transitive verbs), as well as/-k/,/-m/, and/-t/(found in a handful of intransitive verbs which take a nominative subject when finite), as shown in the table below.
InProto-Northern Jê, several verbs derived their finite forms by means oflenitingthe stem-final consonant (*-t,*-c,*-k→*-r,*-j,*-r).In Kĩsêdjê, at least three verbs retain this pattern,though the relation between the finite and nonfinite forms has been obfuscated by a series of regular sound changes, including*-ôj>-wâj(-âjafter a labial),*-c>-t.
InProto-Northern Jê, a small set of verbs formed their nonfinite forms by employing one of the aforementioned processesanda morphophonological process whereby the onset of the stressed syllable became palatal, and the nucleus of the stressed syllable was raised (if possible); this has been attributed to the influence of an underlying palatalizing nonfinite prefix. In Kĩsêdjê, some of these verbs still follow the archaic pattern, though the relation between the finite and nonfinite forms has been obfuscated by a series of regular sound changes.
In addition to the aforementioned processes, the finiteness inflection may involve prefix substitution or loss. For example, the valency-reducing prefixes area(j)-(anticausative) anda-(antipassive) in finite verb forms, butwi-andtá-/tu-, respectively, in the nonfinite forms.In addition, some verbs which denote physiological activities or movement have a prefix (i-anda-, respectively) in their finite forms but not in the nonfinite form. Some examples are given below.
Future, progressive, continuous, completive, and negated clauses in Kĩsêdjê show a cross-linguistically raremorphosyntactic alignmentpattern, known as thenominative–absolutive alignment.
Kĩsêdjê has also been considered unusual in the literature because of its unexpected (from a cross-linguistic point of view) distribution ofergativeandnominativemarking of transitive agents in certain types of clauses, such asfutureandnegativeclauses.More specifically, transitive agents expressed by a full noun phrase are nominative (marked by the subject markerrain the examples below), whereas pronominal transitive agents are ergative, as in the following examples:
Such split has been previously considered to be impossible byR. M. W. Dixon: