Papers by Adam R Singerman
Language
Negation in Tuparí (Tupían; Brazil) is an exclusively nominal category: verbs must enter into a n... more Negation in Tuparí (Tupían; Brazil) is an exclusively nominal category: verbs must enter into a nominalized form to accept the negator-'om and must undergo a subsequent process of reverbalization so as to combine with tense and evidential morphology. These category-changing processes leave-'om in a low position in the clause, and scopal evidence confirms that negation is also interpreted low. In keeping with the low structural position of-'om, the same negative strategy known from finite matrix clauses appears in nonfinite embedded contexts as well. Tuparí shows that negative phrases exhibit more crosslinguistic variation than standardly assumed: they may appear in either the nominal or verbal extended projection. This finding is not compatible with cartographic efforts to strictly circumscribe the distribution of NegP within the clause. Like nominal tense in Tupi-Guaraní and other languages, in Tuparí a grammatical category normally associated with the verbal domain instead surfaces within the nominal one. For the purpose of typological comparison, the Tuparí facts highlight the need for classifications of negation that take into account both constructional asymmetries between affirmative and negative clauses and individual negator morphemes' selectional and categorical properties.*
International Journal of American Linguistics
Tupían languages typically mark evidentiality through freestanding particles located in a predica... more Tupían languages typically mark evidentiality through freestanding particles located in a predicate-or clause-peripheral position. In Tuparí, however, non-witnessed evidentiality is realized by a bound verbal suffix (-pnẽ/-psira). This article draws upon original fieldwork to offer a detailed description and analysis of-pnẽ/-psira. I argue that using-pnẽ/-psira presupposes commitment to the proposition p on the part of the speaker. This analysis explains the incompatibility between-pnẽ/-psira and clause-typing particles that signal doubt or uncertainty; furthermore, it accounts for how the witnessed/non-witnessed contrast projects out of embedded clauses. This article also puts forth an explanation for the historical origin of-pnẽ/-psira. A separate suffix, resultative-psẽ/-pnẽ/-psira, is partially homophonous with the evidential but differs from it on several diagnostics. I propose that resultative constructions in the perfect aspect ('the snake is in the state of having died') were reinterpreted as non-firsthand statements in the past tense ('the snake died [NON-WITNESSED]'). 1 1 I would like to thank the many Tuparí speakers from the Rio Branco Indigenous Reserve who have taught me their language over the past five years. Special thanks go to the speakers who sat down for interviews in the
Glossa: a journal of general linguistics
Tuparí, an indigenous Brazilian language of the Tupían family, has innovated a highlyproductive f... more Tuparí, an indigenous Brazilian language of the Tupían family, has innovated a highlyproductive finite embedded clause construction that retains the morphosyntactic hallmarks of matrix clauses – without any neutralization in tense or evidentiality. I offer a synchronic analysis of these finite embedded clauses and propose a specific grammaticalization pathway that can account for their diachronic emergence: the clausal nominalizer hè developed out of a homophonous third person pronoun, allowing for paratactic constructions to be reanalyzed as involving true subordination. Both functions of hè (as a pronoun and as a clausal nominalizer) remain in use today, giving rise to occasional ambiguity. An additional aim of this paper is to evaluate the Tuparí facts in light of the literature on the Final-over-Final Condition (FOFC), a proposed syntactic universal. I will show that the language’s embedded clauses are unexpected on the most restrictive formulation of FOFC (Holmberg 2000) but ca...
Acta Linguistica Academica
This paper provides a detailed description and analysis of the clausal organization of Tuparí, a ... more This paper provides a detailed description and analysis of the clausal organization of Tuparí, a Tupían language that is spoken by approximately 350 people in the Brazilian state of Rondônia. The paper focuses on several interrelated issues that have broader comparative and typological importance, including (a) the distribution of head-initial and head-final phrase structure, (b) the diverse surface realizations of the Tense Phrase, and (c) the distinction between true pronouns and pronoun-like agreement enclitics. Data are drawn from an in-progress corpus of native language texts, everyday conversations and elicited utterances. Differences between Tuparí and the other languages belonging to the Tupían family's Tuparían branch are highlighted at various points for comparative purposes.
Boletim do Museu Paraense Emílio Goeldi. Ciências Humanas
Resumo Este artigo analisa os termos de parentesco nas cinco línguas do ramo Tuparí, da família l... more Resumo Este artigo analisa os termos de parentesco nas cinco línguas do ramo Tuparí, da família linguística Tupí, em duas abordagens distintas. Inicialmente, o artigo apresenta uma comparação das terminologias de parentesco das línguas Tuparí e reconstrói correlatos no Proto-Tuparí para as principais categorias de parentes consanguíneos e afins. As cinco línguas Tuparí apresentam termos claramente cognatos e reconstruíveis para a protolíngua para as diversas posições de parentesco: avós (FF, FM, MF, MM), pais (M, F), tios (MZ, MB, FZ), irmãos (B, Z), primos (FBS, FBD), filhos (S, D), sobrinhos (BS, BD, ZD, ZS), netos (SS, SD, DS, DD) e afins (W, H, DH). A partir da comparação das terminologias de parentesco nas línguas Tuparí, o artigo discute aspectos da terminologia do sistema de parentesco Tuparí, procurando situá-lo no contexto da teoria amazônica do parentesco pós-1990, tendo como base as representações terminológicas das línguas individuais e as reconstruções postuladas para P...
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Papers by Adam R Singerman