Reduplication and Verbal Number in Mẽbengokre

chapter 10 Reduplication and Verbal Number in Mẽbengokre

Andrés Pablo Salanova

In this paper I examine data from the lexicon of Mẽbengokre, a Jê language spoken in the eastern reaches of the Amazon basin, in central Brazil, and survey the reduplicative processes found in the language. Two separate types of reduplication are identified: one (relatively uninteresting) process associated with onomatopoeia, found in several names for plant and animal species, and one where reduplication is one among several prefixes indicating the plural in verbs, a category which may both indicate the plurality of one of the verb’s arguments, or the repetition of the eventuality itself. I finish by comparing the facts of verbal reduplication in Mẽbengokre to what is found in Kaingang, a southern Jê language where the phenomenon has been described more fully.

1 Introduction

Mẽbengokre is a Jê language spoken in north-central Brazil by two indigenous nations, the Xikrin and the Kayapó, numbering over ten thousand individu- als in total. It is closely related to Apinayé (whose phonology is described by Oliveira 2005, Burgess and Ham 1968 and Callow 1962), Suyá (described by dos Santos 1997), Timbira (whose phonology is described by Popjes and Popjes 1986, and Alves 1999), and Panará (described by Dourado 2001). Other languages in the family include Xavante, Xerente, Kaingang (described in Wiese- mann 1972 and Cavalcante 1987), and Xokleng. Though the latter are quite dis- tant from Mẽbeng, all languages in the family are strikingly similar in their overall morphosyntactic structure. There are several non-concatenative morphological phenomena in Mẽben- gokre, most notably initial and final truncation, discussed in Salanova (2004; 2011), and reduplication. Reduplication itself is somewhat limited in scope and productivity in Mẽbengokre. Nevertheless, I will show that reduplication has a well-delimited function in the language and that interesting comparative observations may be made with other languages of the family. More solid con- clusions await further research. Even though at the present time there exist preliminary grammatical sketches for most of the languages of the family, the lexicon has practically not been studied at all in any of them.

2 Outline of Mẽbengokre Phonology

In this section, we present a brief outline of Mẽbengokre phonology. A fuller treatment may be found in Stout and Thomson (1974) and Salanova (2001). The consonant and vowel inventories of Mẽbengokre are as follows: table 1 Mẽbengokre consonants

Labials Alveolars Palatals Velars Glottal

Voiceless obstruents p t ʧ k ʔ Voiced obstruents b d ʤ g Nasal sonorants m n ɲ ŋ Oral sonorants w ɾ j

table 2 Mẽbengokre oral vowels

Front Back Unrounded Unrounded Rounded high i ɯ u mid-high e ɤ o mid-low ɛ ʌ ɔ low a

table 3 Mẽbengokre nasal vowels

Front Back Unrounded Unrounded Rounded high ĩ ɯ̃ ũ mid ẽ ʌ̃ õ low ã

The symmetry apparent in the consonant and vowel inventories is deceptive. In actual fact, the consonants /d/ and / ʧ/ are vanishingly rare, and the phone- mic status of the vowels /ũ/ and /ã/ is not very clear. Finally, /ɲ/, /ʤ/ and /j/