RICE UNIVERSITY Patterns in Karitiana: Articulation, Perception, and Grammar by Caleb Everett A THESIS SUBMITTED IN PARTIAL FULFILLMENT OF THE REQUIREMENTS FOR THE DEGREE Doctor of Philosophy APPROVED, THESIS COMMITTEE: __________ Masayoshi Shibatani, Deedee McMurtry Professor of the Humanities, Chair Linguistics _____________________________ Claire Bowern, Assistant Professor Linguistics _____________________________ Michel Achard, Associate Professor French and Linguistics HOUSTON, TEXAS AUGUST 2006 Everett ii Abstract In this study, I present analyses of various aspects of Karitiana, a Tupí-Arikém language spoken in the state of Rondônia, in the Amazon region of Brazil. These analyses range in both methodology and scope, but are unified by the goal of elucidating articulatory, perceptual, and morphosyntactic patterns in the language. These patterns crystallize during the course of each of two parts of the dissertation. In the first part, I focus on the sound system of Karitiana. The investigation of the sound system includes detailed analyses of the phonemic inventory of the language, as well as basic phonological processes. However, the investigation also includes acoustic, quantitatively- oriented examinations of the vowel system, stop-vowel sequences, and patterns of velar lowering, among other phenomena. These studies focus on basic articulatory gestures in the language. Basic perceptual patterns, related to the typologically-unusual patterns of velar lowering in the language, are also considered in Part I, via the discussion of a speech-perception experiment carried out among the Karitiana. In Part II morphological and syntactic patterns in Karitiana are examined, within a functional-typological framework. Part II includes a grammatical sketch of Karitiana morphology and syntax, as well as more detailed studies of two basic aspects of Karitiana morphosyntax, namely grammatical relations and voice phenomena. I demonstrate that in some cases the latter sorts of phenomena reflect basic conceptual patterns, associated with the construal of event types, which are evident in the grammar of Karitiana. Everett iii Table of Contents ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS viii PREFACE The Karitiana people ix ABBREVIATIONS xiii PART I. Articulatory and perceptual patterns: Phonetics and phonology 1 CHAPTER 1. Introduction to Part I 2 1.1 A word about this study 2 1.2 The Karitiana sound system in brief 4 1.3 Basic methodology and equpipment 6 CHAPTER 2. The phonemic inventory 13 2.1 The consonants 13 2.1.1 Examples of consonantal contrast 14 2.2 The vowels 15 2.2.1 Examples of vocalic contrast 17 2.3 The epenthetic glottal stop 20 CHAPTER 3. Voiceless stops and their phonetic correlates 22 3.1 Distribution 22 3.1.1 Introduction to locus equation analyses 25 3.1.2 Methodology 27 3.1.3 Results and discussion 29 CHAPTER 4. The remaining consonants 42 4.1 The flap 42 4.2 The labial approximant 45 4.3 Fricatives 46 4.4 Overview of nasal consonant distribution 50 Everett iv CHAPTER 5. An investigation of the Karitiana vowel system 61 5.1 The putative shift 61 5.2 Stress effects on vowel position 63 5.3 Nasal vowels 71 5.4 Oral vowels in Tupí languages 73 5.5 Normalized vowels in Karitiana 74 5.5.1 Discussion of normalization procedures 74 5.5.2 Results of normalization study 78 5.5.3 Normalized vowel systems, with tests for difference 82 5.5.4 Discussion 92 CHAPTER 6. Phonotactics 93 6.1 Evidence for and discussion of syllabic template 93 6.2 Allophones and phonotactics 105 CHAPTER 7. Prosody 107 7.1 Word stress 107 7.1.1 Placement 107 7.1.2 The Tupí context 110 7.1.3 Bisyllabic words with identical vowels 111 7.1.4 Affix participation in stress 113 7.1.5 Investigation of phonetic correlates of stress 114 7.1.6 Spectral tilt 122 7.2 O.T. description of stress constraints 125 7.3 Comments on vowel length 128 7.4 Clausal intonation patterns 129 CHAPTER 8. Nasality in Karitiana: Variable velar timing 135 8.1 The distribution of alveolar, bilabial, and velar nasals 135 8.2 The Tupí context 142 8.3 Acoustic evidence for nasal and nasalized vowels 149 8.4 Evidence for markedness of pre- and post- oralized nasals 157 8.5 The account of consonantal nasality 160 8.6 Diachronic considerations 168 Everett v CHAPTER 9. Nasality in Karitiana: Perceptual evidence 177 9.1 Purposes of perceptual experiment 177 9.2 Methodology 181 9.3 Participants and setting 186 9.4 Results 187 9.5 Discussion 195 CHAPTER 10. Common phonological processes 203 10.1 Vowel epenthesis and lenition 203 10.2 Nasal assimilation 207 10.3 Approximantization of /i/ and /o/ 208 10.4 Reduplication 210 PART II. Patterns in the grammar: Basic morphosyntax, grammatical relations, and voice phenomena 218 CHAPTER 11. Introduction to Part II 219 11.1 The aims of Part II 219 11.2 A note on the transcriptions in Part II 221 11.3 Methodological unity of Parts I and II 222 CHAPTER 12. Verbal morphology 223 12.1 Introduction 223 12.1.1 Terminology adopted 223 12.1.2 An overview of argument structure in Tupí languages 226 12.1.2.1 Urubu-Kaapor 228 12.1.2.2 Sateré-Mawé 229 12.1.2.3 Guajajara 231 12.1.2.4 Mundurukú 232 12.1.2.5 Kamauirá 233 12.1.2.6 Summary of Tupí data 235 12.2 Basic valence inflections 241 12.3 Copular clauses 256 12.4 Tense 265 Everett vi 12.5 Aspect 274 12.6 Desiderative inflection 279 12.7 Evidentiality 281 12.8 The na(ka)-/ta(ka)- prefix set 284 12.9 The Verb-focus construction 290 12.10 Summary of constructions 293 CHAPTER 13. Nominal morphology and remaining word classes 296 13.1 Nominal morphology 296 13.1.1 Introduction to nominal morphology 296 13.1.2 The nominalizer 296 13.1.3 Karitiana person pronouns 300 13.1.4 Case and locative postpositions 304 13.2 Adjectives 308 13.3 Common adverbs 312 13.4 Deictics/Demonstratives 313 13.5 Cardinal Numerals 315 CHAPTER 14. An overview of Karitiana syntax 318 14.1 Introduction 318 14.2 Basic clause types and their characteristic syntax 319 14.2.1 Declarative clause syntax 319 14.2.2 Interrogative clauses 322 14.2.2.1 Yes/no questions 322 14.2.2.2 Negative polar questions 323 14.2.2.3 Content questions and the object-focus construction 323 14.2.3 Imperative clauses 326 14.2.4 Negative clauses 328 14.3 Constituent sequencing and word order 332 CHAPTER 15. Grammatical Relations 343 15.1 Introduction 343 15.2 GR’s and morphology 347 15.2.1 Verbal morphology and GRs 348 Everett vii 15.2.2 Nominal morphology and GRs 357 15.3 Basic GRs evident in syntax 369 15.3.1 GRs and non-declarative clause types 369 15.3.1.1 Imperatives 369 15.3.1.2 Interrogatives 371 15.3.2 Reduction phenomena 374 15.3.2.1 Conjunction reduction 374 15.3.2.2 Coreferentiality and embedded clauses 381 15.3.3 Word order 387 15.3.4 Quantifier float 387 15.4 Summary of grouping of S, A, and O 391 15.5 GR’s and object types 392 15.6 Comments on the Tupí context 399 CHAPTER 16. An Overview of Karitiana Voices 402 16.1 Introduction 402 16.1.1 The interrelationship between GR categories and voice types 402 16.1.2 The approach to voice types adopted here 403 16.1.3 Basic sentences and subjects in Karitiana 405 16.2 The SAP voices 409 16.3 The passive-like Verb-focus voice 424 16.4 The passive voice 430 16.5 The antipassive voice 437 16.6 The morphological causative voice 440 16.7 The middle voice 445 CHAPTER 17. Concluding remarks 451 APPENDIX A. The social and physical setting, including GPS map of village 452 APPENDIX B. Demographic information for the Karitiana 458 REFERENCES. 461 Everett viii Acknowledgements ____________________________________________ First and foremost, I should say thanks to my Karitiana friends that have worked with me patiently throughout this project. They have been friendly and receptive from the time I met them. The Karitiana that have participated in this project include Nelson, Fernando, Rogério, Valdemar, Claudiana, Elisangela, Sarita, Edmilson, Marilena, Giovaldo, Gilberto, Milena, João Batista, Francisco, and Julia, among others. I am thankful to all of them, and to all of the Karitiana who have offered me their friendship. I would like to acknowledge Elivar Karitiana in particular, since he served as my primary language resource person throughout the project. To him I say, ˆRˆ hodn ˆke˘t My work among the Karitiana was also facilitated by the research of those who studied the language before me, particularly David and Rachel Landin, and Luciana Storto. I am indebted to all three of these field workers. David Landin’s dictionary of Karitiana was particularly useful to me as I became (and continue to become) acquainted with the language. I am also thankful to Alan Vogel, who provided me with many hard- to-find articles on the Karitiana. The Rice Linguistics department has been a great place to study linguistics, and this research was made possible through a Rice University graduate studies fellowship. Thanks are obviously due to my advisors Matt Shibatani, Claire Bowern, and Michel Achard. Also, thanks to Robert Van Valin, Jr. for some thought-provoking questions. The SIL community in Brazil was extremely helpful to me, graciously allowing me to use their facilities, such as their linguistic library in Porto Velho. I am also thankful to the JOCUM community in Porto Velho, particularly for the use of their soccer field.