Xavante language

The Xavante language is an Akuwẽ (Central Jê) language (Jê, Macro-Jê) spoken by the Xavante people in the area surrounding Eastern Mato Grosso, Brazil. The Xavante language is unusual in its phonology, its ergative object–agent–verb word order, and its use of honorary and endearment terms in its morphology.

The Xavante people are approximately 18,380 individuals in 170 villages as of 2014, but the language is spoken by 9,600 people, of whom about 7,000 are monolingual. The current speakers, made up of all ages, use the language vigorously and hold positive attitudes towards Xavante. It has been orthographically rendered as Chavante and Shavante, and is also called Akuen, Akwen, A’uwe Uptabi, A’we, Crisca, Pusciti, and Tapuac.

Classification

Xavante is a member of the Jê language family, itself a member of the Macro-Gê stock. This stock is spoken in a wide distribution of non-central Brazil; Macro-Gê is also popular in the eastern, northern, and central, and southwestern parts of the country, as well as being distributed in nearby Bolivia, Paraguay, and Argentina, but the Jê family is its only remaining large subgroup, with other languages remaining in isolates due to extinction. Within Jê, its 16 languages are distributed in four divisions; northern, north-eastern, central, and southern, and are better preserved than other languages in the stock due to its inland-inhabiting speakers. Xavante is classified in the central, alongside Xerente, Xakriaba, and Akroa. The stock is marked by a large presence of nasal vowels, this also being marked in the proto- Jê reconstructed language. Consonant inventories of the Macro-Ge stock are of medium size, with Xavante historically undergoing a phonological change from velar consonants to glottal stops. All are mildly synthetic, without complex morphology, and have SV constituent orders.

History

The Xavante people originate from the east of the Araguaia River, in what was then called the province of Goias. In the early 18th century, this area was heavily invaded by colonizers searching for gold, leading to the indigenous population in the area to suffer from epidemics and live in the residential settlements created by the government. Following this, in the late 18th and early 19th centuries, groups of indigenous people, now distinctly self-identifying as Xavante, settled in Mato Grosso; this area was relatively undisturbed until the 1930s.

At this point, the government under Getúlio Vargas initiated the ‘March to the West’ campaign within the National Integration Program, in which expansion to the interior of Brazil and ‘domestication of the Savage’ were heavily promoted. The Xavante people were used in print media as illustrations of newly ‘pacified’ people who had decided to ‘join Brazilian society’. However, conflicts regarding the territories between the Xavante and Brazilian government continue today. In the 20th century, Xavante has been studied academically since the 1960s by both Brazilian and foreign linguists, starting with a grammar; papers from this period examined the language’s phonemes, syllable structure, as well as aspect and acquisition. By the 1980s, works on the syntax and semantics of Xavante were published, focusing on sentence initial devices and focus; the first Xavante-Portuguese dictionary was also produced by Hall, McLeod, and Mitchell, all of whom had researched extensively in Xavante (1987). Since the 1990s, more specific properties of the language have been researched academically, namely with respect to acquisition, name agreement, assimilation, morphology, and respect/intimacy relationships. A revised Xavante-Portuguese dictionary, again compiled by Hall, McLeod, and Mitchell, was released in 2004.

Phonology

The phonology of Xavante is described by McLeod (1974).

Vowels

Xavante has nine vowel qualities, long and short. Four occur nasalized, long and short.

{| class="wikitable" style="text-align: center;"

! || Front || Central || Back

! High

| , || ||

! Mid

| || ||

! Low

| , || , || ,

is when long and when short. is raised after in a non-initial syllable. is a central vowel. It is a rounded in certain stylistic conventions. is a mid vowel when long, and a more open when short. is when long and or when short. and do not vary much. is written in the orthography.

Consonants

Xavante has ten consonants, illustrated in the chart below.

{| class="wikitable" style="text-align:center;"

! rowspan=2 colspan="2"|

! rowspan=2|Labial

! colspan=2|Coronal

! rowspan=2|Glottal

! apical !! laminal

! rowspan="2" |Obstruents

!Voiceless

!Voiced

! colspan="2"| Sonorants

The phonetic realizations of these phonemes include those shown in the following chart:

{| class="wikitable" style="text-align:center;"

! colspan="2" rowspan="2" |

! rowspan="2" |Labial

! colspan="2" |Coronal

! rowspan="2" |Glottal

!apical!!laminal

! rowspan="2" |Obstruents

!Voiceless

| ~

!Voiced

| ~

| rowspan="2" | ~ ~ ~

! colspan="2" |Sonorants

( varies between obstruent and sonorant, alveolar and palatal.)

Xavante is highly unusual in lacking velar consonants, except for the labio-velar approximant . At a phonemic level, it arguably also lacks nasal consonants, which is less unusual in the Amazon. The language however has a high degree of allophony, and nasal stops appear before nasal vowels.

Allophony

With so few phonemic contrasts, Xavante allows wide latitude in allophones of its consonants.

P and T: are aspirated as syllable onsets (at the beginning of a word, between vowels, or before /r/), and unreleased as syllable codas (at the end of a word or before a consonant other than /r/).
C: freely varies among as an onset, and as a coda (only preceding another , as ).
’: is a glottal stop .
B: In a C or CC syllable onset before an oral vowel, is pronounced as a plain voiced stop at the beginning of a phonological word, and as either or as a prenasalized voiced stop in the middle of a word. Before nasal vowels, as C or CC, it is pronounced .

:As a syllable coda, is pronounced before regardless of the following vowel's nasality, and optionally also as before the oral allophones of the other voiced obstruents, and : or . It is before .

D: In a syllable onset before an oral vowel, is pronounced either as a plain voiced stop or as prenasalized voiced stop . Unlike , it may be prenasalized at the beginning of a phonological word, not just as a syllable onset. Before a nasal vowel, it is pronounced .

:As a syllable coda, is pronounced before the oral allophone of a consonant, and as before a nasal consonant.

J: In a syllable onset before an oral vowel, is pronounced , in free variation. Before a nasal vowel, it is pronounced .

:As a syllable coda, is generally pronounced , and is nasalized to or after a nasal vowel. It is also nasalized to before a prenasalized stop allophone. Between oral vowels, the sequence optionally takes an epenthetic : or . When is followed by an , a nasalized epenthetic schwa separates them.

R: is an alveolar flap, , which is nasalized between nasal vowels.
W: is similar to English w, but not rounded before the vowel .

H: has no place of articulation, but is a voiceless transition between vowels.

Vowels do not become nasalized because of nasalized consonants, so the only consonants that become nasal are those in a cluster preceding a nasal vowel (and coda after a nasal vowel); a preceding oral vowel blocks the nasality from spreading to preceding syllables.

Phonotactics

Xavante syllables are of the forms CV, CCV, CVC, CCVC, CV:, and CCV:; that is, all syllables begin with a consonant, sometimes two; they may optionally either end with a consonant or have a long vowel. Although a syllable may end in a consonant, a phonological word may not, apart from a few cases of word-final .

The attested initial CC consonant clusters are:

All seven obstruents occur in final position, but in a maximal CCVC syllable only are attested. Across two syllables, the following CC sequences are attested:

There are also CCC sequences such as (coda followed by onset ).

The vowels and are rare, and not attested in maximal CCVC syllables.

Grammar

Morphology

In Xavante, morphological variations of words are a significant aspect of generating new constructions within the language. First, it distinguishes between a number marking system and a person marking system, with both containing several subsystems. The former uses a neutral subsystem when arguments fulfill certain criteria. It also includes a Nominative-Accusative subsystem when the (O) of a transitive argument falls under a specified category. Finally, the person marking system of Xavante is notable for having multiple subsystems. As a consequence, examining these case systems is vital to understanding the syntax of Xavante.

Xavante’s case systems emphasise the lexicalization of number systems. Particles in the language depend on whether it is in the 1st, 2nd, or 3rd person; whether the referent is in the subject, object, possessor, or complement position; and if the predicate is a noun (nominal) or a verb (verbal). Xavante also uses a singular, dual, and plural, and the number of the referent also dictate which number particle will be used. Within this number marking system, verbal clauses use a neutral marking subsystem, in which the marking of (A), (S), and (O) is identical whenever these arguments are singular or when (O) is definite and all three arguments are non-singular. A neutral system is marked for having the three arguments marked identically, and is common across languages. In Xavante, this situation is referred to as neutral because, in the first case, none of the three core arguments get marked, and in the second all get the same marking. An example is seen here:

The number system in Xavante also contains a nominative-accusative subsystem, found when (O) is non-singular and indefinite, when (O) is 1st person dual, or (O) is 2nd person dual and (A) 1st person plural simultaneously. A nominative-accusative system is marked when (S) and (A) are treated equally, while (O) differs, with the first two obtaining nominative marking and the third getting accusative. In Xavante, the nominative-accusative subsystem most commonly marks (O) for number while the other two are unmarked, although the reverse is also true. This is seen in the following example:

Xavante also uses a person-marking system, in which subjects and objects are marked differently depending on a number of criteria. The absolutive series marks both intransitive subjects and transitive objects; the accusative series marks 1st person dual, plural object, 3rd person singular, or dual or plural object when the subject is 2nd person singular, dual, or plural; the nominative series marks the subject of both transitive and intransitive clauses; and an emphatic series that marks pronouns to form emphatic pronominal expressions with both transitive and intransitive clauses. The person-marking system has more subsystems that the number one, with three variations of ergative-absolutive case markings. Ergative-Absolutive is marked as (S) and (O) being equal, with (A) being different, and the first two being assigned as ergative and the third assigned as absolutive. In Xavante, Ergative-Absolutive I uses cross-referencing on (S) and (O) only, with (A) receiving no marking. Ergative-Absolutive II is marked when (O) is in 3rd person indefinite and (A) is 2nd person plural. Ergative-Absolutive III is marked with the use of a particle or adposition after the noun, with (A) receiving a mark and (S) and (O) not receiving one, and is only used in relative and subordinate transitive clauses or negated independent transitive clauses:

Xavante’s person marking system also contains a tripartite subsystem, in which (A), (S), and (O) are all treated differently. In Xavante, this specifically occurs as all arguments receiving different arguments from the different series previously discussed. This is seen here:

Xavante’s person-marking system also has a variation of a Nominative-Accusative system, in which (S) and (A) are marked differently from (O), as shown in both example sentences above.

Finally, Xavante has two Split subsystems; the first, Split-S, is found in the subjects of nominal predicates. The second, Split-O, occurs in relative clauses. Overall, the person marking system in Xavante contains multiple subsystems depending on the situations in which they appear.

In all, Xavante uses a number of case-marking systems in its clauses that varies depending on number and person markings. It provides examples of a neutral system, Nominative-Accusative subsystems, Ergative-Absolutive subsystems, and split subsystems, varying based on different triggers.

Plurals

In the Xavante language, plurals as well as duals are used to mark arguments in a clause.