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Nogueira, A. F. de S. Predication in the Wayoro language (Tupi): properties of finiteness. São Paulo, 2019. 190p. PhD. Thesis Faculty of Philosophy, Letters and Human Sciences. University of são Paulo. Generally, the properties of the main-declarative-affirmative-active clauses are the finite verbal clause prototype, that is, the prototype from which non-finite clauses will deviate (GIVÓN, 2016, p. 272). As mentioned in the literature, such deviation will occur in the following syntactic environments: subordinate clauses (CRISTOFARO, 2005) and nominalizations, being the latter a clearly predominant phenomenon in the South American languages (GIJN; HAUDE; MUYSKEN, 2011a). This thesis focuses on the properties of finiteness in these three syntactic environments: matrix sentence, (infinitive) subordinate clause, and nominalization. In several languages, there is a morpheme that creates nouns from intransitive and transitive verbs with the meaning of "a place where X happens"or "an instrument for X"(COMRIE; THOMPSON, 2007). In the Wayoro language (Tupari subfamily, Tupian), this morpheme is-p∼-m 'nominalizer'. However, we noticed constructions with a homophonous morpheme that appear as complements of verbs and that show properties of clauses. Are these complements better analyzed as nominalizations or as subordinate clauses? The property of main clauses (morphosyntactic finiteness features)-person marking, valency-changing morphemes, tense and aspect markers, sentential type, modality, and polarity-serve to compare the subordinate clauses and the nominalizations. Based on the morphosyntactic finiteness features, we analyze as nominalization the construction that behaves syntactically as a noun phrase without any finiteness feature. We analyze as a subordinate (infinitive) clause the-p∼-m construction which functions as an object of a verb and allows aspect markers and expression of cliticized pronominal subjects or non-pronominal subjects. In this way, morphosyntactic finiteness features allow us: to distinguish, on the one hand, nominalization from subordinate clauses and, on the other hand, matrices from subordinate clauses, since matrix sentences exhibit agreement and tense marking, which do not occur in infinitive subordinate clauses; to distinguish verbal predicates (matrix sentences and subordinate clauses) from nonverbal predicates, since copula and existential verbs do not occur with person marking and tense/aspect affixes.

This article proposes that the divergent pattern of verb argument marking found in object focus clauses in the Tuparian branch of the Tupian family comes from the reanalysis of an object nominalization in a cleft construction. Based on the distribution of free and bound person markers, the major alignment pattern can be characterized as nominative-absolutive in simple clauses, with free pronouns expressing the nominative, whereas bound person markers express the absolutive. However, object focus clauses show a distinct alignment pattern: the ergative, and not the absolutive, is indexed by the bound markers on the verb. We present arguments for identifying the object nominalization as the source of this grammar in the object focus clause, showing also how this reanalysis resulted in the nominalizer morpheme and the person markers gaining new functions.