A summary reconstruction of proto-maweti-guarani segmental phonology

Abstract

275MEirA, sérgio; drUdE, sebastian. A summary reconstruction of Proto-Maweti-Guarani segmental Phonology. Boletim do Museu Paraense Emílio Goeldi. Ciências Humanas, v. 10, n. 2, p. 275-296, maio-ago. 2015 ii Max-Planck-institute for Psycholinguistics. nijmegen, the netherlands Abstract: this paper presents a succinct reconstruction of the segmental phonology of Proto-Maweti-Guarani, the hypothetical protolanguage from which modern Mawe, Aweti and the tupi-Guarani branches of the tupi linguistic family have evolved. Based on about 300 cognate sets from the authors' field data (for Mawe and Aweti) and from Mello's reconstruction (2000) for Proto-tupi-Guarani (with additional information from other works; and with a few changes concerning certain doubtful features, such as the status of stem-final lenis consonants *r and *ß, and the distinction of *c and *č ), the consonants and vowels of Proto-Maweti-Guarani were reconstructed with the help of the traditional historical-comparative method. the development of the reconstructed segments is then traced from the protolanguage to each of the modern branches. A comparison with other claims made about Proto-Maweti-Guarani is given in the conclusion.Key words: Historical-Comparative Method. diachronic Linguistics. Linguistic reconstruction. tupi Languages. Maweti-Guarani Languages.Resumo: Este artigo apresenta uma reconstrução resumida da fonologia segmental do Proto-Maweti-Guarani, a protolíngua hipotética intermediária, dentro da família linguística tupi, da qual se desenvolveram o Mawé, o Aweti e as línguas tupiGuarani atuais. Baseando-se em cerca de 300 conjuntos de cognatos, provenientes dos dados de campo dos autores (Mawé e Aweti) e dos dados lexicais publicados por Mello (2000, tupi-Guarani), em informações adicionais de outras fontes publicadas (com algumas modificações relativas a certos aspectos duvidosos das reconstruções atuais do Prototupi-Guarani, como o status das consoantes lenes *r e *ß em fim de palavra, e a distinção entre *c e *č), reconstruímos as consoantes e vogais do Proto-Maweti-Guarani com o auxílio do método histórico-comparativo tradicional. Ao fim do artigo, traça-se o desenvolvimento dos segmentos reconstruídos desde a protolíngua até cada um dos três ramos modernos. na conclusão, oferecemos uma comparação rápida com outras hipóteses sobre o Proto-Maweti-Guarani. Palavras-chaves:Método Histórico-Comparativo. Linguística diacrônica. reconstrução diacrônica. Línguas tupi. Línguas Maweti-Guarani.A summary reconstruction of proto-maweti-guarani segmental phonology 276 iNTRoDUCTioN of the ten branches of the tupi family -one of the largest language families in south America, with about 50 languages spoken in lowland south America, mostly south of the Amazon river (see figure 1) (2015). Working on these three branches and also in the larger context of the tupi Comparative Project, we found many confirmations for this hypothesis and take it here for granted as our starting point. the main purpose of this paper is to report on some of the results ...

Proto-Tupi-Guarani had no palatalized velar stop

“…Third, the supposed Ka'apor reflex ʃer 'to sleep' is a non-existent ghost form (more on this below). Fourth, as suggested by Meira and Drude (2015) and demonstrated in the remaining of this paper, the other sets are not problematic at all, pointing to language-specific developments and not to the independent reflexation of a separate PTG segment.…”

“…As noted by Meira and Drude (2015), this putative contrast between PTG *k and *kʲ is attested only in the context of a following *e, which strongly suggests that this palatalization is a secondary effect of the contextual front vowel, the only PTG front vowel that was found in this context. The PTG etyma in Rodrigues and Dietrich (1997, pp.…”

“…The situation is, in fact, more difficult for the proponents of this contrast than the Meira and Drude (2015) quote above suggests. First, note that the number of supporting etymologies falls from four to three, once it is recognized that the PTG etymon meaning 'to snore', Mello's (2000, p. 172) *keramu 'roncar' [to snore], is not independent from the etymon *kʲer 'dormir ' [to sleep] (Mello, 2000, p. 176), but is likely a reflex of the derivative *ket-amu 'to snore (while) sleeping', as shown by Old Guarani aquerambu 'roncar' [to snore], ambu 'ronquido' [snoring sound], tayaçu apĭîmbu 'de puerco' [pig's snoring sound] (Restivo, 1893(Restivo, [1722, p. 482), and Old Tupi Xequerambû 'roncar, o que dorme' [to snore, he/she who sleeps], Xeambû 'roncar o porco' [to snore, the pig] (Drumond, 1952, p. 108) 1 .…”

Lexical Phylogenetics of the Tupí-Guaraní Family: Language, Archaeology, and the Problem of Chronology

“…The location of the center of expansion is, as expected, dependent of the topology for the family. The Mawé-Awetí-Tupí-Guaraní hypothesis [21,[47][48][49][50][51][52] states that a single ancestor for these three groups branched off from the rest of the Tupían family [14] (see Figure 2). The split of the branch today composed by Mawé would have been followed by that of the ancestor of Awetí and PTG.…”

A Diachronic Account of Exceptional Progressive Nasalization Patterns in Guarani Causatives

“…The reconstructed system of pre-Proto-Tupi-Guarani. All authors reconstruct the nasal phoneme series /m, n, ŋ/ for PTG (Jensen 1998(Jensen , 1999Mello 2000;Meira and Drude 2015;Baraúna and Picanço 2017;Dietrich 2018). Where PyG has nasal-oral contours, other TG languages have cognates with nasals (table 4).…”