Non-Witnessed Evidentiality in Tuparí and its Connection to Resultative Constructions in the Perfect Aspect

Abstract

Tupían languages typically mark evidentiality through freestanding particles located in a predicate-or clause-peripheral position. In Tuparí, however, non-witnessed evidentiality is realized by a bound verbal suffix (-pnẽ/-psira). This article draws upon original fieldwork to offer a detailed description and analysis of-pnẽ/-psira. I argue that using-pnẽ/-psira presupposes commitment to the proposition p on the part of the speaker. This analysis explains the incompatibility between-pnẽ/-psira and clause-typing particles that signal doubt or uncertainty; furthermore, it accounts for how the witnessed/non-witnessed contrast projects out of embedded clauses. This article also puts forth an explanation for the historical origin of-pnẽ/-psira. A separate suffix, resultative-psẽ/-pnẽ/-psira, is partially homophonous with the evidential but differs from it on several diagnostics. I propose that resultative constructions in the perfect aspect ('the snake is in the state of having died') were reinterpreted as non-firsthand statements in the past tense ('the snake died [NON-WITNESSED]'). 1 1 I would like to thank the many Tuparí speakers from the Rio Branco Indigenous Reserve who have taught me their language over the past five years. Special thanks go to the speakers who sat down for interviews in the

The clausal organization of Tuparí, an indigenous Brazilian language

“…Rather, it always surfaces as a suffix; and this suffix must attach to the highest verbal head in the predicate, whether this is the lexical verb itself (example 24a) or an auxiliary (24b; see also 6b and 20a). For these reasons this paper takes the EvidP to be underlyingly head-final, as was first argued for in Singerman (2018b) and further assumed in Singerman (2019), though this assumption is not crucial.…”

“…The resultative suffix -psẽ/pnẽ/psira can transform eventive/telic verbs into stative/non-telic ones. Hence epsik 'sit down' is interpreted as immediate past when used in a finite clause that lacks overt tense marking, but epsiksẽ 'be in the state of having sat down, remain sitting' receives a present interpretation in the same environment (Singerman 2019). For the ease of presentation this subsection focuses on telic predicates only.…”

“…This tree includesin a position immediately above the VPthe Resultative Phrase, realized by the suffix -psẽ/pnẽ/psira. More details about this suffix may be found in Singerman (2019); for now, we note that the head of this projection may duplicate the positional information provided by the lower of the two auxiliary heads. (7) provides an example of a headless relative clause where the Resultative head and both auxiliary heads are realized overtly.…”

Predicados Nominais e Adjetivais em Línguas do Ramo Tupari da Família Tupí

“…Serão analisados dados descritivos das cinco línguas do ramo Tupari, com a finalidade de verificar como se apresentam as predicações não verbais nestas línguas, observando quais as semelhanças e as diferenças, se houver, entre os predicados não verbais desse ramo da família. O corpus comparativo utilizado neste trabalho é constituído por construções com predicados não verbais retirados de trabalhos de Alves (2004), Aragon (2008Aragon ( , 2014, Braga (2005Braga ( , 2009, Galucio (2001), Isidoro, R. Tuparí e I. Tuparí (2018), Nogueira (2014Nogueira ( , 2019aNogueira ( , 2019b e Singerman (2018aSingerman ( , 2018bSingerman ( , 2019, além de dados inéditos coletados por nós, com falantes da língua Sakurabiat. A fonte dos exemplos (autor, data, página) será indicada em cada caso.…”