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Quote constructions in the Sakurabiat language

Author
  • Ana Galucio orcid logo (MCTI/Museu Paraense Emilio Goeldi)

Abstract

This paper describes the morphosyntactic properties of reported speech in the Sakurabiat language (ISO skf), showing that quotative constructions are being reanalyzed as desiderative constructions. This language is spoken by the Sakurabiat people, in the Northwest region of Brazil. It is one of the five languages of the Tupari branch (Tupian family). Currently there are only about 10-12 fluent speakers of the language, including its two varieties (Guaratira and Sakurabiat). The data discussed in the paper covers both varieties of the language, and it comes from our own database of Sakurabiat language material which includes data collected through the application of a specific questionnaire designed for research on quote constructions (Veenstra et al. 2019). Reported speech in Sakurabiat is realized through direct quotation. There are no complementizers, and no deictic category shift inside the quote. We argue that these properties favored a reanalysis of quotative constructions as desiderative constructions. It has been shown in the literature that reportative verbs tend to grammaticalize into functional categories, such as complementizers, tense-aspect-mood-evidentiality (TAME) markers, and discourse markers. This tendency is also exhibited by Sakurabiat, which shows a crystallization of the direct quote frame (I said “I will go”), and its reanalysis as a desiderative construction “I want to go.”

Este artigo descreve as propriedades morfossintácticas da fala reportada na língua Sakurabiat (ISO skf), mostrando que as construções quotativas estão sendo reanalisadas como construções desiderativas. Esta língua é falada pelo povo Sakurabiat, na região Noroeste do Brasil. É uma das cinco línguas do ramo Tupari (família Tupi). Atualmente, existem apenas cerca de 10 a 12 falantes fluentes da língua, incluindo suas duas variedades ainda em uso (Guaratira e Sakurabiat). Os dados discutidos no artigo abrangem ambas as variedades da língua e provêm da minha própria base de dados de material da língua Sakurabiat, incluindo dados recolhidos através da aplicação de um questionário específico concebido para a investigação sobre construções de citações (Veenstra et al. 2019). A fala reportada em Sakurabiat é realizada através de citação direta. Não há complementizadores e não há mudança de categoria dêitica dentro da citação. Argumentamos que essas propriedades favoreceram uma reanálise das construções quotativas como construções desiderativas. A literatura tem mostrado que os verbos de fala reportada ou de citação tendem a gramaticalizar-se em categorias funcionais, tais como complementizadores, marcadores TAME e marcadores de discurso. Esta tendência também é exibida por Sakurabiat, que mostra uma cristalização do quadro de citação direta (eu disse “eu vou”), e sua reanálise como uma construção desiderativa “eu quero ir”.

Keywords: Sakurabiat language, reported speech, direct quotation, grammaticalization, quotative, desiderative

How to Cite: Galucio, A., (2023) “Quote constructions in the Sakurabiat language”, Language Documentation and Description 23(2). doi: https://doi.org/10.25894/ldd.358

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Published on
15 Feb 2024
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Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial 4.0

1. Introduction

The goal of this paper is to describe the morphosyntactic properties that characterize reported speech in Sakurabiat. Reported speech in this language is realized through direct quotation embedded in a specific framer composed of a quotative verb and an NP referring to the reported speaker [[RS] QUOT+SBJ].1 In addition, reported speech shows no complementizers, and no deictic category shift inside of speech reports. Hence, inside of speech reports the deictics remain anchored to the context of the reported speaker rather than to that of the reporter. A sentence like ‘John said that he loved me’ is framed as ‘John said: “I love you’”.

In this paper, I use reported speech as a cover term to refer to utterances in which one speaker quotes or reports the speech/thought/perception of another speaker. In this sense, reported speech includes direct reported speech, indirect reported speech and also free indirect (or quasi-direct speech) (Janssen & van der Wurff 1996: 3). The term direct speech is employed here in the sense given by Jespersen (1924: 290 apud Holt & Clift 2007: 3) to refer to the mechanism in which a speaker “gives, or purports to give, the exact words of the speaker.” Hence, we use the terms direct speech, direct quotation, or quote as synonymous. Another important terminological issue concerns the definition of the participants in a reported speech utterance. I use the terms reported speaker (internal speaker) to refer to the speaker responsible for the content of the speech/thought/perception being quoted, and reporter (external speaker) for the speaker that utters the embedding clause in which the reported speech is enclosed (Janssen & van der Wurff 1996: 4). These authors illustrate the definition of reporter/reported speaker with a setting in which Mary utters the sentence ‘John said that he loved me’. In this setting, Mary would be the reporter and John the reported speaker. I also employ in this paper the term quotative construction to refer to the whole utterance which includes the quotative verb and the NP referring to the reported speaker [QUOT+SBJ] plus the speech/thought/perception being quoted (see Section 3).

The Sakurabiat language (ISO skf) is spoken by the Sakurabiat people of the Terra Indígena Rio Mequens in the Brazilian state of Rondônia.2 The language has also been referred to as Mekens in previous works such as Hanke et al. (1958) and Galucio (2001). However, it has been shown that this term was in fact a general ethnonym applied, since the XVIII century, to the indigenous peoples who lived in the area near the headwaters of the Mekens river, which spoke varieties of the same language but self-identified as distinct ethnic groups (Miller 1983, Maldi 1991), such as the Mampi-ape (or Amniapé), Sakurabiat, Guaratira (or Koaratira), and Guarategayat (or Guarategaja), among others. The current population in the Terra Indígena Rio Mekens self-identifies with three of these ethnic groups, the Guaratira, the Guarategayat and the Sakurabiat. The Guarategayat and the Sakurabiat groups speak the same language variety (Sakurabiat) while the Guaratira people speak a distinct variety (Guaratira). The autonym Sakurabiat refers to the language and the people of the Terra Indígena Rio Mekens, including the different clans or sub-ethnic groups and their speech varieties.

Sakurabiat is one of the five languages of the Tuparian branch of the Tupian family, the other four languages being Akuntsu, Makurap, Tupari, and Wayoro (Galucio et al. 2015). All five languages are spoken in the Brazilian state of Rondônia, and they are all considered critically endangered due to their reduced number of speakers. There are currently only about 10–12 fluent speakers of Sakurabiat, including its Guaratira and Sakurabiat varieties. There are about the same number of passive bilinguals.

The Sakurabiat people are currently a small group of less than 100 people, composed of smaller subgroups. These groups were distributed in a large geographical area in the Rondônia region and spoke different but mutually intelligible varieties of the language. Their first contacts with non-Indigenous people are reported to have taken place in the first decades of the 20th century (Galucio 2001), and the continued violence of this contact resulted in the Sakurabiat experiencing a process of loss and linguistic change. This led to marginalization and repression of the language, which in turn reduced its domains of use and interrupted its transmission. Currently their language faces a situation of high vulnerability and low linguistic vitality. The younger generations have not learned Sakurabiat, and Portuguese is dominant. The socio-linguistic situation was made more difficult by the loss of four speakers in the past three years. Even though nowadays only a small percentage of the people speaks or understands the Sakurabiat language, it plays a major role in their cultural, linguistic, and ethnic identities (Galucio 2021).

The data in this paper comes from my own database of Sakurabiat language material, which was collected through extensive fieldwork in past years and which contains natural discourse and elicited data that covers both the Guaratira and Sakurabiat varieties.3 For this specific study on reported speech, the Questionnaire/Considerations for research on quotative constructions (based on Aikhenvald 2008) was used (Veenstra et al. this volume). The speakers were given a context explaining a situation, and then asked to produce a sentence in that specific context. Data collected through application of the questionnaire are marked “Quote-Questionnaire” in the text and referenced by their identifier at the Museu Goeldi Language Archive (ALIM).4 Data extracted from natural discourse are identified as such and given the appropriate identifier in ALIM. Elicited material is otherwise left unmarked. The complete set of Sakurabiat data is archived at ALIM (Galucio 1994–2019). Examples in the text are given in phonemic representation.

The remainder of the paper is organized as follows. Section 2 presents the basics of Sakurabiat morphosyntax. Section 3 describes the main characteristics of reported speech constructions (RSC) in Sakurabiat, and it is further subdivided into two subsections (3.1 Reported speech construction internal structure, and 3.2 Reported speech construction syntax and distribution), which discuss in detail the constituent structure and the syntactic distribution of reported speech constructions, including their interaction with focus and negation. In Section 4, I argue for a reanalysis of quotative constructions as desiderative constructions. It has been shown in the literature (D’Arcy 2015) that reportative verbs tend to grammaticalize into functional categories, such as complementizers, TAME markers, discourse markers, etc. This tendency is also exhibited by Sakurabiat, which shows a crystallization of the direct quote frame ‘I said “I will go”’, and its reanalysis as a desiderative construction, meaning ‘I want to go’. The topics discussed in the paper are then summarized in Section 5.

2. Sakurabiat morphosyntax in a nutshell

A comprehensive description of Sakurabiat’s grammar can be found in Galucio (2001). The parts of speech of Sakurabiat are nouns, verbs, adjectives, adverbs, pronouns, demonstratives, auxiliaries, postpositions, and particles. Nouns are further divided into alienable and inalienable, and verbs are subdivided into transitive, intransitive, and uninflectable or particle verbs.5 While transitive and intransitive verbs take person prefixes for argument indexing, and tense and polarity suffixes, particle verbs do not take argument indexing or tense suffixes (Galucio, 2014a). The quotative verbs employed in reported speech constructions belong to the subclass of particle verbs.

Typologically, Sakurabiat is a typical head-final language. The basic constituent order is AOV/SV. However, pronominal subjects, especially monosyllabic ones, cliticize to the verb phrase as enclitics, thus deriving the very common OVA information order. For the most part, tense, aspect, mood, and polarity are expressed by means of postverbal particles, but there are also a few inflectional TAME and polarity suffixes. The language employs two main strategies for coding grammatical relations: word order and person indexing. The core syntactic arguments A, S, and O are not marked for case. In transitive clauses with two nominal arguments, grammatical relations are defined by word order only, as seen in (1–2) below.

    1. (1)
    1. aose
    2. man
    1. amẽko
    2. jaguar/dog
    1. so-a-t
    2. see-TV-PST
    1. The man saw the jaguar/dog.
    1. (2)
    1. amẽko
    2. jaguar/dog
    1. aose
    2. man
    1. so-a-t6
    2. see-TV-PST
    1. The jaguar/dog saw the man.

In the case of pronominal arguments, grammatical relations are identified through person indexing and through a partially complementary distribution of pronouns versus bound person forms (indexes). The major morphosyntactic alignment pattern is best described as nominative-absolutive (Galucio & Nogueira 2018): the same set of argument indexes (person prefixes) mandatorily expresses the absolutive participant (S/O), whereas the set of pronouns expresses the nominative participant (S/A), optionally for intransitive and for third person transitive subjects in general, and obligatorily for first and second person transitive subjects. A third person transitive subject may be unmarked. This pattern is illustrated by examples (3a–b) for intransitive verbs and examples (4a–c) for transitive verbs.

    1. (3)
    1. a.
    1. o-aor-a-r=(õt)7
    2. 1S-get.out-TV-PST=1S
    3. I left.
    1.  
    1. b.
    1. e-aor-a-r=(ẽt)
    2. 2S-get.out-TV-PST=2S
    3. You left.
    1. (4)
    1. a.
    1. e-eikwa=õt
    2. 2S-like=1S
    3. I like you.
    1. (4)
    1. b.
    1. o-so-a-r=ẽt
    2. 1S-see-TV-PST=2S
    3. You saw me.
    1. (4)
    1. c.
    1. (sete) i-so-a-t
    2. he/she 3-see-tv-pst
    3. He/she saw him/her/it.

In addition, absolutive person prefixes—subject (S) and object (O)—show a distinct behavior. Whereas, S indexes may optionally co-occur with nouns or pronouns in subject position, O indexes are in complementary distribution with full nominals. They cannot be doubled by pronouns, that is, they do not co-occur with nominals with the same reference and function.

Galucio (2001) analyzes Sakurabiat subject indexes in intransitive verbs as agreement markers when co-occurring with an NP in subject function, but as grammatical arguments when they occur without an NP. Object indexes, on the other hand, are analyzed as pronominal arguments cliticized to the verb, since they do not co-occur with an NP in the same function (Galucio 2001: 131). This distinction corresponds to the notions of anaphoric vs. grammatical agreement, as described for Chichêwa (Bantu) in the seminal work by Bresnan and Mchombo (1987).8

Indirect objects, such as in (5) and verbal adjuncts such as in (6) and (7), are expressed by postpositional phrases, chosen accordingly to their semantics (dative, locative, ablative).

    1. (5)
    1. tabisãrã
    2. chief
    1. kɨpe
    2. machete
    1. õ-ã9
    2. give-TV
    1. aose=bõ10
    2. man=DAT
    1. The chief gave the machete to the man.
    1. (6)
    1. roque
    2. Roque
    1. se-er-a
    2. 3C-sleep-TV
    1. nããt
    2. COP
    1. top
    2. aux.lying.PFV.NPST
    1. se-teg=ese
    2. 3C-house=LOC
    1. Roque is sleeping in his own house.
    1. (7)
    1. o-si
    2. 1S-mother
    1. teg=eri
    2. house=ABL
    1. ka=õt
    2. move.to/from=1S
    1. I came from my mom’s house.

3. Reported speech construction

There is no formal distinction between direct and indirect speech in Sakurabiat. Speech reports used as complements of verbs of utterance or thought, such as ‘say’, ‘ask’, ‘reply’, and ‘think’, are expressed as direct speech or direct quotation. Hence, the language uses direct quotation, i.e., literal repetition of what was said, in order to report speech or thought. When translating into another language, like Portuguese, for instance, the speakers may offer an indirect speech quote, but the actual form produced in Sakurabiat is a direct speech report. The main characteristics of reported speech in Sakurabiat are, thus, the absence of complementizers, the absence of deictic shift inside the quote, and the use of a specific quotative framer. These specific properties will be discussed in the following sections.

3.1 The internal structure of reported speech constructions

The internal structure of the quote can be a complete finite clause or a smaller syntactic unit. The quote in example (8) below is a finite clause, and it is exactly parallel to the finite clause in example (4a) in Section 2, which is not a quote. A quote can also correspond to a multiclause utterance, as in (9), where there are two finite clauses under the scope of the same quotative verb. There are two homophonous morphemes te in Sakurabiat: a third-person clitic te ‘3’ and a focus particle te, as seen in examples (8) and (9).

    1. (8)
    1. e-eikwa=õt
    2. 2S-like=1S
    1. ke=te
    2. QUOT=3
    1. ikãw
    2. INDF.PST
    1. (sete)
    2. he/she
    1. te=eri
    2. 3=ABL
    1. “I like you,” she said to him at that time.
    2. Quote-questionnaire (ALIM/skf-20190826-avg-rs-quote02)
    1. (9)
    1. kɨjpit
    2. fish
    1. at
    2. catch
    1. pa=õt
    2. FUT.12=1S
    1. kɨjpit
    2. fish
    1. ko
    2. ingest
    1. pa=õt
    2. FUT.12=1S
    1. kɨ̃rẽp
    2. today
    1. ke=te
    2. QUOT=3
    1. ikãw
    2. INDF.PST
    1. te
    2. FOC
    1. vilacy
    2. Vilacy
    1. she said at that time, Vilacy (said): “I will fish, and I will eat fish today”.
    2. Quote-questionnaire (ALIM/skf-20190826-avg-rs-quote02)

It is also possible to have a repetition of the quotative verb for each quote being reported, as shown in example (10), which was deemed grammatical in elicitation, with or without the quotative verb at the end.

    1. (10)
    1. kɨjpit
    2. fish
    1. at
    2. catch
    1. pa=õt
    2. FUT.12=1S
    1. ke=te
    2. QUOT=3
    1. ikãw
    2. INDF.PST
    1. te
    2. FOC
    1. vilacy
    2. Vilacy
    1. kɨjpit
    2. fish
    1. ko
    2. ingest
    1. pa=õt
    2. FUT.12= 1S
    1. kɨ̃rẽp
    2. today
    1. ke=te
    2. QUOT=3
    1. She said at that time, Vilacy (said): “I will fish and I will eat fish today”.
    2. Quote-questionnaire (ALIM/skf-20190826-avg-rs-quote03)

Unlike the above examples, where the reported speech is a full finite clause, a report can correspond to just an exclamation, that is, it can also be just part of a clause, not a complete clause, as shown in (11).

    1. (11)
    1. ii
    2. eww
    1. abape
    2. coakroach
    1. ke=te
    2. QUOT=3
    1. ikãw
    2. INDF.PST
    1. She said, at that time: “Eww, coakroaches.”
    2. Quote-questionnaire (ALIM/skf-20190823-avg-rs-quote01)

The direct quotation in Sakurabiat is embedded in a specific quotative framer, which contains the reported speech, and a quotative verb followed by the reported speaker. There are two quotative verbs: ke and kaat, as shown in (12) and (13), respectively. These two quotative verbs are used in the same context with no apparent meaning distinction. Sentences (12) and (13) have identical references, only the last word (the quotative verb) is different. Structurally, though, the quotative verbs differ. The verb kaat does not require an overt third-person pronoun, while the verb ke requires that the subject be overtly expressed.11

    1. (12)
    1. ẽr=ẽp
    2. 2S=EMPH
    1. ser-a
    2. leave-TV
    1. pa=ẽt
    2. FUT=2S
    1. ke=te
    2. QUOT=3
    1. She said: “You will leave by yourself”.
    2. Quote-questionnaire (ALIM/skf-20190827-avg-rs-quote04)
    1. (13)
    1. ẽr=ẽp
    2. 2S=EMPH
    1. ser-a
    2. leave-TV
    1. pa=ẽt
    2. FUT=2S
    1. kaat
    2. QUOT
    1. She said: “You will leave by yourself”.
    2. Quote-questionnaire (ALIM/skf-20190827-avg-rs-quote04)

The quotative verbs can occur in the reported speech frame [QUOT+SBJ] without the reported speech, as seen in (14) and (15), in which the quotative verb is interpreted as a lexical dicendi verb.

    1. (14)
    1. ke=ẽt
    2. QUOT=2S
    1. ikãw
    2. INDF.PST
    1. You said [it] at that time.
    1. (15)
    1. kaat-rer-apõ=õt12
    2. QUOT-COP-NEG=1S
    3. I didn’t say [it].
    4. Quote-questionnaire (ALIM/skf-20190827-avg-rs-quote04)

On the other hand, without the quotative frame [QUOT+SBJ], there is no difference between a reported speech construction and a declarative sentence that is not reported speech. Since speech reports are finite clauses, without the quotative frame a reported speech is a full predicate by itself. As illustrated by examples (16) and (17), the difference between a reported speech (16) and a declarative sentence (17) is the presence or absence of the quotative frame. Explicit mention of the nominal subject can be omitted in both cases.

    1. (16)
    1. i-sãmẽ-rer-ap13
    2. 3-good-COP-NEG
    1. te
    2. FOC
    1. ke=te
    2. QUOT=3
    1. (sete)
    2. she/he
    1. te=eri
    2. 3=ABL
    1. She said of him: “He is not a good man.”
    2. Quote-questionnaire (ALIM/skf-20190826-avg-rs-quote02)
    1. (17)
    1. i-sãmẽ-rer-ap
    2. 3-good-COP-NEG
    1. te
    2. FOC
    1. tabisãrã
    2. chief
    1. He is not a good man, the chief.
    2. Quote-questionnaire (ALIM/skf-20190826-avg-rs-quote02)

However, in narratives, it is common for the quote verb to be left out in reported dialogues. This is illustrated in the set of examples in (18a–b), below, which is extracted from a mythological narrative. In the first example in (18a) the personage Arɨkʷajõ talks to other beings and urges them to go drink water. That quote is introduced by the lexical dicendi verb erek ‘to speak.’ In (18b), one of the other participants replies, but this time there is no introduction to the quote; the quotative verb is absent.

    1. (18)
    1. ALIM/skf-20020809-avg-ps-kwareyat-uku-motkwa-seia-fizeram-aparecer-agua
    1.  
    1. a.
    1. kaar=ẽp
    2. DEM=EMPH
    1. sete
    2. he/she
    1. erek
    2. speak
    1. nẽãrã
    2. again
    1. sete
    2. he/she
    1. arɨkʷajõ
    2. arɨkʷajõ
    1. ejat-oo’
    2. 2PL-AUX.PL
    1. soga
    2. HORT
    1. i-ka-a
    2. 3-ingest-TV
    1. pe=ɨkɨ
    2. OBL=water
    1. Then Arikwayõ spoke again: “You go drink water.”
    1.  
    1. b.
    1. ar=ẽp
    2. DEM=EMPH
    1. poret
    2. now/then
    1. sete
    2. he/she
    1. soga
    2. HORT
    1. te
    2. FOC
    1. i-ka-a
    2. 3-ingest-TV
    1. Then he (said): “(let’s) go drink!”

Exchanges such as those presented in (18) are very common in the language. In the following reported dialogue taken from a personal narrative, the shift in pronouns is basically the only cue indicating the quoting that goes back and forth between the two event participants, which are presented as the original utterers of the reported speech, one of which is also the reporter (narrating the story). Examples (19a) and (19b) are finite declarative clauses, and the latter introduces the first quote uttered by speaker A (the reporter), using the lexical dicendi verb erek ‘to speak’. Then, (19c) reports the speech of speaker B, which is speaker A’s father, doubting the event as reported by speaker A. Example (19d) is the replica by speaker A, confirming what he had said in the first place. In (19e), we have again the reported speech of speaker B as directed to speaker A. In (19f), speaker A retreats from direct speech and sets the time when the reported conversation had taken place. Report of the conversation continues in (19g) and (19h), without any overt indication that these are quotes. Then the voice of the reporter (narrator) returns in (19i) to close up the set of events described. After (19b), none of the examples in (19) show formal indication that the utterances are quotes or speech reports. That sequence of discourse basically mimics the sequential turn-taking pattern that takes place in conversation. In that sense, these reported dialogues in Sakurabiat fit well with the definition of fictive interaction (Pascual & Sandler 2016: 4). The narrator frames the reported speech as part of a conversation, even though it is not a real conversation, in order to give more authenticity or vivacity to the narrative.

    1. (19)
    1. ALIM/skf-19960901-avg-fg-ameko-kop-onca-vermelha
    1.  
    1. a.
    1. o-ekʷea-a-t
    2. 1S-run-TV-PST
    1. o-seesoa
    2. 1S-AUX.motion.IPFV.PST
    1. ɨɨɨ
    2. INTERJ
    1. I went running.
    1.  
    1. b.
    1. pɨbot
    2. arrive
    1. nẽãrã
    2. again
    1. taam=õ-ẽp
    2. house/village=DAT-EMPH
    1. po-tẽẽt
    2. hand-only
    1. erek
    2. speak
    1. po-tẽẽt=õt
    2. hand-only=1S
    1. amẽko
    2. jaguar/dog
    1. mĩ-ã=õt
    2. kill.by.shooting-TV=1S
    1. I arrived home, and spoke right away: “I killed a jaguar.”
    1.  
    1. c.
    1. kaat
    2. DEM
    1. ebõ
    2. really
    1. i-mĩ-ã-r=ẽt
    2. 3-kill.by.shooting-TV-PST=2S
    1. (mõare..)?
    2. UNINTEL14
    1. “Have you really killed it?”
    1.  
    1. d.
    1. i-mĩ-ã-r=õt
    2. 3-kill.by.shooting-TV-PST=1S
    1. mĩ-ã=õt15
    2. kill.by.shooting-TV=1S
    1. “I killed it, I killed it.”
    1.  
    1. e.
    1. ki-or-a
    2. 1PL.INCL-go-TV
    1. i-so-a
    2. 3-see-TV
    1. “Let’s see it.”
    1.  
    1. f.
    1. tarõ=mõ
    2. DEM.far=DAT
    1. te
    2. FOC
    1. kiakop
    2. sun
    1. ao(t)
    2. get.out
    1. The sun was far away.
    1.  
    1. g.
    1. so-a
    2. see-TV
    1. kot
    2. IM.FUT
    1. te
    2. FOC
    1. o-top
    2. 1S-father
    1. po-po-r=eat
    2. hand-RED-?=grab
    1. “I will see it”, my father (said) and got ready (to go).
    1.  
    1. h.
    1. ki-or-a
    2. 1PL.INCL-go-TV
    1. i-so-a
    2. 3-see-TV
    1. “Let’s see it.”
    1.  
    1. (i)
    1. poret
    2. now/then
    1. sɨrɨk
    2. go.PL.SUBJ.PST
    1. Then we went.

As can be seen in examples (18) and (19), in addition to the quotative verbs, other lexical verbs, such as the verbs ‘to speak’, ‘to think’, can also introduce reported speech or reported thought. In these cases, the quotative framer [QUOT+SUBJ] is not used. This is shown again in (20) and (21). The lexical verb eerekwa ‘to speak’ in (20) and apitaka ‘to think’ in (21) are both intransitive verbs, as can be inferred from the pattern of person indexing introduced in Section 2.16 The quote appears as a coordinate clause. Example (21) illustrates well the concept of fictive interaction, since the reporter’s thoughts are framed as an imaginary conversation with himself.

    1. (20)
    1. o-er-ap
    2. 1S-sleep-NMLZ
    1. sãmẽ-ka-r-apõ=õt
    2. good-VBLZ-PST-NEG=1S
    1. pɨ̃ɨ̃p
    2. yesterday
    1. kɨ̃rẽp
    2. today
    1. o-er-ap sãmẽ-ka=õt
    2. 1S-sleep-NMLZ good-VBLZ-PST=1S
    1. te
    2. FOC
    1. rosalina
    2. Rosalina
    1. se-e-erek-kwa
    2. 3C-INTRVZ-speech-VBLZ17
    1. Rosalina told (me): “I didn’t sleep well yesterday, (but) today I slept well.”
    2. Quote-questionnaire (ALIM/skf-20190823-avg-rs-quote01)
    1. (21)
    1. o-api-taka
    2. 1S-breath-follow
    1. o-jẽt
    2. 1s-AUX.SIT
    1. ãtka
    2. how
    1. pa=õt
    2. FUT=1S
    1. kẽrã
    2. NASSERT
    1. õr=ẽp
    2. 1S-EMPH
    1. o-ser-a-ra
    2. 1S-leave-TV-REP
    1. o-ko-a
    2. 1S-AUX.MOV-IPFV.PST
    1. I am thinking: “how shall I be by myself, when I leave again?”
    2. Quote-questionnaire (ALIM/skf-20190823-avg-rs-quote01)

In negative quote constructions, in which the quotative verb is under the scope of negation, the quotative framer must be used, even when the reported speech is introduced by lexical dicendi verbs, such as the verbs ‘to speak’ and ‘to think’. The intransitive lexical dicendi verb eerekwa ‘to speak’ is negated in both sentences (22) and (23), but only (23) is a reportative clause. Hence, the negative quotative framer [QUOT+NEG+SUBJ] is used.

    1. (22)
    1. e-e-erek-kwa-r-apõ=ẽt
    2. 2S-INTRVZ-speech-VBLZ-PST-NEG=2s
    1. õr=ese
    2. 1s=LOC
    1. You didn’t tell me. / You didn’t speak to me.
    2. Quote-questionnaire (ALIM/skf-20190827-avg-rs-quote04)
    1. (23)
    1. e-erek-kwa-r-apo=ẽt
    2. 2S-speech-VBLZ-PST-NEG=2S
    1. õr=ese
    2. 1S=LOC
    1. o-teg=õ
    2. 1S-house=DAT
    1. ka
    2. move.to/from
    1. pa=õt
    2. FUT=1S
    1. kaar-apõ=ẽt
    2. QUOT-NEG=2S
    1. You didn’t tell me, you didn’t say: “I shall go home.”
    2. Quote-questionnaire (ALIM/skf-20190827-avg-rs-quote04)

Sakurabiat uses the set of postpositions presented in Section 2 above for referring to the hearer/addressee and to the topic of a reported speech. Both participants can be indicated via the same set of postpositional phrases. Examples (24) and (25) shows the ablative and the locative postpositional phrases referring to the hearer/addressee, and examples (26) and (27) illustrates the same postpositional phrases referring to the topic. The reported speech construction includes the quote, embedded in the quote framer [[RS] QUOT+SBJ], plus the postpositional phrase referring to the hearer or to the topic.

    1. (24)
    1. e-eikwa=õt
    2. 2S-like=1S
    1. ke=te
    2. QUOT=3
    1. (sete)
    2. he/she
    1. te=eri
    2. 3=ABL
    1. “I like you”, she said to him.
    2. Quote-questionnaire (ALIM/skf-20190826-avg-rs-quote02)
    1. (25)
    1. kɨjpit
    2. fish
    1. pogɨrap
    2. roasted
    1. pããr=õt
    2. like.to.eat=1S
    1. ke=õrõt
    2. QUOT=1S.EMPH
    1. te=ese
    2. 3=LOC
    1. “I like to eat roasted fish”, I said to her.
    2. Quote-questionnaire (ALIM/skf-20190826-avg-rs-quote02)
    1. (26)
    1. i-sãmẽ-rer-ap
    2. 3-good-COP-NEG
    1. te
    2. FOC
    1. ke=te
    2. QUOT=3
    1. (sete)
    2. she/he
    1. te=eri
    2. 3=ABL
    1. “He is not a good man”, she said of him.
    2. Quote-questionnaire (ALIM/skf-20190826-avg-rs-quote02)
    1. (27)
    1. j-eikwar-apõ=õt
    2. 3-like-NEG=1S
    1. ke=te
    2. QUOT=3
    1. sete
    2. she/he
    1. õr=eri
    2. 1S=ABL
    1. “I don’t like her”, she said of me.
    2. Quote-questionnaire (ALIM/skf-20190823-avg-rs-quote01)

3.2 Reported speech construction syntax and distribution

As we have seen, reported speech can be expressed either through a full finite clause or a smaller syntactic unit. In this section, we describe the morphosyntactic properties of reported speech constructions, paying special attention to their distribution inside the clause and to the way they interact with focus, negation, and questions. The first thing to note is that the quotative construction [[RS] QUOT+SBJ] forms a syntactic unit that can be focused as a constituent, using the focus particle te. In (28) below, the quotative construction is focused to the left of the other two constituents, the reported speaker and the vocative.

    1. (28)
    1. o-ãngwãrã
    2. 1S-lie.down
    1. kot
    2. IM.FUT
    1. ke=te
    2. QUOT=3
    1. ikãw
    2. INDF.PST
    1. te
    2. FOC
    1. e-si,
    2. 2S-mother
    1. vilacy
    2. Vilacy
    1. Vilacy, what your mother said, at that time was: “I will lie down.”
    2. Quote-questionnaire (ALIM/skf-20190823-avg-rs-quote01)

Regarding its position inside the quotative construction, the reported speech can either precede or follow the quotative framer [QUOT+SBJ]. Example (28) above, along with most of the previous examples, have the quote preceding the quotative framer. However, in (29) below, taken from a narrative, the quote follows the quotative verb kaat.

    1. (29)
    1. kẽrã
    2. NASSERT
    1. sete
    2. he/she
    1. sĩĩt
    2. DIM
    1. kaat
    2. QUOT
    1. kaab=ese
    2. that=LOC
    1. okie
    2. 1PL.INCL
    1. ki-asega-a-t
    2. 1PL.INCL-increase-TV-PST
    1. ‘It seems that the little one said: “That’s why we increased in number again.”’
    2. ALIM/skf-19950901-avg-ps-arikapoa-mae-mel-3

3.2.1 Absence of deictic category shift

Another important property of reported speech construction in Sakurabiat is the absence of deictic category shift inside the quote. This means that personal deixis, spatial and tense reference are kept in the direct quote without any change from their purported original speech. Hence, inside of speech reports, the deictics remain anchored to the context of the reported speaker rather than to that of the reporter. This property is observable when we compare finite clauses that do not express reported speech, as in (30) below, to equivalent clauses in a reported speech construction, as in (31).

Example (30) is not a speech report. This sentence is a declarative first-person subject clause with future deixis and a specific spatial reference that is different from the utterer’s location. There are at least two ways to report that speech in Sakurabiat. The first one is the reported speech construction that we are describing here, in which the original utterance is reported in a direct speech construction (direct quotation), as in (31). This direct quotation is, thus, purported to be identical to the speech being reported, and as such it keeps all the deictic references (first-person subject, future tense, and spatial direction) unchanged in the quote. As a result, there is an apparent clash in the person category. Note that the subject of the reported speech (in the embedded clause) and the reporter (subject of the quotative verb) share the same referent (‘my husband’), however, the reported speech subject is first-person, while the reporter (quotative verb subject) is third-person.

    1. (30)
    1. erape
    2. tomorrow
    1. nẽ
    2. COP
    1. pa=õt
    2. FUT=1S
    1. te=bõ
    2. 3=DAT
    1. ka
    2. move.to/from
    1. taap
    2. village
    1. nõ=mõ
    2. other=DAT
    1. ka
    2. move.to/from
    1. Tomorrow I will go there, go to the other village.
    2. Quote-questionnaire (ALIM/skf-20190823-avg-rs-quote01)
    1. (31)
    1. erape
    2. tomorrow
    1. nẽ
    2. COP
    1. pa=õt
    2. FUT.12=1S
    1. te=bõ
    2. 3=DAT
    1. ka
    2. move.to/from
    1. ke=te
    2. QUOT=3
    1. (te)
    2. (FOC)
    1. o-mẽt
    2. 1S-husband
    1. My husband he said: “Tomorrow I will go there.”
    2. Quote-questionnaire (ALIM/skf-20190823-avg-rs-quote01)

The second possible way to report the utterance in (30) is to indicate the necessary deictic category changes outside the quoting frame ([RS] QUOT+SBJ]). Example (32) shows the speech report followed by another clause which contains the spatial reference and is outside the quotation. Note that while person and tense references in the matrix clause are set according to the point of view of the reported speaker, the spatial reference is presented according to the point of view of the reporter, since it occurs outside of the quotation.

    1. (32)
    1. erape
    2. tomorrow
    1. nẽ
    2. COP
    1. pa=õt
    2. FUT.12=1S
    1. ke=te
    2. QUOT=3
    1. te
    2. FOC
    1. o-mẽt
    2. 1S-husband
    1. eke-bõ
    2. here=DAT
    1. ka
    2. move.to/from
    1. My husband said: “Tomorrow I will go.” (He will) come here.
    2. Quote-questionnaire (ALIM/skf-20190823-avg-rs-quote01)

Sentences (31) and (32) are partially equivalent to (33) below, but since the latter is not a reported speech construction, there is only one layer of person, tense, and spatial references, which are set according to the speaker’s point of view and the time reference of the utterance. In (33), the third person subject omẽt ‘my husband’ triggers the future tense morpheme paat for third person subject, and spatial reference is set based on the point of view of the utterer. Compare to examples (31) and (32), where the first-person pronoun on the quote triggers the future tense morpheme pa for first and second person subjects.

    1. (33)
    1. erape
    2. tomorrow
    1. nẽ
    2. COP
    1. paat
    2. FUT.3
    1. te
    2. FOC
    1. o-mẽt
    2. 1S-husband
    1. eke=bõ
    2. here=DAT
    1. ka
    2. move.to/from
    1. Tomorrow my husband will come here.
    2. Quote-questionnaire (ALIM/skf-20190823-avg-rs-quote01)

Tense is an important category to consider when talking about reported speech. There can be a difference between time of reference in the reported speech and in the quoting utterance. The pair of examples below illustrate the second strategy to indicate necessary shift in deictic references. Since there is no tense shift inside the quote, the reported speech is set in the future tense, but it is uttered as a past speech event. The quotative verbs belong to the subclass of particle verbs discussed in Section 2, which do not inflect for tense or aspect. Therefore, the only morphological tense information present is the tense particle in the direct speech quotation. The shift of tense orientation between the time of the reported speech and the time of the reported utterance is obtained by means of a deictic time adverbial ikãw that translates as ‘at that time’, thus referring to a past event of speech, as shown in (34) and (35).

    1. (34)
    1. o-er-a
    2. 1S-sleep-TV
    1. kot
    2. IM.FUT
    1. ke=ẽt
    2. QUOT=2S
    1. ikãw
    2. INDF.PST
    1. ‘You said at that time: “I will go to sleep.”
    2. Quote-questionnaire (ALIM/skf-20190823-avg-rs-quote01)
    1. (35)
    1. o-er-a
    2. 1S-sleep-TV
    1. kot
    2. IM.FUT
    1. ke=te
    2. QUOT=3
    1. ikãw
    2. INDF.PST
    1. te
    2. FOC
    1. vilacy
    2. Vilacy
    1. She said at that time, Vilacy (said): “I will go to sleep.”

3.2.2 Negation

Quotes can be negated by adding the negative morpheme ap/apo after the quotative verb. In this case, we have a negative quotative construction meaning ‘X did not say Y,’ where Y corresponds to a quote that is presented as not to have been uttered, as shown in examples (36), (37), and (38).

    1. (36)
    1. ẽr=ẽp
    2. 2S=EMPH
    1. e-seer-a
    2. leave-TV
    1. pa=ẽt
    2. FUT.12=2S
    1. kaar-apõ=ẽt
    2. QUOT-NEG=2S
    1. ‘You didn’t tell (me): “You will go alone.”
    2. Quote-questionnaire (ALIM/skf-20190827-avg-rs-quote04)
    1. (37)
    1. o-seer-a
    2. 1S-leave-TV
    1. pa=õt
    2. FUT.12=1S
    1. kaar-apõ=õt
    2. QUOT-NEG=1S
    1. kɨ̃rẽp
    2. today
    1. I didn’t say today: “I will leave.”
    2. Quote-questionnaire (ALIM/skf-20190827-avg-rs-quote04)
    1. (38)
    1. nõp,
    2. not
    1. kɨjpit
    2. fish
    1. aat
    2. catch
    1. pa=õt
    2. FUT.12=1S
    1. kaar-apõ=õt
    2. QUOT-NEG=1S
    1. ẽr=ese
    2. 2S=LOC
    1. No, I didn’t say to you: “I will fish.”
    2. Quote-questionnaire (ALIM/skf-20190827-avg-rs-quote04)

When the reported speech is itself a negative utterance, negation is given inside the quote, not on the quotative verb. Thus, the meaning of sentences (39) and (40) is ‘X did say not Y’, in which Y corresponds to the affirmative counterpart of the reported speech (cf. examples (26) and (27)).

    1. (39)
    1. i-sãmẽ-rer-ap
    2. 3-good-COP-NEG
    1. te
    2. FOC
    1. ke=te
    2. QUOT=3
    1. (sete)
    2. she/he
    1. te=eri
    2. 3=ABL
    1. “He is not a good man”, she said of him.
    2. Quote-questionnaire (ALIM/skf-20190826-avg-rs-quote02)
    1. (40)
    1. j-eikwar-apõ=õt
    2. 3-like-NEG=1S
    1. ke=te
    2. QUOT=3
    1. sete
    2. she/he
    1. õr=eri
    2. 1S=ABL
    1. “I don’t like her”, she said of me.
    2. Quote-questionnaire (ALIM/skf-20190823-avg-rs-quote01)

Sakurabiat has a frustrative construction that is a subtype of declarative sentences with adversative or frustrative meaning, formed by the particle etaop (Galucio 2014b). The frustrative construction informs that the expected result of a given event was not achieved or that a given action or event was realized in vain, that is, it did not achieve its expected result. When the frustrative particle is used in a quotative construction, it does not negate the quote, but rather adds the information that the set of events described in the reported speech did not take place, as shown in (41) below.

    1. (41)
    1. o-ib-a
    2. 1S-return-TV
    1. pa=õt
    2. FUT.12=1S
    1. ke=õt
    2. QUOT=1S
    1. etaop
    2. FRUST
    1. kɨ̃rẽp
    2. today
    1. “I will come back”, I said, but it didn’t happen today.
    2. Quote-questionnaire (ALIM/skf-20190827-avg-rs-quote04)

4. From quote to desire: a case of reanalysis

It has been observed in various languages that reportative verbs tend to grammaticalize as functional categories, such as complementizers, TAME markers, discourse markers etc. For instance, D’Arcy (2015) discusses the change of lexical dicendi verbs into markers of TAME categories, such as future tense, imperfective aspect, causative, desiderative, imperative, counterfactual, evidential, etc. Similar paths of grammaticalization have been described for some Amazonian languages as well. Two very clear cases of such phenomena are found in van der Voort (2016), wherein the author describes the grammaticalization of quotative constructions as purposive, desiderative, and future constructions in two unrelated languages, Aikanã and Kwazá, spoken in the same region (the Brazilian state of Rondônia) where the Sakurabiat language is spoken.18 In this section, we argue that Sakurabiat quotative constructions can be similarly reanalyzed as desideratives.

As we have seen in the previous sections, direct speech quotes are the main way to report a speech/thought in Sakurabiat, and there is no deictic category shift inside the quote. Hence, the reported speech clause is commonly expressed in the future tense, since it purports to reenact the actual utterance, repeating it exactly as it was uttered. This, in turn, creates a context for the quotative verbs (ke; kaat) to be commonly used within the frame IM.FUT+QUOT+SUBJ, as in (42) below.

    1. (42)
    1. o-ãngwãrã
    2. 1S-lie.down
    1. kot
    2. IM.FUT
    1. ke=te
    2. QUOT=3
    1. ikãw
    2. INDF.PST
    1. te
    2. FOC
    1. e-si,
    2. 2S-mother
    1. Vilacy
    2. Vilacy
    1. Vilacy, your mother said at that time: “I will lie down.”
    2. Quote-questionnaire (ALIM/skf-20190823-avg-rs-quote01)19

Example (42) is a direct speech quote with a future tense marker. The use of the immediate future morpheme entails the meaning that the reported speaker is about to perform the reported event. For instance, the above example expresses an utterance spoken in a context in which the reported speaker (Vilacy’s mother) had finished eating and was heading to her room to lie down. Given that meaning and the typologically common association of immediate future with strong volition or intention, it follows quite straightforwardly that this quotative construction in the immediate future can then be reanalyzed as a desiderative construction, as given in (43).

    1. (43)
    1. o-teg=õ
    2. 1S-house=DAT
    1. ka-ra
    2. move.to/from-REP
    1. kot=ke=õt
    2. DESID.12=1S
    1. I want to go home.
    2. Literally: I said “I will go home.”
    3. Quote-questionnaire (ALIM/skf-20190827-avg-rs-quote04)

Thus, a construction like ‘I said “I will go”’ or ‘She said “I will go”’ is reanalyzed as “I want to go” or “She wants to go”, respectively, as seen in Table 1, which indicates the path of reanalysis from quotative to desiderative.

Table 1

Reanalysis: quotative > desiderative.

QUOTATIVE TO DESIDERATIVE: FORMAL CHANGE QUOTATIVE TO DESIDERATIVE: SEMANTIC CHANGE
[[kot]RSC ke]QUOT > [kot ke]DESID IM.FUT+QUOT.12 > DESIDERATIVE.12
[[kot]RSC kaat]QUOT >[kot kaat]DESID IM.FUT+QUOT.3 > DESIDERATIVE.3

One troublesome point worth noting is that the desiderative reading is based on material from two different levels in the reported speech construction: the future morpheme kot ‘IM.FUT’ is part of the embedded reported speech clause (the direct quotation) and the quotative verb (ke or kaat) is part of the larger quotative framer. I argue that there is a morphosyntactic reanalysis in process, since there are also formal differences between the quotative and the newly reanalyzed desiderative construction. The quotative and the reanalyzed desiderative construction co-occur in the language and show different properties. Unlike quotative constructions, desiderative clauses allow shift of deictic categories. This property is seen in (44), where a quotative reading is no longer possible.

    1. (44)
    1. se-iko
    2. 3C-food
    1. ko-a
    2. ingest-TV
    1. kot=kaat
    2. DESID.3
    1. se-er-a
    2. 3C-sleep-TV
    1. sobeka-ra
    2. want-REP
    1. He wants to eat and wants to sleep.

We saw in Section 3 that due to the absence of deictic category shift inside the reported speech, when the reported speaker is third person, there is a difference in the person category between the subject of the reported speech and the subject of the embedding clause (quotative construction). This is illustrated in example (42), where the subject inside the reported speech is first person and the quotative construction subject is third person. However, as we can see in (44), there is total person agreement in the desiderative construction, which is indicated by using the coreferential third person prefix se-. This prefix is used in the object of a transitive (either as the object proper or as its possessor) only when its referent is coreferential with the subject of the sentence. The use of the coreferential prefix also precludes a quotative reading in that example, since a speech report would have a first-person agreement marker as the possessor of the noun, as in o-iko ka kot kaat ‘“I will eat”, (she) said’.

Finally, it is worth mentioning that Sakurabiat also has a lexical verb to express intentions or desires, the transitive verb sobeka ‘to want, to desire’ shown in (44) and (45).

    1. (45)
    1. i-mõtkwa
    2. 3-make
    1. sobekar-a
    2. want-TV
    1. ebõ
    2. really
    1. He really wants to make it.20

Example (44) above demonstrates that the quotative future tense construction, reanalyzed as a desiderative construction, and the desiderative construction with the lexical verb sobeka ‘to want, to desire’ are equivalent and that they may co-occur in a sentence.

5. Conclusion

I have described the major morphosyntactic properties that characterize reported speech in Sakurabiat, showing that there is no formal distinction between direct and indirect speech in the language. Reported speech in Sakurabiat is realized through direct speech (or direct quotation), embedded in a specific framer composed of a quotative verb and an NP referring to the reported speaker [[RS] QUOT+SBJ]. Two other characteristics of reported speech in the language are the absence of complementizers and the absence of deictic category shift inside the reported speech clause. The reported speech clause can be a finite clause or a smaller syntactic unit, even just an exclamation.

Direct quotation, even without the quotative framer, is a resource frequently used in narratives and other genres in Sakurabiat, both as structural frame to present supposedly reported utterances and as a mechanism to add vivacity and/or authenticity to the narrative. I argue that at least this use of direct speech quotation, framed as a conversational interaction, fits well the definition of fictive interaction (Pascual & Sandler 2016), since it employs what seems to be a conversation in order to refer to what is not necessarily an actual conversation. The reporting of thought is also in the range of fictive interaction in the language, since reported thought is also realized through the same quotative mechanism of framing it as a direct speech construction, which is presented as conversation with oneself.

Finally, I show that Sakurabiat realizes the widespread tendency observed in the languages of the world for reportative verbs to grammaticalize into other functional categories. Frequency of use, meaning, and the morphosyntactic properties of reported speech constructions in the language provide the context that gives rise to the desiderative interpretation. Due to the absence of deictic category shift inside the quote, the reported speech clause is commonly expressed in the future tense, creating a context for the quotative verbs (ke, kaat) to be commonly used within the frame [IM.FUT+QUOT+SUBJ]. The use of the immediate future morpheme entails the meaning that the reported speaker is about to perform the reported event. Assuming the association of immediate future with strong volition or intention, it follows naturally that the quotative construction in the immediate future can be reanalyzed as a desiderative construction. Hence, from a construction like ‘I said “I will go,”’ we get the new desiderative construction ‘I want to go.’

Notes

  1. Abbreviations used in this paper: ? unidentified gloss; = clitic boundary; 1PL.INCL first person plural inclusive; 1S first person singular; 2PL second person plural; 2S second person singular; 3 third person; 3C third person coreferential; 3PL third person plural; A agent-like argument of canonical transitive verb; ABL ablative; AFFIRM affirmative; AUX auxiliary; COM comitative; COP copula; DAT dative; DEM demonstrative; DESID.12 first and second person desiderative; DESID.3 third person desiderative; DIM diminutive; DIR directional; EMPH emphatic; FOC focus; FRUST frustrative; FUT future; FUT.12 first and second person future; FUT.3 third person future; GR grammatical relations; HORT hortative; INDF.PST indefinite past; IM.FUT immediate future; INTERJ interjection; INTRVZ intransitivizer; IPFV imperfective; LOC locative; NASSERT non-assertive; NEG negation; NMLZ nominalizer; NP noun phrase; NPST non-past; O object; OBL oblique; PART participle; PST past; QUOT quotative; QUOT.12; QUOT3; REP repetitive; RS reported speech; RSC reported speech construction; S single argument of canonical intransitive verb; SUBJ subject; TAME tense, aspect, mood, and evidentiality; TV thematic vowel; UNINTEL unintelligible; VBLZ verbalizer. [^]
  2. The spelling ⟨Sakurabiat⟩ follows the orthographic convention of the language, in which the grapheme ⟨u⟩ stands for the high central vowel [ɨ]. The name of the people and the language is pronounced [sakɨɾabi’at˺]. [^]
  3. The last known speaker of the third variety of the Sakurabiat language, Siokweriat, passed away in 2020. His speech variety came to be known in recent years as Campé or Kampé. [^]
  4. ALIM is an abbreviation of “Arquivo de Línguas Indígenas do Museu Goeldi”. [^]
  5. This subclass was termed “uninflectable” because contrary to transitive, intransitive, and auxiliary verbs, they do not take person or TAME inflection (Galucio 2001). [^]
  6. The past tense suffix -t has three allomorphs: -t in oral contexts, -r when followed by a vowel in the same phonological word, and -n when it occurs in coda position and is preceded by a nasal(ized) vowel. The -r allomorph derives from a general sonorization rule that applies at a morpheme boundary: the voiceless stops /p, t, k/ change to /b, r, g/, respectively, when followed by a vowel at a morpheme boundary (Galucio 2001). The -n allomorph derives from the obligatory rightward nasality spread in the language. [^]
  7. The first and second person pronouns õt and ẽt tend to cliticize to the verb for phonological reasons. [^]
  8. See Haspelmath (2013) for arguments in favor of using the terms cross-indexes and pro-indexes to refer to those distinctions in language description. [^]
  9. The thematic vowel morpheme is nasalized by the previous nasal vowel. Sakurabiat has obligatory rightward and optional leftward nasality spread (Galucio 1994). [^]
  10. This postposition has three phonologically based allomorphs: =bõ after words ending in an oral vowel; =mõ after words ending in nasal vowel, and =õ after words ending in a consonant. The semantics of this postposition also deserves an explanatory note. For the sake of economy, we gloss it as DATIVE, but it has a broader semantic scope. It is used to indicate beneficiary, instrument, spatial, and time location (cf. Galucio 2001). [^]
  11. Galucio (2001) says that the two quotative verbs (kaat and ke) are in complementary distribution: the former is used for first and second person subjects (ke ‘QUOT.12’) and the latter for third-person subjects (kaat ‘QUOT.3’). However, more recently collected data has shown that both quotative verbs may be used in the frame of a third person reporter, as described here. [^]
  12. The phonetic form of this sentence is [kaarerapõ:n]. The morpheme final [t] in [kaat] fuses with the morpheme initial [r], and the final [t] in coda position is nasalized after a nasal vowel. [^]
  13. The negative suffix has two allomorphs: -apo used with first and second persons, and -ap with third person. The final vowel of the allomorph -apo is nasalized when a nasal vowel follows. [^]
  14. The final utterance is unintelligible in the recording, but it is probably just a stammering of the beginning of next sentence. [^]
  15. The corpus contains several examples of unmarked third person object prefix, as it can be seen in the second token of the verb mĩ ‘kill by shooting’, in (19d), and in the verb so ‘see’, in (19g). We thank an anonymous referee for pointing out that the sister language Tupari also has a null allomorph of the third-person object proclitic, which occurs only before consonant-initial verbs, as described by Singerman (2018: 23). That condition may be what licenses the phonologically null allomorph of the object prefix in Sakurabiat as well, but we have not been able to verify it yet. [^]
  16. The verb apitaka ‘to think’ is a compound word formed by the noun api ‘breath; spirit; soul’ incorporated to the transitive stem taka ‘to follow’. It literally means ‘to follow one’s breath or one’s spirit’. [^]
  17. As indicated by the gloss, the verb e-erek-kwa ‘to speak’ is a derived word formed on the basis of the noun stem erek ‘speech’ plus verbal derivational morphemes. [^]
  18. Aikanã and Kwazá are both classified as isolate languages, with no known related languages (van der Voort 2016). [^]
  19. This sentence was uttered spontaneously, and it was later confirmed and recorded during elicitation of the quotative questionnaire. [^]
  20. As noted in Section 2, the O argument is obligatorily marked as a prefix on the verb, and a third-person A argument may be left unmarked. [^]

Acknowledgements

I am thankful to the Sakurabiat people for their support and friendship throughout the years, especially Rosalina Guaratira, Olimpio Ferreira Sakyrabiar, Boni Guaratira, Francisco Guaratira, and the late Vicência Sakyrabiar, Luzia Sakyrabiar, Pedro Kampé Sakyrabiar, Elias Passaká Sakyrabiar and Manoel Ferreira Sakyrabiar, who have shared with me their knowledge about their language.

Funding Information

The research for and writing of this paper was partially funded by the Brazilian National Council for Scientific and Technological Development – CNPQ (Bolsa PQ 305843/2019-2 and Bolsa PQ 304766/2022-4) and by a small fieldwork grant from the COSY-Project (DFG-GZ: SA 925/14-1).

Competing Interests

The author has no competing interests to declare.

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