Article published in:
International Journal of Language and Culture
Vol. 8:2 (2021) ► pp. 297–322

Verbal reduplication as an aspectual marker and manifestation of cultural values in Amondawa (Brazil, Amazon)

| Federal University of Rondônia (UNIR), Brazil
| Federal University of Rondônia (UNIR), Brazil
| Federal University of Rondônia (UNIR), Brazil
In this paper we analyse verbal reduplication in the Amondawa language, focusing on the aspectual function. We argue that verbal reduplication may be linked to Amondawa’s cultural values, such as the counting system and the event-based concept of time. We analysed 100 verbal predicates, considering: (i) transitivity (active and stative intransitive and transitive), (ii) semantic properties (state, activity, achievements and accomplishments); and (iii) morphological structure. The results suggest that, for the Amondawa, verbal reduplication presents notions of pluractionality, notably aspectual, and reflects cultural values related to their ways of counting things in the world and their conception of time. Thus, in this language/culture, it is preferable to say that this phenomenon evidences a decomposition of the event into micro-events, rather than verbal plurality. In this sense, reduplication works as a kind of aspectual marker and not as a plural mark, in the strict sense, whether in nouns or verbs.
Keywords: verbal reduplication, pluractionality, culture, Tupian languages, Amondawa
Published online: 26 October 2021
https://doi.org/10.1075/ijolc.21054.sam
References

References

Araújo, L. T. S.
(2018) Língua e cultura no processo de tradução ka’apor: ajustes linguísticos em empréstimos do português. Master Degree Dissertation, Universidade Federal do Pará.
Bar-el, L.
(2008) Verbal number and aspect in Skwxwú7mesh. Recherches linguistiques de Vincennes 37–2008, 31–54. CrossrefGoogle Scholar
Bruno, A. C. S.
(2003) Reduplicação em Waimiri-Atroari. Ameríndia, v. 28. Paris, pp. 84–94.Google Scholar
Camargos, Q. F. & Amondawa, A.
(2020) Reduplicação em Amondawa (Tupí-Guaraní). In: Colóquio Reduplicação em Línguas Indígenas e Africanas. [Oral comunication]. Centro de Estudos de Línguas e Culturas Ameríndias 27 e 28/08/2020. Universidade Estadual de Campinas-UNICAMP.Google Scholar
Castilho, A. T.
(2010) Nova gramática do português brasileiro. São Paulo: Contexto.Google Scholar
Corbett, G.
(2000) Number. Cambridge: CUP. CrossrefGoogle Scholar
Cusic, D. D.
(1981) Verbal plurality and aspect. PhD thesis, Stanford University.
Duarte, F. B., Castro, R. C. & Camargos, Q. F.
(2014) A quantificação na língua Tenetehára (Tupí-Guaraní). In: Malvestitti, M., Dreidemie, P. (Org.). Libro de Actas del III Encuentro de Lenguas Indígenas Americanas (ELIA). (pp. 237–250). 1 ed. Viedma: Universidad Nacional de Río Negro.Google Scholar
Fargetti, C.
(2001) Estudo fonológico e morfossintático da língua Jurúna. PhD Thesis. Universidade Estadual de Campinas. Campinas, Brasil.
Galúcio, A. V.
(2001) The Morphosyntax of Mekéns (Tupi). PhD Thesis. University of Chicago
Gomes, D. M.
(2006) Estudo morfológico e sintático da língua Mundurukú (Tupí). PhD Thesis, Universidade de Brasília.
Gomes, D.
(2007) Reduplicação verbal em Munduruku. In: Línguas e Culturas Tupi, V 1. Rodrigues, A. D. & A. S. A. C. Cabral (Orgs.). Campinas: Curt Nimuendajú and Lali/UnB. pp. 391–396.Google Scholar
Goodwin Gómez, G. & Voort, H. van der
(Eds.) (2014) Reduplication in indigenous languages of South America. Leiden/Boston: Brill. CrossrefGoogle Scholar
Inkelas, S. & Downing, L. J.
(2015) What is reduplication? Typology and analysis. Part 1/2: The typology of reduplication. Language and Linguistics Compass. John Wiley and Sons Ltda 9/12 2015, pp. 502–515, CrossrefGoogle Scholar
Jensen, C.
(1989) O desenvolvimento histórico da língua Wayampi. [PhD thesis, Universidade Estadual de Campinas].
Jespersen, O.
(1924) The philosophy of grammar. New York: HarperCollins Publishers.Google Scholar
Kakumasu, J.
(1984) Urubu-Kaapor. Handbook of Amazonian Languages. D. C. Derbyshire and G. K. Pullum. Vol. I (pp. 326–402). Berlim: Mouton de Gruyter.Google Scholar
Kauffman, C. A.
(2015) Reduplication reflects uniqueness and innovation in language, thought and culture. Omniglot. https://​omniglot​.com​/pdfs​/reduplication​.pdf
Lanhan, L. W.
(1980)  Language and thought: exploring the implications of the whorfian hypothesis in social science. Inaugural lecture delivered at Rhodes University on 19th March, 1980. (Rand). https://​core​.ac​.uk​/download​/pdf​/145055227​.pdf
Le Guen, O.
(2017) Una concepción del tiempo no-lineal en dos lenguas: el maya yucateco colonial y actual y la lengua de señas maya yucateca. Journal de la société des américanistes [En línea], Maya times | 2017 http://​journals​.openedition​.org​/jsa​/15327; doi:  Crossref, 450–497.
Lima, S. O.
(2007) Plurality and distributivity in Juruna: some considerations about verbal cumulativity. University of Massachusetts Occasional Papers 35. Proceedings of the Semantics of Under-represented languages in the Americas 4.Google Scholar
(2008) A estrutura argumental dos verbos na língua Juruna (Yudjá): da formação dos verbos para a análise das estruturas sintáticas. Dissertation. Universidade de São Paulo. São Paulo, Brasil.
Magni, E.
(2017) Intensity, reduplication, and pluractionality in ancient Greek. Lexis, 10 [Online]. http://​journals​.openedition​.org​/lexis​/1014
Moore, D.
(1984) Syntax of the language of the Gavião indians of Rondônia, Brazil. PhD Thesis. New York: CUNY.Google Scholar
Moravcsik, E. A.
(1978) Reduplicative Constructions. In: Greenberg, J. H. (ed.), Universals of human language, vol. 3 (pp. 297–334). Stanford: Stanford University Press.Google Scholar
Nadarajan, S.
(2006) A crosslinguistic study of reduplication. Arizona Working Papers in SLAT – vol. 13, pp. 39–83. https://​www​.researchgate​.net​/publication​/237105596​_A​_CROSSLINGUISTIC​_STUDY​_OF​_REDUPLICATION
Picanço, G.
(2005) Mundurukú: phonetics, phonology, synchrony, diachrony. PhD Thesis. University of British Columbia, Vancouver, Canada.
Ramos, G. R. R.
(2019) O processo de reduplicação em línguas sul-americanas: uma análise morfossemântica. Phd Thesis, Universidade Estadual de Campinas.
Ramos, G. R. & Mori, A. C.
(2015) Goodwin Gómez, Gale; Voort, Hein van der (Eds.) (2014). Reduplication in indigenous languages of South America. Leiden/Boston: Brill. LIAMES: Línguas Indígenas Americanas 15 (1), pp. 167–177. Campinas, SP. CrossrefGoogle Scholar
Rodrigues, A. D.
(1953) Morfologia do Verbo Tupi. Letras 1, 121–52. Curitiba.Google Scholar
(1986) Línguas Brasileiras: para o conhecimento das línguas indígenas. São Paulo: Loyola.Google Scholar
Rodrigues, C. L.
(1995) Etude Morphosyntaxique de la Langue Xipaya (Bresil). PhD Thesis. Université Paris VII.Google Scholar
Rose, F.
(2003) Morphossytaxe de l’ Émerillon. PhD Thesis, Université Lumière Lyon 2.
(2005) Reduplication in Tupi-Guarani languages: going into opposite directions. Studies on Reduplication (pp. 351–368). Berlin/New York: Mouton de GruyterGoogle Scholar
Rubino, C.
(2005) Reduplication: form, function and distribution. In: Hurch, B. (ed.) Grammar, comparative and general-reduplication (pp. 11–29). Berlin/New York: Mouton de Gruyter. CrossrefGoogle Scholar
Rubino, Carl
(2013) Reduplication. In: Dryer, M. S. & Haspelmath, M. (eds.) The world atlas of language structures online. Leipzig: Max Planck Institute for Evolutionary Anthropology. http://​wals​.info​/chapter​/27
Sampaio, W. B. A.
(1998) Estudo comparativo sincrônico entre o Parintintin (Tenharim) e o Uru-eu-uau-uau (Amondava): contribuições para uma revisão na classificação das línguas tupi-kawahib. Master Degree Dissertation, Universidade Estadual de Campinas.
(2001)  As línguas Tupi-kawahib: um estudo sistemático filogenético. PhD Thesis. Universidade Federal de Rondônia.
Sanchez-Mendes, L. & Muller, A.
(2007) The meaning of pluractionality in Karitiana. University of Massachusetts Occasional Papers 35. Proceedings of the Semantics of Under-represented languages in the Americas 4.Google Scholar
Sapir, E.
(1921) Language: an introduction to the study of speech. New York: Harcourt, Brace and Company.Google Scholar
Seki, L.
(2000) Gramática do Kamaiurá. Campinas: UNICAMP.Google Scholar
Sinha, C., Silva Sinha, V. da, Zinken, J. & Sampaio, W.
(2011) When time is not space: the social and linguistic construction of time intervals and temporal event relations in an Amazonian culture. Language and Cognition 3–1, 137–169. CrossrefGoogle Scholar
Silva Sinha, V. da, Sampaio, W., Sinha, C.
(2017) The many ways to count the world: counting terms in indigenous languages and cultures of Rondônia, Brazil. Brief Encounters vol.1, no. 1 (Feb. 2017) h9p://​briefencounters​-journal​.co​.uk​/BE​/article​/view​/26/
Siva Sinha, V. da
(2019) Event-based time in three indigenous Amazonian and Xinguan cultures and languages. Frontiers in Psychology, 10 . CrossrefGoogle Scholar
Storto, L.
(2014) Reduplication in Karitiana (Tupi). In: Reduplication in indigenous languages of South America (pp. 401–426). Koninklijke Brill, NY, Leiden. CrossrefGoogle Scholar
Van der Voort, H.
(2003) Reduplication of person markers in Kwaza. Acta Linguistica Hafniensia, 35:1, 65–94. CrossrefGoogle Scholar
Xu, D.
(2012) Reduplication in languages: A case study of languages of China. In: Xu, D. (2012) Plurality and classifiers across languages in China. ffhal-01386244f 2016 CrossrefGoogle Scholar
Yakasai, H. M.
(2010) Nigeria incantation in Hausa culture: an example of syntactic reduplication. Studies in African languages and cultures, 44, pp. 67–82. Poland: University of Warsaw Press.Google Scholar