Reconstructing Pre-Bakairi Segmental Phonology

Sérgio Meira

KNAW / Rijksuniversiteit Leiden

Museu Paraense Emílio Goeldi

ABSTRACT

The present paper compares the two extant dialects of Bakairi, a Cariban language

spoken in Central Brazil, in order to reconstruct the segmental phonology of the pre-split

stage of this language (Pre-Bakairi) with the help of the comparative method. The recon-

structed forms are then compared with the 19th-century data collected by the German

explorer Karl von den Steinen. Based on this comparison, certain aspects of the recon-

struction are changed. In the end, a segmental phonology of Pre-Bakairi is proposed,

together with the changes that account for the present-day dialects. A list of reconstructed

forms is given in the appendix.

1
1. Introduction

Bakairi is a language of the Cariban family, Pekodian1 (Southern) sub-branch; cf.

Meira and Franchetto 2005. It is spoken by approximately 900 people in the State of Mato

Grosso, in Central Brazil. This language has two rather divergent dialects: Eastern

Bakairi, spoken by 700 people in seven villages in the Bakairi Indigenous Reservation

(Área Indígena Bakairi), near Paranatinga, and Western Bakairi, spoken by 200 people in

two villages in the Santana Indigenous Reservation (Área Indígena Santana), near

Nobres. The two reservations, rather small by Brazilian standards (61,000 and 35,000 ha

respectively), are approximately 100km away from each other. The more numerous

Eastern Bakairi are also more well-off, which is reflected in the higher prestige which

their dialect enjoys. The two most recent ethnographies of the Bakairi, Picchi 2000 and

Barros 2002, concentrate almost entirely on the Eastern Bakairi (although Barros also

contains some information on the Santana reservation). In spite — or perhaps because —

of their longer contact history with Brazilian society, the Western Bakairi are described as

less advanced, but also as having suffered more, than their more fortunate Eastern Bakairi

friends. When Karl von den Steinen, the German explorer who recognized their language

as a member of the Cariban family, met them in 1884, the Western Bakairi were already

fairly acculturated (Steinen 1886, 1892, 1894). Nevertheless, both Bakairi groups have

conserved their original language, spoken by every Bakairi and still acquired by all

children. Despite the presence of the national language, Portuguese (even the oldest

people speak at least some Portuguese), Bakairi remains the first language of the whole

2
community. Portuguese influence is apparently limited to a certain number of lexical

borrowings.

Despite the relatively easy access to the Bakairi communities, and the existence of a

quite good 19th-century source of linguistic data (Steinen 1892) and of some more recent

linguistic works (Souza 1991, 1994, 1995), not much is known about the relations between

the two dialects. The present paper is a first attempt at understanding the linguistic history

of these dialects by comparing cognates and reconstructing Pre-Bakairi segmental phon-

ology. The data used for this comparison were collected in 2003-2004, during three field

trips to both Bakairi reservations. In the first part of this paper, Pre-Bakairi phonology is

reconstructed with the help of the comparative method. In the second part, the

reconstructed forms are compared with Steinen’s 19th-century data. This comparison will

lead to certain changes in the main conclusions.

* * * FIGURE 1 ABOUT HERE * * *

2. Segmental phonology.

Table 1 summarizes the segmental phonology of the Bakairi dialects. As can be seen,

the differences concern the fricative series, the glottal segments, and the central vowels.

Voiced fricatives and the central vowel ˆ are exclusive to Eastern Bakairi, while the

glottal stop is found only in Western Bakairi. (The Cariban diachronic details mentioned

in this section are discussed in Meira and Franchetto 2005).

3
 * * * TABLE 1 ABOUT HERE * * *

A full series of distinctive voiced occlusives is a rare phenomenon in the Cariban

family, in which the normal picture is a series of voiceless stops, sometimes with voiced

allophones. Diachronically, voiceless stops became voiced intervocalically, except when

they occurred in consonant clusters; with the subsequent reduction of the consonant

clusters, a new set of intervocalic voiceless stops appeared, contrasting with the older

voiced stops. This accounts for the fact that voiced stops almost never occur word-

initially (except in probable borrowings, like their current autodenomination bakaiRi).

Pairs like papa ‘dove sp.’ and pabai ‘my father’, nutu ‘s/he learned, knew’ and nudu

‘s/he gave’, nˆkˆ ‘s/he fell asleep’ and nˆgˆ ‘s/he grated (manioc)’, valid for both dialects

(note that Eastern Bakairi nˆkˆ and nˆgˆ correspond to Western Bakairi niki and nigi),

exemplify the contrast. In Eastern Bakairi, ise ‘his mother’ and ize ‘wanting’ (desiderative

particle), poSi ‘fish sp.’ vs. poZi ‘grass, savanna’, illustrate the voicing contrast for

fricatives.2

The presence of contrastive nasality (cf. p´u ‘wild pig sp.’, p´)u) ‘beetle sp.’) is a

second rare phenomenon in the Cariban family, attested elsewhere only in Apalaí.

Although it derives historically from the loss of nasal consonants, which usually leads to

simple contrastive nasal vowels without spreading phenomena, there seems to be some

nasal spreading in both dialects of Bakairi (Eastern Bakairi tohoRe)"‚ ~ toho)Re)"‚ ~ to)ho)Re)"‚,

Western Bakairi to/o‚e‚ ~ to‚/o‚e‚ ‘strong’; only the final diphthong should be nasal, due to

the loss of a final *n). A third rare phenomenon is the presence of syllable-initial glottal

stops in Western Bakairi (e.g. tu/u ‘stone’, Eastern Bakairi tuhu), elsewhere attested

only in De’kwana (Hall 1988), Akuriyó (Meira 2000), and Waimiri-Atroari (Bruno 2003);

4
Cariban glottals typically occur only syllable-finally, as part of consonant clusters. Finally,

a distinctive lateral l is also rare in the family; it is elsewhere found only in Ikpeng, closely

related to Bakairi, and in Kuikuro.

The symbols p, t, k, b, d, s, z, S, Z, /, h, m, n, a, i, u have their usual (IPA) values.

The voiced stop g tends to be a fricative [ƒ] in normal to fast speech, especially in the

vicinity of back vowels; its voiceless counterpart is often slightly aspirated, especially

word-initially ([kh]), and also slightly backed (toward [q], [qh]) when followed by back

vowels (/a/, /o/, /u/).. The vibrant R is usually a simple flap, often slightly retroflex. The

lateral l is rather dorsal, similar to Russian l; it is palatalized after i (il → [ ilJ], [i¥]). No

consonants can occur syllable-finally. As for the vowels, ˆ is often [µ], e is a rather tense

[e], often difficult to distinguish from ˆ and i, and o is usually a rather lax [ç] (cf.

Northern Cariban languages, in which e and o are usually both lax [E, ç]). A number of

vowel sequences occur (e.g. ´ek´ ‘come here!’, ´unu ‘your blood’, pakia ‘paca (rodent

sp.)’, aituo ‘then’, ˆeRˆ ‘my tooth’).

For both dialects, ¯ (often simply æ‚, a nasal glide) is a positional variant of j, oc-

curring when a neighboring vowel is nasal (j + a) → ¯a)). Some of the various fricatives

are in near-complementary distribution (cf. sec. 3.2 for further details). The current

practical orthography ignores these details, writing all fricatives with different letters, ¯

as nh and Z as j (other occurrences of the palatal glide j are spelled as i: e.g. jeRˆ ‘my

tooth’, written iery). Nasality is represented as a syllable-final nasal consonant; this

orthographic convention does not create any problems, given the absence of coda nasals

in Bakairi (in fact, there are no coda consonants whatsoever; Bakairi syllables are all

5
(C)V or (C)VV). Following Portuguese usage, m is used before p, b and word-finally, and

n elsewhere (e.g. ak´)w´) ‘past; long ago’, written akânwâm; â = [´]).

Suprasegmental phenomena have not been researched in detail. In both dialects, stress

falls predictably on the syllable that has the second mora from the end of the (phonological)

word. In words composed exclusively of (C)V syllables, the penultimate mora coincides

with the penultimate syllable (and also with the penultimate vowel): e.g., med´ [»me.d´]

‘you saw (recent past)’, med´mo [me.»d´.mo] ‘you all saw’ (recent past, with the

number suffix -mo). The only other syllable type, (C)VV, is bimoraic in Bakairi;

consequently, word-final CVV syllables are regularly stressed (e.g., metai [me.»taiª] ‘you

saw (distant past)’). One can thus say that a Bakairi word has stress on the penultimate

syllable if the last syllable is CV, and on the last syllable if it is CVV. In a diphthong, the

stressed vowel is always the first one: e.g., metaimo [me.»taiª.mo] ‘you all saw (distant

past)’. Intonation differs noticeably between the two dialects and should be the target of

future research.

Throughout this work, all examples will be written phonemically, with the symbols in

Table 1, plus a tilde to indicate nasality: a), e), etc. Stress will be marked (with the IPA »

symbol) only when necessary. If a word has the same form in Eastern and in Western

Bakairi, it is, except when otherwise noted, given without further comments (e.g. idu

‘forest’, the same in both dialects); if it has different forms, the Eastern Bakairi form is

given first, followed by a slash (/) and its Western Bakairi counterpart (e.g. iwˆ /

iw´ ‘mountain’).

6
3. Comparing the segments

In the following sections, Pre-Bakairi segments will be reconstructed. As a first

guiding map, figure 2 below compares the segments which occur in non-identity cor-

respondences. In the discussion of the reconstructions, only a few illustrative examples of

every correspondence will be given; the interested reader can find all known examples in

the list of reconstructed forms at the end of this work.

* * * FIGURE 2 ABOUT HERE * * *

3.1 VOWELS

Most vowels in both dialects are stable, as can be seen in the identical examples

below.

*a, *a) aRa ‘like (Postp.)’, at´ ‘fishhook’, itagu ‘dew’, ka)go ‘lizard sp.’

*e, *e) megu ‘monkey sp.’, pepi ‘canoe’, jeRemu ‘my song’, ko)e)d´ ‘good’

*i, *"‚ pili ‘toucan sp.’, aki ‘agouti’, ikila ‘clay’, se)w"‚ ‘poisonous liana’

*o, *o) kop´ ‘rain’, peto ‘fire’, modo ‘worm’, o)wa) ‘on top of’

*u, *u) eunu ‘cloud, smoke’, awadu ‘manioc bread’, uR´ ‘I’, a)u)to ‘anatto’

The central vowels, however, are not stable. Eastern Bakairi has two such vowels, ˆ

and ´, while Western Bakairi only has one, ´. The correspondences involving them are

given in table 2 below.

7
 * * * TABLE 2 ABOUT HERE * * *

As can be seen, ˆ : ´ occurs after a labial consonant (p, b, m, w) or in a diphthong

ending in i (i.e. ˆRˆi : iR´i; the language apparently does not allow the occurrence of

sequences of identical vowels), while ˆ : i occurs elsewhere. Note that ´ : ´ does occur

after labials (e.g. w´g´ / w´g´ ‘about, on’), thus contrasting with ˆ : ´, while ˆ : ˆ does

not. Therefore, two vowels are reconstructed: *ˆ and *´ (and their nasal counterparts).

3.2 STABLE CONSONANTS: STOPS, NASALS, GLIDES, AND LIQUIDS

The reconstruction of stops, nasals, glides, and liquids is straightfowardly based on

identity correspondences. Only a few illustrative examples are given below. The glottal

stop is discussed in the next section.

*p peto ‘fire, firewood’, paRu ‘water’, ip´ ‘pequi fruit’, pelup´ ‘ashes’

*b tapabile)"‚ ‘red’, okobi ‘fish sp.’, k´)u)tuba ‘I don’t know’

*t taR´ ‘here’, ´t´ ‘house’, tuogo ‘crab’, toRo ‘parrot sp.’

*d idu ‘forest’, awadu ‘manioc bread’, kawida ‘macaw’, Sidatai ‘I saw it’

*k kop´ ‘rain’, aki ‘agouti’, peku ‘salt’, ke)ak

) ´ ‘past (particle)’

*g p´sega ‘pig’, ka)go ‘lizard sp.’, igu ‘hawk sp.’, ´g´u ‘snake’

*m m´k´ ‘that (animate)’, megu ‘monkey sp.’, semimu ‘bat sp.’, ma)e) ‘tapir’

*n enu ‘(his/her) eyes’, nun´ ‘moon’, ned´ ‘s/he saw it’, n´t´ ‘s/he went’

*w iw´elu ‘waterfall’, sawa)ku ‘flower’, wodo ‘my body’, SiwaRe ‘stingray’

*j jamu ‘darkness’, jenu ‘my eye’, juRiwa ‘heron sp.’, ajeni ‘one who does, doer’

*l kualu ‘fish sp.’, le ‘penis’, al´ ‘that’s it’, makala ‘heron sp.’

8
3.3 FRICATIVES

A number of correspondences involving fricatives, glottal stops, and zeros occur in

the available data. They are listed in table 3 below, together with the proposed re-

constructions and some illustrative examples.

* * * TABLE 3 ABOUT HERE * * *

Comments on the reconstructions:

(a) Identity correspondences are automatically reconstructed as such (*s, *S).

(b) Correspondences involving a fricative and a glottal stop contrast with the identity

correspondences (cf. ‘his mother’, under *s, and ‘Future (particle)’, under */s, in table

3). They are here reconstructed as glottal + fricative clusters. This is based on the well-

attested pattern of syllable reduction in the Cariban family (cf. e.g. Gildea 1995, Meira

2000). Certain word-internal syllables tend to lose their vowel, creating consonant

clusters which later evolve into glotal (/C or hC) clusters (the glottal segments can

further disappear, usually with compensatory lengthening of the preceding vowel):

*CVCVCV > *CVCCV > *CV/CV. As a result, glottal clusters are quite widespread

in the Cariban family, so that their existence in Pre-Bakairi would come as no surprise.

In certain cases, evidence from related languages also suggests the previous existence of

a cluster: in the Pekodian sub-branch, Ikpeng waRaktSi ‘into’ corresponds to Bakairi

odaSi / oda/i ‘into’, which suggests a development from Proto-Pekodian *ktS > Pre-

Bakairi */S > Eastern Bakairi S, Western Bakairi /.3

9
(c) Correspondences involving a voiced fricative and zero are reconstructed as voiced

fricatives. This implies that intervocalic voiced fricatives were lost in Western Bakairi,

which is a plausible hypothesis. The z : h correspondence occurs only when the

following vowel is a, while z : ∅ occurs elsewhere; both correspondences can

therefore be reconstructed as *z.

The examples in table 3 may have suggested to the attentive reader that there are

restrictions and biases in the distribution of Bakairi fricatives. This is indeed the case, as

can be seen in table 4 below.

* * * TABLE 4 ABOUT HERE * * *

As can be seen, the distributions of fricatives are almost complementary: s and z

occur mostly before a and e, S and Z before i (and, in Eastern Bakairi, before ˆ), and h

before o and u. If one further takes into account the fact that voiced fricatives are always

intervocalic, while their voiceless counterparts are mostly word-initial, it becomes

tempting to posit only one fricative phoneme, e.g. /s/, with the realizations listed in (1)

below:

(1) /s/ → [s] / #__a, e

→ [z] / V__a, e

→ [S] / #__i, ˆ, u

→ [Z] / V__i

→ [h] elsewhere

10
 This connection between the fricatives did not go unnoticed: Steinen (1892: 276)

writes about an s-group (h, χ, z, s, s&, z) of related sounds that often vary with each other;

Souza (1994:87, 1995) describes the distribution of fricatives as “predictable”, resulting

from Steinen’s “aspirate h”. Synchronically, there are reasons not to adopt it (see next

paragraph); diachronically, there is some evidence in favor of (1): comparisons with other

Cariban languages suggest that an earlier (Pre-)Pre-Bakairi *s may have given rise to all

Western Bakairi fricatives. In table 5 below, one can see that the Western Bakairi

fricatives often correspond to the same fricative in other Cariban languages (here,

Hixkaryana [Derbyshire 1979, 1985] and Makushi [Amodio & Pira 1996]; together with

Bakairi, these three languages belong to three independent sub-branches in all extant

classifications of the Cariban family). The Bakairi intervocalic voiceless fricatives in table

5 tend to correspond to consonant clusters in Hixkaryana and in Makushi (cf. ‘catch

(purpose form)’, ‘my daughter’). This agrees well with the reconstruction of glottal

clusters (cf. (b) above); note that the Western Bakairi counterparts have glottal stops, as

should be expected (e.g. aw´/e ‘catch (purpose form)’; ‘daughter’ is not attested).

* * * TABLE 5 ABOUT HERE * * *

The main reason for not accepting (1) as a synchronic analysis is that there are too

many exceptions. Clearly, S has become independent from s, with near-minimal pairs

such as SaR´ ‘hither’ vs. saRo ‘otter’ or saRˆ ‘leaf’, or S´g´ ‘kill it!’ vs. s´k´ ‘eat it!’ (the

same is true for s and z and for S and Z in Eastern Bakairi; cf. ise ‘his mother’ vs. ize

‘wanting’, poSi ‘fish sp.’ vs. poZi ‘grass, savanna’, already mentioned in sec. 2). Word-

11
medially, because of the simplification of earlier clusters, both s and S can occur (cf. table

5). Near-minal pairs between s, h, and S also exist (the following vowel being o or u): oso

‘your husband’, ohohu ‘your chest’, Sogo ‘father! (vocative)’. Only Z is still in full

complementary distribution with s ; but note that Z is also in complementary distribution

with j (cf. table 4), which makes it difficult to decide whether Z is better analyzed

synchronically as a surface realization of a phoneme /j/ or of a phoneme /s/.

3.4 VIBRANTS

Three correspondences involving R occur in the data, as can be seen in table 6 below.

* * * TABLE 6 ABOUT HERE * * *

The R : ∅ correspondence is almost always adjacent to nasal vowels. The only ex-

ception in the available data is tukaRi / tukai ‘nut sp.’, in which there are no nasal vowels.

This R : ∅ example would seem to contrast with aRipi / aRipi ‘old woman’ (R : R) and

with paikaˆ / paRika´ ‘in the water/river’ (∅ : R). Given its uniqueness, however, tukaRi /

tukai is better seen as an unexplained idiosyncrasy (a borrowing? a case of loss of the nasal

environment?) rather than as an independent correspondence reflecting a distinct Pre-

Bakairi sound. All the other cases of R : ∅ are predictable from the surrounding nasal

vowels. It is thus reconstructed here as *R.4

The R : R and ∅ : R correspondences apparently contrast in the same environment (i.e.

with the same surrounding vowels): compare, e.g., aRipi / aRipi ‘old woman’ with paikaˆ

/ paRika´ ‘in the water/river’, jeRemu / jeRemu ‘my song’ with ¯emagelˆ / ¯eRemageli

‘(s/he) talked, gossiped’, or ´Rig´ / ´Rig´ ‘hawk sp.’ with ´idˆlˆ / ´Ridili ‘(s/he) danced’.

12
However, a closer look reveals that the conditioning factor is stress: the first

correspondence (R : R) is found when the R’s are adjacent to a stressed vowel, while the

second correspondence (∅ : R, i.e. R-loss in Eastern Bakairi) occurs elsewhere. Since, as

was noted at the end of sec. 2 above, stress always falls on the penultimate mora, this

means that R : R is to be found in the two last syllables of a word; elsewhere, ∅ : R occurs.

To illustrate this pattern, some of the above examples are repeated below, in table 7, with

added stress marks.

* * * TABLE 7 ABOUT HERE * * *

There are a few exceptions to this pattern, with plausible explanations:

(i) Verb stems like epagu / epaRagu ‘stop’: although the R apparently precedes the

stressed vowel, it must be noted that the bare stem of verb is not frequent. With

most tense-aspect-mood suffixes, the R is not adjacent to a stressed vowel (cf. the

desiderative form j-e.pa.gu-»di.ze / j-e.pa.Ra.gu-»di.e ‘I want to stop’). Such

forms would have been the first to lose the R in Eastern Bakairi, which could then

have been lost by analogy in the other forms.

(ii) Words with two R-initial syllables in a row exemplify ∅ : R, even when there is an

intermediary stressed vowel that should condition R : R. Possessed nouns that take

the possession-marking suffix -Ru ~ -Rˆ / -Ri offer some examples: i-»go-Ru / i-

go.»Ro-Ru ‘his throat, flute’, ´-du.»e-Rˆ / ´-du.»Re-Ri ‘your enemy’.

(iii) There are three remaining exceptions: mu.»gu.tu / mu.gu.»Ru.tu ‘owl sp.’

Su.»sau.gu / ju.sa.»Ro.gu ‘fish tail’, and u.»gu9o).do / ´.gu.»Ro.do ‘man’. For all

13
 cases, there is some circumstantial evidence for idiosyncratic developments.

Steinen 1892:43 has muruγu@tu ‘Eule’, suggesting that the Ru syllable was in a

different position. In Su.»sau.gu, the au diphtong (instead of ao, a possible

sequence: cf. the particle wao) is unexpected, as is the irregular correspondence S

: j. In u.»gu9o).do, the nasality of the o) and the initial u : ´ correspondence with

Western Bakairi ´.gu.»Ro.do are both irregular (cf. sec. 5).

Considering the above arguments, the three correspondences in table 6 are thus

reconstructed as one single Pre-Bakairi *R.

4. Steinen’s data.

Steinen’s (1892) data were collected during two expeditions to the Upper Xingu in

1884 and 1887-1888. Aware of the importance of the discovery of a Cariban language in

Central Brazil, Steinen was very thorough: he collected more than 1,800 lexical items,

paradigms for about 200 verbs, 542 elicited sentences, and 5 narrative texts with a total of

385 sentences. Although his transcription is not always felicitous, it is still good enough

to add important contributions to our understanding of Bakairi linguistic history.

In the following sections, the conclusions reached thus far are checked against

Steinen’s data. As will be seen, there are facts that could not be reconstructed without

Steinen’s help.

A few notes on Steinen’s transcription are in order. The letters a, o, u, e, i and p, b, t,

k, g, s, z, dz, h, l, m, n are meant to have their normal canonical values. Steinen notes

(1892:XV) that e is ‘offen und geschlossen’, i.e. it has open (=lax [E]) and closed (=tense

14
[e]) allophones (probably in free variation; note that nowadays only [e] occurs), and that

a ‘ist in den Endsilben unrein’, i.e. ‘is impure in the final syllables’, which can be

interpreted as evidence that some final a’s were actually central vowels. He adds no

comments on the letter r, but it is probably safe to assume that he meant it as an alveolar

tap [R], not as a (German) uvular tap. Table 8 summarizes Steinen’s description of the

other letters. Steinen uses a few diacritics: a bar on top of a vowel ( a# ) indicates length;

an acute accent ( a@ ), stress; a tilde ( a) ), nasalization.

* * * TABLE 8 ABOUT HERE * * *

4.1 VOWELS

In most cases, Steinen’s oral vowels agree well with the available data, with relatively

few inconsistencies and little variation (‘like’, ‘canoe’, ‘crab sp.’ in table 9). Only for the

central vowels ˆ and ´ do we find significant variation (‘house’, ‘what’, ‘arrow’), suggest-

ing that Steinen did not transcribe these vowels well (note that he does not have separate

symbols for them).

* * * TABLE 9 ABOUT HERE * * *

Despite Steinen’s hesitations, it is quite clear that central vowels did exist. The very

fact that he used symbols such as å (described as [ç]), ü and ö (probably meant as

German ü [y] and ö [O], [ø]), and usually in words that have ˆ or ´ in the modern dialects

(cf. table 9), is enough evidence.5 It will be assumed that the variation in Steinen’s data is

spurious and that the reconstruction in sec. 3.1 is correct.

15
 Nasal vowels are less consistently transcribed than oral vowels, but there are enough

examples to guarantee their existence in Steinen’s times (cf. table 10). Often, however,

corresponding to nasal vowels in both modern dialects, Steinen has an intervocalic nasal

consonant. Given their frequency, they cannot be simply ascribed to mistranscriptions. It

is much more probable that they did really exist, in which case they must, of course, be

reconstructed to Pre-Bakairi. These nasal consonants must have been subsequently lost in

both present-day dialects.6

* * * TABLE 10 ABOUT HERE * * *

4.2 STABLE CONSONANTS: STOPS, NASALS, GLIDES, AND LIQUIDS.

In most cases, Steinen’s data confirms the stability of these consonants, as recon-

structed in sec. 3.2.

* * * TABLE 11 ABOUT HERE * * *

The following remarks, however, are necessary:

(a) The voiceless stops *p and *t basically agree with Steinen’s p and t; *k, on the other

hand, corresponds most often to kχ, suggesting a strongly aspirated stop. In the

combined distribution of k and kχ in Steinen’s data, more than half of the

occurences are kχ; if one considers only word-initial position, this percentage

raises to 90%. In the present-day dialects, *k is slightly aspirated, especially word-

initially, and backed (toward [q]) when followed by back vowels. It would seem that

Steinen noticed the word-initial aspirated allophone and wrote it as kχ, thus

16
 suggesting that the situation then was the same as today; his choice of symbols, kχ

instead of, e.g,. kh, further suggests that the aspiration may have been stronger

than it is today. (The fact that Steinen considered kχ to be a variant of k can be

seen in the German spelling of Bakairi names: the character kχeri, who plays an

important role in several myths, is Germanized to Keri in the German translations.)

(b) The voiced stops *b and *g basically agree with Steinen’s b and g, including the variation

between g and ƒ, despite some inconsistencies (note that, precisely in the minimal pair

between ‘sleep’ and ‘grate’, Steinen had both stems with k); *d, on the other hand, usually

occurs as t. This suggests that the voicing of intervocalic obstruents (cf. Meira and

Franchetto 2005) was apparently not yet complete in Steinen’s time: Proto-Carib *t

(unlike *p and *k) had not yet become d. However, Steinen mentions (p. 254) that word-

internal t and d are often difficult to distinguish (which is not the case in the present-day

dialects); this suggests that there was more variation that can be seen in his transcriptions.

Moreover, the near-minimal pair ‘doesn’t know’ vs. ‘he gave’ in table 11 casts some

doubt on the idea that there was no *d: if Steinen is right and both meanings had the stem

*utu, then both modern dialects would need to have — independently — innovated a

distinction between utu ‘know’ and udu ‘give’. The best solution seems to be that these

two stems were not really homophonous in Steinen’s time, and that he failed to record the

distinction consistently. One must thus — albeit reluctantly — conclude that (as the

dialect data indicate) there already was a *d in Pre-Bakairi.

(c) The examples with n both in Steinen’s data and in the present-day dialects show that

not all intervocalic n’s were lost. By comparing the relevant examples (from tables 10

and 11), one concludes that word-initial n’s and n’s in the final syllable (which, given

17
 the penultimate-mora Bakairi stress system, means n’s preceded by stressed vowels)

were preserved.

A final question is the status of Steinen’s λ. In his data, and according to his own

comments (cf. table 8), it is almost always in variation with an r-initial syllable, usually ri;

in the present-day dialects, there always is an R-initial syllable (e.g. war"@ri, war"@λ ‘kleiner

Ameisenbär’ = ‘small anteater’, waRiRi ‘anteater sp.’). Taking also into account the not

unfrequent cases of variation between r and l (e.g. iwer@ e, iwe@le, iwe@ra ‘jetzt, heute’ =

‘now, today’), Steinen’s λ seems to indicate some unusual feature in the pronunciation of

the Bakairi vibrant, probably the slight retroflection that is still noticeable in the modern

dialects, and that may have been particularly easy to hear in the final syllable of words,

where the final vowels, always unstressed, tend to reduce.

4.3 FRICATIVES

Words with fricatives in the available data correspond to words with fricatives in

Steinen’s Bakairi. However, Steinen’s hesitation between various fricatives is surprising,

often involving three or even four variants, as can be seen in table 12.

* * * TABLE 12 ABOUT HERE * * *

This variation is apparently too extensive to be entirely attributed to mistranscriptions:

Steinen certainly knew sounds like h, χ, z, s, s&, z& from various European languages and

should have no difficulty in distinguishing them. He is clearly aware of his own

shortcomings as a non-native transcriber of Bakairi data, but he also notes that “the

speaker sins as much as the hearer” (p. 250-251) with respect to changing sounds. On p.

18
276, he further remarks that the fricatives vary with surprising frequency: “in many

words, it is indifferent to the Bakairi whether the pronunciation should be s, z, or h”. This

is, however, not the case in the modern dialects, for which there is very little if any

variation in the phonetic realization of fricatives.

One possible explanation is that Steinen may have mixed data from speakers of

different dialects. In fact, he was the first European to meet the Eastern Bakairi, along the

headwaters of the Xingu river. However, he explicitly claims to have collected his

extensive linguistic materials from one speaker, his guide Antonio, whose photograph is

printed on the title page of his book (Steinen 1892). If we believe Steinen’s word, the

variation in his data reflects to a large extent the actual variation in Antonio’s speech.

Another possible explanation is that Steinen’s variations indicate ongoing change. As

was suggested in sec. 3.3, the present-day Bakairi fricatives probably result from one

single (Pre-)Pre-Bakairi fricative, possibly *s. The synchronic variation which Steinen

observed may simply mean that *s was in the process of changing into all the other

fricatives, roughly in the environments given in (1), sec. 3.3, with different realizations

depending on e.g. speed (fast vs. slow speech) or style (narratives vs. spontaneous dia-

logues). If this is true, then one could argue that only *s should be reconstructed to Pre-

Bakairi.

There are, in other words, two possibilities:

(a) to keep the reconstruction of all fricatives, as in sec. 3.3, since the dialectal data

support it;

(b) to conclude, from Steinen’s data, that the fricatives were still being created, and

therefore to reconstruct fewer of them, possibly only *s.

19
 Note that, as was suggested in sec. 3.3, the cross-Cariban evidence does indeed

suggest that all Bakairi fricatives are reflects of one single fricative or affricate (which

Meira and Franchetto 2005 derive from the palatalization of Proto-Cariban *t). The ques-

tion is simply when this single sound split into different fricatives. Did the various frica-

tives (probably at first mere positional variants) become independent in Pre-Bakairi times,

before the dialectal split, or after it? At this point, it is interesting to have a look at table

13, which has Steinen’s data on the (near-)minimal pairs for fricatives from sec. 3.3.

* * * TABLE 13 ABOUT HERE * * *

In these examples, one sees that Steinen has transcribed differently words that have

different fricatives in the present-day dialects: S corresponds to ty, ti or (t)χ, s to s, Z to z&,

z, h, and h to χ. The previous data (from table 12), when compared with table 13, begins to

look less chaotic, although there are still cases for concern. Could it be that these fricatives

were already different in Steinen’s times, and that he simply failed to distinguish them

consistently? Should we interpret Steinen’s comment on the amount of variation in

Antonio’s speech as suggesting that the pronunciation of these fricatives was not exactly

the same as their nearest European equivalents, a fact which may have confused him? All

in all, this seems to be the best conclusion. The cases of variation in his data are so

frequent that some real variation must actually have occurred; but it would seem that the

situation was less chaotic than Steinen believed.

What can be said about the glottal clusters that were proposed in sec. 3.3: */s, */h,

*/S ? Nowhere in Steinen’s materials do we find any reference to a glottal stop or some-

thing similar. It is possible that it did not exist in the speech of his consultant Antonio;

20
but it must also be said that glottal stops are not distinctive units and never occur before

fricatives in Steinen’s native German. It would not be implausible to claim that, should

they be there, he would not have heard them, especially if one takes into account the

chaos which he assumed to exist in the pronunciation of Bakairi fricatives.

In the absence of further evidence, the most prudent solution is to keep the recon-

structions made in sec. 3.3, and to assume — again reluctantly — that Steinen’s remarks

on the Bakairi fricatives are mistaken.

4.4 VIBRANTS

In almost all cases, Steinen’s data has n for *R between nasal vowels and r or l for *R

elsewhere (i.e. n for the R : ∅ correspondence in table 6 and r or l for the other two). Table

14 below shows some examples. In nasal environments, only n occurs in most cases (e.g.

‘bird sp.’); there are only a few cases in which variants with r or l occur (e.g. ‘fish’,

‘piranha’).

* * * TABLE 14 ABOUT HERE * * *

Given this situation, one might wonder if what was here reconstructed as *R between

nasal vowels might not have been *n. In fact, a *n > R change, with nasalization of the

surrounding vowels, is quite plausible. In addition, cognates from other Cariban lan-

guages usually have n in these cases (compare *ka)Ra) ‘fish’, *p´)Re) ‘piranha’, with e.g.

Tiriyó kana ‘fish’, p´ne ‘piranha’). The cross-Cariban comparative evidence would

certainly support the reconstruction of Proto-Cariban *n for these cases (cf. Meira and

Franchetto 2005). The only question is whether the *n > R change prececed the splitting

of Pre-Bakairi into its two modern dialects or not.

21
 This is the same kind of dating problem that was discussed in sec. 4.3 with respect to

the fricatives. At first sight, Steinen’s data suggest that *n had not yet changed in Pre-

Bakairi times, since it is present in most of his transcriptions. The cases of variation

between n and r or l, however, cast some doubt on this hypothesis. Steinen himself

mentioned that these sounds were often difficult to distinguish. On p. 35, he reports that

“[...] r and n sound very similar” in the variants of the word for ‘fish’; on p. 255, he

writes: “n comes occasionally close to the dental r, as in aroto ‘anatto’ and anoto, or

ara@z&i ‘corn, maize’ and ana@z&i. But I always noted that it is a dental sound.” In present-day

Eastern Bakairi, it is indeed often difficult to hear the difference between an R in a nasal

environment and an intervocalic n: Eastern Bakairi words like u)Ru) ‘my flesh, body’ and

unu ‘my blood’ can baffle foreigners (but native speakers can easily distinguish them).

The possibility that Steinen missed a real difference is much higher than was the case for

the fricatives in sec. 4.3, where the variants are sounds that Europeans usually hear without

difficulty. Here, the fact that Steinen himself drew attention to the R-variants seems sig-

nificant: he did notice them sometimes, and it is not implausible that they were much more

frequent than he realized. Therefore, although it is not impossible that Proto-Cariban *n

had not yet become R in Steinen’s times, it will be assumed here that it had, and the recon-

structions with *R (like *ka)Ra) ‘fish’) from sec. 4.3 will be kept. Reconstructions with *n

(*kana) should probably be ascribed to periods earlier than Pre-Bakairi.7

5. Comments on exceptional cases.

A few exceptional words deserve further comment. They are listed in table 15.

22
 * * * TABLE 15 ABOUT HERE * * *

The first word, ‘man’, shows signs of irregular development. The initial vowels do

not form a regular correspondence. Steinen’s data points to u; but there are cognates in

other Cariban languages that have o, which could have regularly developed into Bakairi ´

(e.g. Karinya wo˘kˆRˆ ‘man’: Hoff 1968:437), and Steinen’s transcription of ´ is

problematic. Note that the w in the Karinya form suggests that both Bakairi reflexes

could be derived from an earlier (Pre-)Pre-Bakairi *w´guRo(do). To be conservative, how-

ever, it seems best to reconstruct an undetermined vowel *V at the beginning of this word. A

second problem is the presence of nasality in the Eastern Bakairi form: none of the other

forms — in fact, no cognate forms from any other Cariban language — has a nasal vowel or

consonant. The only suggestion that comes to mind is to suppose that the final do is an old

number suffix (cf., e.g., the forms kaRaiwa ‘foreigner’ and kaRaiwa-do ‘foreigners’) which

lexicalized as part of the stem, a fairly frequent phenomenon in Cariban languages. Cognates

of this suffix from other Cariban languages do have a nasal consonant (e.g., Tiriyó ton ~

tomo, Wayana tom ~ tomo), which could presumably have yielded *to) in (Pre-)Bakairi. In a

form like *VguRoto), the nasality might have changed syllables to *VguRo)to (perhaps via an

intermediate assimilated form *VguRo)to) ), which would then develop into Eastern Bakairi

uguo)do. This is a plausible story; but, in the absence of further confirming evidence, it

remains speculative.

The second word, *tiSi ‘sun’, is the only one for which a syllable *ti can be proposed:

other cases of Western Bakairi ti correspond to Eastern Bakairi tˆ and are reconstructed as

23
*tˆ. In other words, there are no ti’s in the available Eastern Bakairi data, and the instances of

ti in Western Bakairi derive from Pre-Bakairi *tˆ’s. A ti > Si change in *tiSi is, in itself, quite

plausible and should raise no eyebrows; but the fact that there apparently was only one word

for it to affect is certainly suspect. This strongly suggests that the ti > Si change actually took

place before Pre-Bakairi times; but, if this was so, it should also have affected *tiSi. One

wonders if the unexpected initial *ti could not be due to external influence: note that, in the

neighboring Cariban language Kuikuro, the word for ‘sun’ is ƒiti. This idea has, however, one

problem: speakers of Kuikuro (Nahukwa dialect) were indeed in contact with the Eastern

Bakairi, who had lost contact with the Western Bakairi when Steinen found them; but the

dialect which has the initial t is not Eastern but Western Bakairi. Another possibility is dissi-

milation of an earlier *(t)SiSi in Western Bakairi. Steinen does have an initial affricate ts& in this

word; however, he also transcribed an initial ts& in, e.g., ts&irimu@ka ‘star’, here reconstructed

as *SiRimuk´ (cf. sec. 4.4). The evidence is thus not conclusive. In this work, the recon-

structed form *tiSi will be maintained as a provisory solution.

In the case of *(S)ina ‘we (exclusive)’, the situation is almost reversed: Eastern

Bakairi still has S, but Western Bakairi has, instead of a stop, no consonant at all. Steinen’s

data show a lot of variation in the initial consonant; but this was also the case for *SiR´

‘this (inanimate)’ (cf. sec. 4.3, table 12), which occurs as SiR´, with an initial S, in Western

Bakairi. For the time being, not much more than ‘idiosyncratic loss’ can be suggested.8

The last word, *(az)anaZi ‘corn’, is an interesting case. The Eastern Bakairi form and

Steinen’s data suggest something like *anaZi (cf. the parallel case of ‘who?’ in table 10);

but the h between two a’s in Western Bakairi points to an initial *aza (cf. e.g. ‘mosquito’

in table 12). It would be possible to reconstruct two different words (e.g. *anaZi and

24
*aza)Zi or *aza)R"‚ ; for the latter, cf. ‘bird sp.’ in table 14), with only the first one attested in

Steinen. But there are sufficient similarities between them (the vowels, the nasality) to

make reconstruction as a single word also plausible. If one takes into account some

apparently reduplicated forms from other languages (e.g. Hixkaryana, Waiwai nasˆnasˆ

‘corn’), then a mixed form *azanaZi, probably also originally reduplicated, becomes

appealing. It not impossible that both *anaZi and *azanaZi existed: note that, if the

Eastern Bakairi form had derived from *azanaZi, regular change should have led to the

(unattested) form *aza)Zi. To keep the two-word possibility in mind, the reconstructed

form is left here as *(az)anaZi. Of course, it would be possible to appeal to the ‘chaotic

situation’ of fricatives in Steinen’s times, and to point to the irregular cases of fricative

development in *(S)ina ‘we (exclusive)’ and *tiSi ‘sun’ as discussed above, to claim that

*azanaZi simply underwent an irregular loss of intervocalic z in Eastern Bakairi; however,

in the absence of more conclusive evidence, it seems more sensible to accept two forms,

as suggested in *(az)anaZi, than to postulate yet another irregular development.

6. Conclusion: from Pre-Bakairi to the modern dialects.

Based on the discussion from the preceding sections, the phonological system of

Proto-Bakairi is reconstructed as shown in table 16. (Non-distinctive sounds are given in

parenthesis.)

* * * TABLE 16 ABOUT HERE * * *

Oral and nasal vowels were present. The voiceless stops are also well-attested;

Steinen’s data suggests that *k was, at least word-initially, strongly aspirated (*[kH]).

25
Steinen’s data suggest that *d may still have been in the process of differentiating itself

from *t ; here, it is assumed that *d was already an independent unit. All the fricatives in

Western Bakairi can be reconstructed, but Steinen’s data suggests that they might have

been positional variants of a single *s. The two glottal consonants — */ and *h — were

distributionally constrained: */ occurred only syllable-finally, in consonant clusters, and

*h occurred only after */. The other consonants — nasals (including *¯ as a surface

realization of *j when followed by a nasal vowel), vibrants, liquids, and glides — can

also be reconstructed. Clusters with a glottal and a fricative — */s, etc. — were also

reconstructed. Stress was on the penultimate mora, as is still the case in both dialects and,

in most cases, also in Steinen’s data.

The changes postulated for the present-day dialects are mapped in table 17.

* * * TABLE 17 ABOUT HERE * * *

In sum, the non-central vowels, the stops, the glides, *m and *l did not change. In

Eastern Bakairi, the fricatives were also conserved, the glottal clusters were simplified by

loss of the glottal stop, and *R was lost when not adjacent to a stressed vowel. In Western

Bakairi, *s and *S were also conserved, but *Z was dropped everywhere, and *z also

when not followed by *a (in which case it became h), the glottal clusters were simplified

to / via loss of the fricatives, and *R was conserved except when surrounded by nasal

vowels (in which case it was dropped). In both dialects, *n was dropped (leaving nasal

vowels behind) except when word-initial or preceded by a stressed vowel. This last

change could not have been reconstructed without the help of Steinen’s data.

26
 It is interesting that most of the changes have apparently happened after Steinen’s

first encounter with the Bakairi, i.e. in the last 120 years: *R-loss, *n-loss, and perhaps also

the fricative changes (Steinen’s data has too much variation for a final conclusion to be

drawn). The glottal loss and the changes in the central vowels may have preceded

Steinen’s times, but it is also possible that these sounds were still unchanged in Steinen’s

time and he simply did not transcribe them accurately. Steinen’s Bakairi may thus be very

close to the Pre-Bakairi reconstructed here. One may thus assume that Steinen’s Bakairi

marks almost precisely the end of the Pre-Bakairi period. That would mean, curiously

enough, that very little happened in the period in which the Eastern and Western Bakairi

were isolated from each other, probably from the late 18th century, according to Barros

(2002), until the first meeting between Eastern and Western Bakairi men during Steinen’s

1884 expedition to the Xingu region). Only after resuming contact did the two dialects

differentiate significantly. Steinen mentions (p.v) that there were so few dialectal dif-

ferences between the Eastern and Western Bakairi that he almost never had to worry

about them. It is, in fact, difficult to decide which dialect was spoken by Steinen’s main

consultant, Antonio. According to Steinen, Antonio comes from an Eastern Bakairi

village along the Paranatinga river; but this can be seen only by looking at some

idiosyncratic words like ‘corn’, and perhaps also ‘sun’, in table 15.

27
APPENDIX: COMPARATIVE WORD LIST

This word list contains all the words in the author’s data (collected in two field trips to

both Bakairi reservations in 2003) for which differences were found between the two dia-

lects. The equivalent forms in Steinen’s data, when attested, were also added.

Alphabetic order: a b d e ´ g h / i ˆ j Z k l m n o p R s S t u w z

PRE-BAKAIRI E. BAKAIRI W. BAKAIRI GLOSS STEINEN 1892

*agaitƂo) agaitƂo) agait"o

‚ ) adult aγait"@o, zaγait"@o, haγait"@o ‘alt’

*saRˆ saRˆ saRi leaf sa@ri, saλ ‘Blatt’

*aRakuma aukuma aRakuma hen araku@ma ‘Hahn, Henne’

*awˆ awˆ aw´ be m-aw"@-le ‘du kamst’

*azag´ azag´ ahag´ two asa@γe, aha@γe, ahake@-le ‘zwei’

*(az)anaZi a)Zi aha)",‚ a)ha)"‚ corn ana@z&i, ana@hi, araèh# i ‘Mais’

*aze aze ae be born ahe@-le ‘du bist geboren’

*d´/hu d´hu d´/u belly, guts kχi-ta@χu ‘Darm’

*dˆbˆ/tˆbˆ dˆbˆ/tˆbˆ dib´/tib´ Past -r"@bi, -t"@bi

*dˆlˆ dˆlˆ dili Imperfective -d"@le

*dˆze/dˆ/se dˆze/dˆse die/di/e Desiderative -t"@he, -tise, -d"@se

*duRe due duRe enemy u-ture@-λ ‘Feind’

*edˆ edˆ edi hammock y-eèt# i ‘meine Hängematte’

*edˆ edˆ edi feces kχ-eèt# i, kχ-äèti, kχi-e@ti ‘Kothhaufe’

28
*ega/seli egaseli ega/eli come out eγasé-le ‘sie kommen heraus’

*egˆ egˆ egi pet

*eZiku eZiku eiku place heh"@ku, eh"@ko ‘Wohnung’

*e/hoga ehoga e/oga marrow

*e/hoRu ehoRu e/oRu light

*ekaZi ekaZi ekai comb eka@s&i ‘Kamm’

*elˆ elˆ eli vagina eli, elli ‘Vulva’

*emˆdˆ emˆdˆ em´di forehead kχ-am"‹tê i ‘Gesicht’

*enˆ enˆ eni drink s-eni-ra@ki ‘ich habe getrunken’

*ena/hu enahu ena/u close m-enaχu-ra@γi ‘hast du geschlossen?’

*ena/huge enahuge ena/uge open in-enaχuγe@-le ‘er öffnete’

*enaRama enama enaRama grow up enarama@-ni ‘er zog sie auf’

*enedˆ enedˆ enedi veins

*epaRagu epagu epaRagu stop eparaγu-t"@le ‘(das Wasser) stand still’

*e(p/b)ˆRˆ ebˆRˆ ep´Ri payment

*e)Ra) e)Ra) e)a) Particle

*eRemage emage eRemage gossip

*etˆ etˆ eti house "@ti, e@ti ‘sein Haus’

*ew"‚dˆ ew"‚dˆ ew"‚di hunger

*ewilˆ ewilˆ ewili fruit ewile, ew"@li ‘Frucht’

*eze)u) eze)u) eu), e)u) knee kχ-aheu@-λ, kχ-aheu@-ru ‘Knie’

*ezedˆ ezedˆ edi name eheèt# i, eze@ti ‘Name’

29
 *´dˆ ´dˆ ´di what o@ti, åèti, ot"@ ‘was?’

*´dˆk´ ´dˆk´ ´dik´ where ot"@ka, otika@, odika@ ‘wo? woher? wohin?’

*´duRa ´daRa ´duRa OK? åtu@ra, adu@ra, odu@ra ‘warum? wann? wie?’

*´duRapa ´dapa ´duRapa OK!

*´ekˆ ´ekˆ ´iki defecate m-åiki-ra@γi ‘kacken’

*´ewˆ ´ewˆ ´ew´ come m-aewi-le ‘kommen’

*´)gˆ ´)gˆ ´)gi who anaγi, åna@γi, ånåγè i ‘irgendwer; wer?’

*´Æ) a‚ ) ´)Æa‚ ) ´)¯a) to you å-"@na, a-üèna, a-h"‹nê a, a-"‹nê a ‘zu dir’

*´maRemo ´maemo ´maRemo you (pl.) amareèm

# o, hamare@mo, mareèm
# o ‘ihr’

*´)Re)w"‚ ´)Re)w"‚ ´)"w

‚ "‚ peanut ane@wi ‘Mandubi, Erdpistazie’

*´Ri ´i ´Ri dance (V) m-åri-d"@le ‘du tanzest’

*´tˆ ´tˆ ´ti party, feast åèti ‘Fest’

*(´)/o))wa) ´)wa) o)wa) path oèw

) a, aèw
) a, oèa) ) ‘Weg’

*´weRˆ ´weRˆ ´weRi your grandson i-we-λ, ti-weè-# ri ‘Enkel’

*´)w´)R´) ´)w´)R´) ´)w´) ant sp.

*´)wÆ‚sa)ud
) o ´)wÆ‚sa)ud
) o ´)w´)sa)ud
) o girl a)wizato ‘Jungfrau’

*´(w/Z)iku ´Ziku ´wiku your urine kχ-eh"@ku ‘Urin’

*´zeki ´zeki ´eki unequal

*gadˆ gadˆ gadi fat kχe-γaèd# i, i-γa@ti ‘Fett’

*g´kˆ g´kˆ g´ki sound

*/ho ho /o causative

*/hoda hoda /oda toenail

30
 */hohu hohu /ou chest kχ-uχo@u, kχ-uχo@wu, kχ-uχo@hu ‘Brust’

*/hu hu /u foot; butt kχu-χu@-λ, kχu-χu@-lu, kχu-χu@-ru ‘Fuß’

*id´lˆ id´lˆ id´li he is going

*idˆlˆ idˆlˆ idili he is bathing i-d"@le ‘er wusch’

*igeRˆpˆ igeˆpˆ igeRip´ corpse i-tåè-le ‘ging’

*ig´wˆnu ig´wˆnu ig´w´nu cold iγaw"@na ‘Kälte’

*igˆRˆ igˆRˆ igiRi thorn iγüèri ‘Dorn, Stachel’

*igoRoRu igoRu igoRoRu throat; flute kχu-γoro@-ru ‘Kehlkopf’

*"/‚ hogulˆ "‚-hogu-lˆ "‚-/ogu-li he answers in-"@χoku@-le ‘sie antworteten’

*i/huge ihuge i/uge fall n-iχuγe-ra@ki ‘fallen’

*i/huki ihuki i/ugi otter sp. iχu@ki ‘kleine Fischotter’

*i/se ise i/e Future(Particle) ise, ihe ‘Futurum’

*ikaˆ ikaˆ ika´ LIQ.in

*ikaZi ikaZi ikai LIQ.into paru-kas"& ,@ par-ika@he ‘in den Fluss’

*imeR"bˆRˆ ime)"b
‚ ˆRˆ imeRib´Ri small ime@ri ‘klein, nur von Kindern’

*im´/sedo im´sedo im´/edo big "‹m

ê a, ima@e ‘gross’

*i-mo-Ru j-o)Ru j-o) egg i-moè-# ru ‘Ei’

*imˆ/ho imˆho im´/o detour(?)

*ipadaRˆ ipadaRˆ ipadaRi creek.cross

*ipebaRˆ ipebaRˆ ipebaRi tree trunk

*ipˆ ipˆ ip´ his arrow

*i(p/b)ˆRˆ ibˆRˆ ip´Ri bone kχ"@-püèλ, i-püèle, i-püère, i-püri ‘Knochen’

31
*iRamudo jamudo iRamudo child iramu@to, γamu@to ‘Kind’

*ise ise ise his mother "‹sê e, "@he ‘Mutter, meine oder seine’

*iwˆ iwˆ iw´ mountain "@wi ‘Berg, Hügel’

*ize ize ie wanting ize@-ura, ise@-ura, ihe@-ura ‘ich will’

*ˆ ˆ i bathe (tr.) i ‘baden, waschen’

*ÆÆ‚ a‚ ) Æ‚Æa‚ ) "‚¯a) to me "‹nê a, üèina ‘zu mir’

*ˆkˆ ˆkˆ iki sleep n-"‹kê i ‘er schlief’

*ˆpi ˆpi ipi my garden

*ˆRˆi ˆRˆi iR´i swallow (bird) ir"@ ‘schwarz und weisse Schwalbe’

*Æ‚RˆRˆ Æ‚RˆRˆ "‚Ri disease

*ˆt´gˆ ˆt´gˆ it´ge go down s&itake@-le ‘sie stiegen hinab’

*jaˆ jaˆ ja´ under iγa@-λ ‘unter’

*jaZinu jaZinu jainu light

*ka)Ra) ka)Ra) ka)a) fish kχa@na, kχana@ ‘Fisch’

*kaZi kaZi kai opposum kaèh# i ‘Art Beutelratte. Didelphys.’

*kaˆn´ kaˆn´ kain´ on top of

*ka)t´Rˆbˆ ka)t´ˆbˆ ka)t´Rib´ what I cut

*ka/huli kahuli ka/uli grasshopper kaχu@li ‘Heuschrecke, Tucura’

*kaRamˆk´ kamˆk´ kaRam´k´ tick sp. kara@maka ‘Zecke, Carapato.’

*ke/ho keho ke/o saying ke-χo@-he ‘?’

*k´d´kiRa k´d´kiRa ´d´kiRa cotton

*k´inane k´inane kinane Past (Particle)

32
 *kˆkaRˆ kˆkaRˆ kikaRi our backs kχi-γa@-ri ‘Bauch’

*kˆR"‚w"‚ kˆR"‚w"‚ k"‚w"‚ hummingbird kχeneèw

# i ‘Kolibri’

*komˆ komˆ kom´ armadillo sp.

*kopael´g´ kopael´g´ kopaleg´ not today kχopale@ka ‘gestern, morgen’

*kozek´ kozek´ koek´ deer sp. kχoseka, kχohe@ka ‘Kamphirsch’

*kua)bˆ kua)bˆ kua)b´ ritual mask

*ku)R"R‚ a) kuR) "‚Ra) ku)¯a) squirrel sp. kχon"‹nê a ‘Eichhörnchen, Cachingelé’

*kuZiwi kuZiwi kuiwi fruit sp. kχoh"‹w

ê i, kχoz"& w
@ i, kχuz"& w
@ i ‘Bacayuva’

*kuno/hoRo kunohoRo kuno/oRo rat sp. kχonokχo@ro, kχunoχo@ro ‘Maus, Ratte’

*kuno/hodoge kunohodoge kuno/odoge mosquito sp. kχonokχuto@ke ‘Borrachudo, Stechfliege’

*kunoRoko ku)o)Roko k´)w´Reko butterfly kχunoro@ko ‘Schmetterling’

*kuRepize kuepize kuRepie imbauva tree kχurep"@he ‘Ambaúva-Baum’

*l´pˆRˆl´ l´pˆl´ l´p´Ril´ too (Particle)

*maka)R"‚ maka)R"‚ maka)"‚ bird sp. maka@ni ‘Maracaná-Papagei’

*mazag´ mazag´ mahag´ mosquito sp. maha@γe, moza@γe ‘Moskito’

*me)ru) me)ru) me)u) jenipapo meèn# o, meèr# u ‘Genipapo’

*mesaRemo asaemo mesaRemo they

*meza meza meha fish sp. meèh# a ‘Fluss-Traira, Fisch’

*m´kaRemo akaemo m´kaRemo they

*mˆ ani mˆ ani m´ ani Past (Particle)

*mˆe)Rano mˆe)Rano meano from depth

*mˆRˆtˆ mˆRˆtˆ m´Riti bird sp.

33
 *mˆtu mˆtu m´tu curassow mu@itu ‘Mutung’

*moZi moZi moi spider moz&e, mo@he ‘Spinne’

*muguRutu mugutu muguRutu owl sp. muruγu@tu ‘Eule’

*na)ga/hu a)gahu a)ga/u head kχi-naγa@χu, kχi-nara@χu ‘Kopf’

*na/ho)do naho)do na/odo potato naho@to ‘Batate’

*nako)aÆ) ‚ nako)aÆ) ‚ nako)a") ‚ bird sp. nakuaèe) ‘Jakutinga’

*nawˆ nawˆ naw´ yucca sp. na@wi, na@we ‘Igname, Cará’

*nepˆR´d´ nepˆ´d´ nep´R´d´ he buried epa@γato-d"@le ‘sie rammten ein’

*n(´/o)ba n´ba noba yes

*nˆgˆ nˆgˆ nigi he grated ike@-le ‘schabt’

*nˆpˆ nˆpˆ nip´ heal wound

*nˆtˆ nˆtˆ niti he dove

*odaˆ odaˆ oda´ inside -ota@-λ, -ota@, -åta@, håta@ ‘in’

*oda/Si odaSi oda/i into -ota@s&i, -ota@he, -håta@s&i, -hota@hi ‘in-hinein’

*oko/hu okohu okou termite sp. oko@hu ‘Baumtermite’

*o)Ro) o)Ro) o)wo) earth, land oèn) o ‘Erde, Boden’

*oRoZi oRoZi oRoi cashew oroèm

# e ‘Cajú’

*otado)Ro) otado)Ro) otado) island åètatu@no ‘Insel’

*o)wa)lˆ o)wa)lˆ o)wa)li necklace

*paˆ paˆ pai corn bread

*paˆ/ho paˆho pai/o scratcher paiχo@-ye@ri ‘[...] zum Schneiden gebraucht’

*paZik´ paZik´ paik´ anteater pah"@ka, pa#ika@ ‘grosser Ameisenbär’

34
 *pa)Ra) pa)Ra) pa)a) parrot sp.

*paRikaˆ paikaˆ paRika´ in water

*pelagadˆ pelagadˆ pelagadi coal pelaγa@ti ‘Kohle’

*pe)R´) pe)R´) pe)´) bee, honey peèn# a ‘Honig’

*p(´/o)muk(o/´) pomuk´ p´muko dove sp.

*p´)Re) p´R) e) p´)e) piranha påè#ne, påè#ni, påè#le ‘schwarze Piranha’

*pi pi pia field:Pos

*pimiRi pimiRi pimeR´ ant sp. pemeèr# a ‘Fliege’

*pˆ pˆ p´ ax püèi ‘Beil’

*pˆaZi pˆaZi p´ai shaman piaz&e, pia@ze ‘Zauberarzt’

*pˆegeRu pˆegeRu p´igeRu glowworm peγeèr# u ‘Leuchtkäfer’

*pˆm´ pˆm´ p´m´ chief p"@ma ‘Häuptling’

*pˆni pˆni p´ni food pöèni ‘Lebensmittel, Nahrung’

*pˆnig´ pˆnig´ p´nig´ sapé (plant sp.) pön"‹γê a ‘Sapé-Gras’

*pˆRa pˆRa p´Ra Neg -püra ‘Negation’

*pˆReiga pˆReiga p´Reiga lizard sp. pere@iγa ‘Lagartiça’

*pˆRenaRe pˆenaRe p´RenaRe paca pülena@le, püλena@λ ‘Paca-Beuteltier’

*pˆR´u pˆR´u p´R´u arrow püle@u, pira@u ‘Pfeil’

*pˆRˆ pˆRˆ p´Ri Past Possession

*pˆRˆk´ pˆRˆk´ p´Rik´ partridge perüèka, puλ"@ka ‘grosses Rebhuhn’

*pˆRˆl´ pˆl´ p´Ril´ (Particle)

*pˆzegu pˆzegu p´zegu manioc drink

35
 *poZi poZi poi grass, field po@z&e, po@ze, po@hi ‘Gras, Prärie’

*pola)wÆ‚ pola)wÆ‚ pola)w´) liana polaèw

# e ‘Embira, Bast- u. Schlingpflanze’

*po)Ra) po)Ra) po)a) beads

*poRo/ho poRoho poRo/o fox poro@kχo, poro@χu ‘Fuchs, Lobinho’

*(p/k)uato puato kuato armadillo sp. wa@to, poa@to ‘Risen-Gürteltier’

*Rˆ Rˆ Ri Possession -ri, -λ

*Raki aki Raki Past -ra@ki, -ra@γi

*Rol´ ol´ Rol´ but

*sadˆgu sadˆgu sadigu fat (adj.)

*saekuRumi saekuRumi saikuRumi sweet

*sak´Zi sak´Zi sak´i I sewed saköh"#-è γa ‘nähen. Imp.’

*sapeze)Ru) sapeze)Ru) sape)u) wind sapehe@nu, sapeze@nu ‘Wind’

*saRa)g´ saRa)g´ sa)g´ beetle sp.

*se/Si seSi se/i let me see seès# &i ‘lass sehen’

*se)R"‚ se)R"‚ se)"‚ bird sp.

*Sig´/sed´ Sig´sed´ Sig´/ed´ I called him s-iγase@-ta ‘ich rief’

*(S)ina Sina ina we (excl.) s"& n@ a, z"@na, h"@na ‘wir. Exklusiv.’

*SˆpˆRˆ SˆpˆRˆ Sip´Ri end

*SiRa)e) SiRa)e) Sia)e) bird sp.

*SiRimuk´ Simuk´ SiRimuk´ star ts&irimu@ka ‘Stern’

*SusaRogu Susaugu jusarogu fish tail χusaro@ku, s&usaro@χu ‘Schwanz, vom Fisch’

*SutuRˆbˆ Sutuˆbˆ SutuRib´ adult, ripe

36
*taekuRe)"‚ taekuRe)"‚ taikuRe)"‚ sweet taiku@re, taikure@η, taikure@i ‘süss’

*ta)ÆR‚ "‚ taÆ) R‚ "‚ ta") ‚ A.Pl.nlzr

*ta/ho taho ta/o knife ta@χo ‘Messer’

*ta/se tase ta/e full tase@i ‘gefüllt’

*taRˆpa taˆpa taR´pa very high

*ta)wÆ‚ ta)wÆ‚ ta)w´) tobacco ta@we, taèw

) i ‘Tabak’

*t´(/h´)R´ t´h´R´ t´R´ yonder

*t´/se t´se t´/e to be eaten t-åè-se ‘ass, isst’

*t´)"z‚ e)"‚ t´") z‚ e)"‚ t´)¯e)"‚ manioc sp.

*t´Zi t´Zi t´i Non-possessed

*t´Rˆnˆn´ ? t´ˆnˆn´ t´Rin´ by that side

*t´i/se t´ise t´i/e may be

*tiSi SiSi tiSi sun ts"& s@ &i ‘Sonne’

*tˆaZine tˆaZine tiaine luminous

*tˆbˆ tˆbˆ tib´ Past

*tˆgˆRe)"‚ tˆgˆRe)"‚ tigiRe)"‚ thorny

*tˆSi tˆSi tiSi cricket sp. t"@s&i ‘Cicada’

*tˆwˆke)"‚ tˆwˆke)"‚ tiw´ke)"‚ dirty

*to)ez) epa to)ez) epa to)ep

) a many, much

*to/hoRe) toho)Re) to/o)e) strong toχone@i, tuχone@η ‘stark’

*to/hu tohu to/u squash tåχu@ ‘Kürbis’

*tu/hu tuhu tu/u stone tu@χu ‘Stein, Felsen’

37
 *tubˆ tubˆ tub´ skin i-tu@pi ‘sein Haut’, enu i-tu@bi ‘Oberlid’

*tukaRi tukaRi tukai nut

*tumˆ tumˆ tum´ canoe stick

*tutuRe)"‚ tutuRe") ‚ tutue)"‚ snake sp. tutune@η ‘Boa-Schlange, Jiboya’

*u/hudu uhudu u/udu hair kχu-χu@to ‘Köperhaar’

*uma/hudu umahudu uma/udu pubic hair

*u)Ru) u)Ru) u) meat ")u@no ‘Fleisch’

*u)wÆ‚ u)wÆ‚ u)w´) father iyu@me, iuèe) , iyuè)e, inyu)e, nyuèe) ‘Vater’

*VguRodo uguo)do ´guRodo man uγuro@to ‘Mann’

*wataˆ wataˆ wata´ when

*wedˆ wedˆ wedi thigh kχi-we@te, kχi-we@ti ‘Oberschenkel’

*wˆdˆ wˆdˆ w´di wife i-we@te, i-w"@ti ‘Ehefrau, Gattin’

*w(ˆ/´)ˆmˆ wˆmˆ w´m´ neck kχi-w"@me ‘Hals’

*ze ze e mother "#sè e, "@he ‘Mutter, meine oder seine’

*ze//se ze/se e//e Sup; Ptcpl

*zemu zemu emu throat kχi-hemu@-ru ‘Kehlgegend’

ACKNOWLEDGMENTS

The data for this paper was collected with the help of a research grant from the Royal Netherlands Academy

of Arts and Sciences (KNAW), and with the financial support of a documentation project sponsored by the

DoBeS (Dokumentation bedrohter Sprahcen) program of the Volkswagen Foundation. Many thanks go to

the two Bakairi speakers without whose help the present work would have been impossible: Paulo Kavópi

(Eastern Bakairi) and André dos Santos (Western Bakairi). Any mistakes and errors are, of course, the

author’s responsibility.

38
NOTES

1
In most classifications of the Cariban family, a Southern branch is posited that includes Bakairi, Ikpeng,

Arara, and Kuikuro; however, Meira and Franchetto (2005) show that Kuikuro (and its dialects Kalapalo,

Matipu, and Nahukwa) seems to form an independent sub-branch and propose the name ‘Pekodian’ for the

tentative sub-branch that contains the other three languages.

2
The exact distribution of voiced and voiceless consonants in Bakairi is a complex issue that will not be

discussed here. Souza (1991) claims that voiced and voiceless obstruents in (Eastern) Bakairi must in

principle alternate inside lexemes, creating a pattern which she terms ‘consonantal harmony’, for which she

later suggested an OCP-based explanation (Souza 1995), using the Feature Geometry framework.

3
It may seem odd to posit for Pre-Bakairi the existence of glottal + fricative clusters without glottal + stop

clusters, a relatively rare situation cross-linguistically. Notice, however (as had been said in the beginning

of Sec. 2), that there were glottal + stop clusters at an earlier stage, which later became simple intervocalic

voiceless stops (earlier intervocalic voiceless stops became voiced, thus giving rise to a new phonemic con-

trast). One might wonder whether glottal + stop clusters (or even intervocalic voiceless instead of voiced

stops) should not be reconstructed to Pre-Bakairi, on the basis of cross-linguistic (and family-internal, cross-

Cariban) frequency. Given, however, the absence of glottal + stop clusters in both dialects, it seems more

sensible not to reconstruct them and to assume that earlier glottal + stop clusters had already become simple

stops at the earliest reconstructible stage.

4
Pre-Bakairi *R in this nasal environment is the result of the evolution of an earlier Proto-Cariban *n (cf.

Meira and Franchetto 2005).

5
Certain cases of γ also point to the existence of a central ˆ. On p. 253, Steinen mentions the variation

between y and γ in, e.g., yawöγu-d"@le and γawöγ u-d"@le ‘ich fliege’ (‘I fly’). In fact, the first-person prefix ˆ-,

when occurring on an a-initial stem, often sounds as if there was a small transitional [ƒ]: [ˆ-(ƒ)-a...].

39
6
For ‘egg’, note that the present-day dialects do not have m; it is only thanks to Steinen’s data that this m

(found in other Cariban languages; cf. Tiriyó iimo ‘egg’) can be reconstructed. A possible path of change

is: *imoRu > *")wo)Ru > *")oR) u > ¯o)Ru /¯o) ( < *¯o)u) ); the change *m > *w > ∅ is attested in the history of

Bakairi, from comparisons with the other languages (cf. Meira and Franchetto 2005).

7
A derived problem concerns the intervocalic *n’s which did not become *R. If, for the cases presented in

Table 15 here, a Pre-Bakairi *n is reconstructed instead of an *R, then one has to explain why Pre-Bakairi

*n failed to become R in, e.g., the last two examples in table 11. It would probably be necessary to situate

the whole path of evolution from Proto-Cariban *n to Bakairi (cf. Meira and Franchetto 2005) in the period

between Pre-Bakairi and the modern dialects, i.e. the last two or three hundred years (one would then

reconstruct, e.g., *nunn´ ‘moon’ with an *nn cluster, despite the total lack of any cluster reflexes in the

modern dialects or in Steinen; cf. table 11). In the absence of further confirming evidence, this seems to be

too bold a step to take.

8
Meira (2002: 262–263), after comparing the pronominal systems of a large number of Cariban languages,

suggested that the first-person exclusive (1+3) pronouns apparently had a common element *ina, preceded

by several different initial elements (*ap, *ju, *tSi). It may be the case that the differences between the two

Bakairi dialects actually refer a different choice of initial element. In this case, the form that should be

reconstructed for Pre-Bakairi is probably a simple *ina.

40
REFERENCES

Amodio, Emanuele, and Vicente Pira.

1996. Língua Macuxi — Makusi Maimu. Guia para o aprendizado e dicionário da
língua macuxi. Boa Vista (Roraima): Diocese de Roraima and Missionários
de Scarboro (Canada).
Barros, Edir Pina de.
2002. Os filhos do sol. História e cosmologia na organização social de um povo
karib: os Kurâ-Bakairi. São Paulo: EDUSP (São Paulo University Press)
Bruno, Ana Carla dos Santos.
2003. Waimiri-Atroari grammar: some phonological, morphological, and syntactic
aspects. Ph.D. Thesis. Tucson (USA): University of Arizona.
Derbyshire, Desmond C.
1979. Hixkaryana. Lingua Descriptive Studies, vol. 1. Amsterdam: North-Holland.
1985. Hixkaryana and Linguistic Typology. Dallas: Summer Institute of Linguistics
and the University of Texas at Arlington.
Hall, Katherine Lee.
1988. The Morphosyntax of Discourse in De’kwana Carib. Ph.D. Thesis. Saint
Louis (USA): Washington University.
Hoff, Berend J.
1968. The Carib Language. The Hague: Martinus Nijhoff.
Meira, Sérgio.
2000. A Reconstruction of Proto-Taranoan: Phonology and Morphology. Munich:
LINCOM Europa.
2002. A first comparison of pronominal and demonstrative systems in the Cariban
language family. Current studies in South American languages, ed. by M.
Crevels, S. van der Kerke, S. Meira, & H. van der Voort, 255–275. Indi-
genous Languages of Latin America (ILLA) series, vol. 3. Leiden: Research
School of Asian, African, and Amerindian Studies (CNWS), Leiden Uni-
versity, The Netherlands.
Meira, Sérgio, and Bruna Franchetto.
2005. The Southern Cariban languages and the Cariban family. International
Journal of American Linguistics 71: 127–192
Picchi, Debra Sue.
2000. The Bakairí Indians of Brazil: Politics, Ecology, and Change. Prospect
Heights, Illinois: Waveland Press.
Souza, Tania Clemente de.
1991. The case of consonantal harmony in Bakairi language. Documentação de
Estudos em Lingüística Teórica e Aplicada (D.E.L.T.A.), vol. 7, n. 1. São
Paulo: Pontifícia Universidade Católica (PUC).
1994. Discurso e oralidade: um estudo em língua indígena. Campinas (Brazil):
Ph.D. dissertation, Universidade de Campinas.
1995. O traço sonoro em Bakairi (Carib). In Estudos fonológicos das línguas indí-
genas brasileiras, edited by Leo Wetzels. Rio de Janeiro: Editora UFRJ
(Universidade Federal do Rio de Janeiro).
Steinen, Karl von den.
1886. Durch Central-Brasilien. Expedition zur Erforschung des Schingú im Jahre
1884. Leipzig: F. A. Brockhaus.

41
1892. Die Bakaïrí-Sprache. Leipzig: K. F. Koehler’s Antiquarium.
1894. Unter den Naturvölkern Zentral-Brasiliens. Reiseschilderung und Ergebnisse
der zweiten Schingú-Expedition 1887-1888. Berlin: Geographische Verlags-
buchhandlung Dietrich Reimer.

42
 BAKAIRI

Figure 1. The two Bakairi reserves in Central Brazil.

43
 CONSONANTS VOWELS

E. Bakairi W. Bakairi E. Bakairi W. Bakairi

h /

s s

z h i i

Z ∅ ˆ

R R ´ ´

S S

Figure 2. Non-identity correspondences: a first mapping. (The broken lines signal

correspondences with very few examples.)

44
 Table 1. Segmental phonology of Bakairi dialects.

EASTERN BAKAIRI WESTERN BAKAIRI

p t k p t k /

b d g b d g

s S h s S h

z (Z)

m n (¯) m n (¯)

R R

l l

w j w j

i ˆ u i u

e ´ o e ´ o

a a

(distinctive nasalization) (distinctive nasalization)

45
 Table 2. Correspondences involving central vowels.

REC. CORR. EXAMPLES

´dˆ / ´di ‘what?’, egˆ / egi ‘pet’, ˆkˆ / iki ‘sleep’, igˆRˆ / igiRi ‘thorn’,
*ˆ ˆ:i
tˆSi / tiSi ‘cricket sp.’, -dˆlˆ / -dili ‘Present’, agaitÆ‚o) / agait"‚o) ‘old man’

wˆdˆ / w´di ‘wife’, emˆdˆ / em´di ‘forehead’, -tˆbˆ / -tib´ ‘Past’, ˆRˆi /

*ˆ ˆ:´ iR´i ‘bird sp.’, iwˆ / iw´ ‘mountain’, komˆ / kom´ ‘armadillo sp.’,

pˆR´u / p´R´u ‘arrow’, mˆtu / m´tu ‘curassow’, ta)wÆ‚ / ta)w´) ‘tobacco’

´t´ / ´t´ ‘house, clothes’, w´g´ / w´g´ ‘about, on’, ´gudo / ´gudo ‘ana-
*´ ´:´
conda’, ´pa / ´pa ‘wild manioc’, iweR´ / iweR´ ‘now’, ´)gˆ / ´)gi ‘who?’

46
 Table 3. Correspondences involving fricatives.

REC. CORR. EXAMPLES

p´sega / p´sega ‘pig’, ise / ise ‘his/her mother’, saimu / saimu ‘lake’,
*s s:s
se / se ‘wood, tree’, sagunu / sagunu ‘sand’, sawa)ku / sawa)ku ‘flower’

SiR´ / SiR´ ‘this (thing)’, SaR´ / SaR´ ‘hither’, Sogo / Sogo ‘father (voc.)’,
*S S:S
a)gaSeRi / a)gaSeRi ‘your brain’, Seu / Seu ‘coati’, Sunu / Sunu ‘gnat sp.’

paZik´ / paik´ ‘anteater’, oroZi / oroi ‘cashew’, moZi / moi ‘spider’,

*Z Z:∅
eZiku / eiku ‘his/her place’, pˆaZi / p´ai ‘shaman’

*z z:∅ kozek´ / koek´ ‘deer sp.’, ize / ie ‘wanting’, tutuze / tutue ‘know’

*z z:h azag´ / ahag´ ‘two’, mazag´ / mahag´ ‘gnat sp.’, meza / meha ‘fish sp.’

tuhu / tu/u ‘stone’, taho / ta/o ‘knife’, a)gahu / a)ga/u ‘your head’,
*/h h:/
poroho / poro/o ‘fox’, keho / ke/o ‘saying (nominalization)’

im´sedo / im´/edo ‘big’, Sig´sed´ / Sig´/ed´ ‘I called him’, ise / i/e

*/s s:/
‘Future (particle)’.

*/S S:/ odaSi / oda/i ‘into (postposition)’, seSi / se/i ‘let me see’

47
 Table 4. Distribution of segments in CV syllables in Eastern Bakairi.

a e i o u ´ ˆ

s √ √ — (√) — (√) —

S √ (√) √ (√) √ (√) (√)

h — (√) — √ √ — —

z (√) √ — — — — —

Z — — √ — — — —

j √ √ — √ √ (√) —

NOTE: For Western Bakairi, ˆ = i.

(√ = attested; (√) = only a few cases; — = unattested)

48
 Table 5. Some Cariban cognates involving fricatives.

E. BAKAIRI HIXKARYANA MAKUSHI

otter saRo soRoRo soRo/

catch (purpose form) aw´se ahohso japi/se

name ezedˆ esotˆ ese/

two azag´ asako (a)sa(˘)kˆne

my daughter j-eSi-Rˆ j-emsˆ-Rˆ uj-ensi

shaman pˆaZi jas-komo piasan

cashew oRoZi oRosu

49
 Table 6. Correspondences involving vibrants and laterals.

REC. CORR. EXAMPLES

ka)Ra) / ka)a) ‘fish’a, pe)R´) / pe)´) ‘honey’, p´)Re) / p´)e) ‘piranha’, saRa)ga /

*R R:∅ sa)ga ‘insect sp.’, tukaRi / tukai ‘nut sp.’, po)Ra) / po)a) ‘necklace, beads’,

kˆR"‚w"‚ / k"‚w"‚ ‘hummingbird’, maka)R"‚ / maka)"‚ ‘bird sp.’

toRo / toRo ‘parrot sp.’, eRa / eRa ‘kingfisher’, igˆRˆ / igiRi ‘thorn’,

*R R:R pimiRi / pimiRi ‘ant sp.’ ipebaRˆ / ipebaRi ‘tree trunk’, ˆRˆi / iR´i

‘swallow sp.’, oRoZi / oRoi ‘cashew’, paRu / paRu ‘water, river’

Simuk´ / SiRimuk´ ‘star’, mugutu / muguRutu ‘owl sp.’, pˆenaRe /

*R ∅: R p´RenaRe ‘paca’, kamˆk´ / kaRam´k´ ‘tick’, igoRu / igoRoRu ‘flute’,

nepˆ´d´ / nep´R´d´ ‘he buried’

a
In the available data, ka)a) ‘fish’ is attested only in the speech of one older Western Bakairi speaker.
One younger speaker did not accept ka)a) as a Western Bakairi word, insisting that the Portuguese word
peixe ‘fish’ was the local equivalent of Eastern Bakairi ka)Ra). I have observed younger speakers using

peixe when speaking (Western) Bakairi; I have also heard criticism of this Western Bakairi ‘bad habit’
from an Eastern Bakairi speaker. It would seem that ka)a) is at least old-fashioned, and perhaps even
already archaic, in Western Bakairi.

50
 Table 7. Reflexes of Proto-Bakairi *R (stress and syllable boundaries added).

R:R ∅:R

E. BAKAIRI W. BAKAIRI GLOSS E. BAKAIRI W. BAKAIRI gloss

je.»Re.mu je.»Re.mu my song ¯e.ma.»ge.lˆ ¯e.Re.ma.»ge.li (s/he) talked

(s/he)
´.»Ri.g´ ´.»Ri.g´ hawk sp. ´i.»dˆ.lˆ ´.Ri.»di.li
danced

»pa.Ru »pa.Ru water, river pai.»kaˆ pa.Ri.»ka´ in the river

o.»Ro.Zi o.»Roi cashew ka.»mˆ.k´ ka.Ra.»m´.k´ tick sp.

swallow
ˆ.»Rˆi i.»R´i Si.»mu.k´ Si.Ri.»mu.k´ star
sp.

51
 Table 8. Steinen’s transcription symbols.

Letter IPA Steinen’s comments

å ç open o, English a in walk

w w consonantal u, English w in water

y j consonantal i, English y in youth

χ x hard guttural fricative, produced in the back or middle palate

soft guttural fricative, produced in the middle palate, similar to

γ ƒ
the Westfallian g (our g occurs rarely and is very close to k)

kχ kH a sequence of k with following hard friction in the back palate

tχ tH t with a front χ

s& S French ch

z& Z French j

η N guttural nasal sound, German ng in Engel

a very difficult sound (which I had previously noted as Λ), most

λ }, ‰ (?) similar to a cerebral l, it can be an independent syllable and cor-

responds to an r + a reduced vowel

NOTE: Descriptions of symbols translated from German original.

52
 Table 9. Vowels in Steinen’s data.

PRE-BAKAIRI E. BAKAIRI W. BAKAIRI GLOSS STEINEN 1892

*aRa aRa aRa like a@ra ‘wie’

*pepi pepi pepi canoe pe@pi ‘Kanu’

*tuogo tuogo tuogo crab sp. tuo@γo ‘Krebs’

*´t´ ´t´ ´ t´ house åèta, åta@, åtöè, åte@ ‘Haus, Dorf’.

*´dˆ ´dˆ ´di what o@ti, åèti, ot"@ ‘was?’

*pˆR´u pˆR´u p´R´u arrow püle@u, pira@u ‘Pfeil’

53
 Table 10. Nasal vowels and interocalic nasal loss as shown by Steinen’s data.

PRE-BAKAIRI E. BAKAIRI W. BAKAIRI GLOSS STEINEN 1892

*ta)wÆ‚ ta)wÆ‚ ta)w´) tobacco ta@we, taèw

) i ‘Tabak’

*(´)/o))wa) ´)wa) o)wa) path oèw

) a, aè)wa, oè)a) ‘Weg’

*anoto a a)ut) o a)ut) o anatto ano@to, aro@to ‘Urucú, Bixa Orellana’

*i-wanata-Rˆ i-wa)ta-Rˆ ")-wa)ta-Rˆ his ear i-wanata@-ri ‘sein Ohr’

*kˆ-naga/hu kˆ-a)gahu ki-a)ga/u our head kχi-naγa@χu, kχi-nara@χu ‘Kopf’

*kenak´ ke)ak
) ´ ke)ak
) ´ (Particle) kχena@ka ‘?’

*´n´gˆ ´)gˆ ´)gi who? anaγi, åna@γi, ånåèγi ‘wer?’

*i-mo-Ru j-o)Ru) j-o) egg imoèr# u ‘Ei’

a
It would be possible to reconstruct *anuto, ased on the evidence from the two dialects; but Steinen’s o

suggest that *anoto is more likely (*anoto > *ao)to > *au)to). Steinen almost never hesitates between u and
o; on p.252, he claims that these vowels, when stressed, are easy to distinguish. Also, the possibility of au)to
being a mistranscribed ao)to, given their similar pronunciations, cannot be excluded.

54
 Table 11. Stops, nasals, glides, and liquids in Steinen’s data.

PRE-BAKAIRI E. BAKAIRI W. BAKAIRI GLOSS STEINEN 1892

*pelup´ pelup´ pelup´ ash pelu@på ‘Asche’

*toRo toRo toRo parrot sp. toèr# o ‘Papagei’

*kop´ kop´ kop´ rain kχo@pö, kχopöè ‘Regen’

*peku peku peku salt pe@ko, pe@kχu ‘Salz’

*semimu semimu semimu bat sem"@mo, sem"@no ‘Fledermaus’

*megu megu megu monkey meγè# o, meèg# o ‘Rollaffe, Macaco’

*n-ˆkˆ n-ˆkˆ n-iki he slept n-"#kè i ‘er schlief’

*n-ˆgˆ n-ˆgˆ n-igi he grated ike@-le ‘schabt’

*tapabile)"‚ tapabile)"‚ tapabile)"‚ red tapawile@η, tapabile@η ‘rot, orange’

*n-utu-ba n-utu-ba n-utu-ba doesn’t know n-utu-ba ‘wusste nicht’

*idu idu idu forest "#ètu ‘Wald’

*n-udu n-udu n-udu he gave n-uèt# u ‘er gibt, gab’

*makala makala makala heron sp. maka@la ‘Nimmersatt’, ‘Storch’

*kawida kawida kawida macaw sp. kχaw"@ta ‘Arara calindé’

*junu junu junu his blood yuèn# u, yu@no ‘sein Blut’

*nun´ nun´ nun´ moon nu@na ‘Mond’

55
 Table 12. Fricatives in Steinen’s data.

PRE-BAKAIRI E. BAKAIRI W. BAKAIRI GLOSS STEINEN 1892

*paZik´ paZik´ paik´ anteater sp. pah"@ka, pa#ika@ ‘grosser Ameisenbär’

*poZi poZi poi grass, field po@z&e, po@ze, po@hi ‘Gras, Prärie’

*SiR´ SiR´ SiR´ this (inan.) s&"@ra, z&"r@ a, h"@ra ‘dieser, dieses hier’

*kozek´ kozek´ koek´ deer sp. kχoseka, kχohe@ka ‘Kamphirsch’

*mazag´ mazag´ mahag´ mosquito maha@γe, moza@γe ‘Moskito. Culex.’

*tu/hu tuhu tu/u stone tu@χu ‘Stein, Felsen’

*oda/Si odaSi oda/i into -ota@s&i, -ota@he, -håta@s&i, -hota@hi ‘in-hinein’

*Sig´/sed´ Sig´sed´ Sig´/ed´ I called s&-iγase@-ta ‘ich rief’

*i/se ise i/e Future "@se, ihe ‘Futurum’

*ise ise ise his mother "#èse, "@he ‘Mutter, meine oder seine’

*ize ize ie wanting izé, isé, ihé, ye ‘wollen, lieben’

56
 Table 13. Cases of contrast between fricatives and Steinen’s data.

PRE-BAKAIRI E. BAKAIRI W. BAKAIRI GLOSS STEINEN 1892

*SaR´ SaR´ SaR´ hither tyar@ e ‘hierher’

*saRˆ saRˆ saRi leaf sa@ri, saλ ‘Blatt’

*S´g´ S´g´ S´g´ kill it! χa@-γa, tχåè-γa, tiåè-γa ‘Imp.’

*s´k´ s´k´ s´k´ eat it! sa@-ka, söè-ka ‘Imp.’

*poSi poSi (unattested) fish sp. (unattested)

*poZi poZi poi grass, field po@z&e, po@ze, po@hi ‘Gras, Prärie’

*oso oso (unattested) your husband åèso ‘dein Gatte’

*(o/´)/ho/hu ohohu ´/ou a your chest kχu-χo@u, kχu-χo@wu, kχu-χo@hu ‘Brust’

*Sogo Sogo Sogo b father! (Voc.) ts&oèg# o, ts&o@γu ‘Vater, Papa’

a
The absence of a second / in this word is irregular. But notice that there are no examples of words

with two /V syllables in the available data. It would seem that the second glottal stop in /V/V sequences
was dropped in Western Bakairi.
b
Attested with the meaning ‘uncle! (Vocative)’.

57
 Table 14. Vibrants in Steinen’s data.

PRE-BAKAIRI E. BAKAIRI W. BAKAIRI GLOSS STEINEN 1892

*paRu paRu paRu water pa@ru, paru@ ‘Wasser, Fluss’

*eRa eRa eRa kingfisher era@ ‘Eisvogel, Martim pescador’

*maka)R"‚ maka)R"‚ maka") ‚ bird sp. maka@ni ‘Maracaná-Papagei’

*ka)Ra) kaR) a) ka)a) fish kχa@na, kχana@, kara@ ‘Fisch’

*p´)Re) p´R) e) p´)e) piranha påè#ne, påè#ni, påè#le ‘schwarze Piranha’

*SiRimuk´ Simuk´ SiRimuk´ star ts&irimu@ka ‘Stern’

*kaRamˆk´ kamˆk´ kaRam´k´ tick kara@maka ‘Zecke, Carapato.’

58
 Table 15. Exceptional words.

PRE-BAKAIRI E. BAKAIRI W. BAKAIRI GLOSS STEINEN 1892

*tiSi SiSi tiSi sun ts&"@s&i ‘Sonne’

*(S)ina Sina ina we (excl.) s&"n@ a, z"@na, h"@na ‘wir. Exklusiv.’

*(az)anaZi a)Zi aha)"‚, a)ha") ‚ corn ana@z&i, ana@hi, araèh# i ‘Mais’

*VguRodo uguo)do ´guRodo man uγuro@to ‘Mann’

59
 Table 16. Pre-Bakairi segmental phonology.

CONSONANTS VOWELS

*p *t *k */

*b *d *g
*i *ˆ *u
*s *S *h
*e *´ *o
* z *Z
*a
*m *n (*¯)

*R
+ distinctive nasalisation
*l
*w *j

60
 Table 17. Changes between Pre-Bakairi and the modern Bakairi dialects.

EASTERN BAKAIRI WESTERN BAKAIRI

*ˆ > ´ / {+LAB}__

VOWELS __*i
All vowels remain unchanged.
> i elsewhere
Other vowels remain unchanged.

STOPS *p, *t, *k, *b, *d, *g remain unchanged.

FRICATIVES
*s, *S remain unchanged.
*Z > ∅
AND *s, *S, *z, *Z remain unchanged.
*z > h / __*a
FRICATIVE */s, */h, */S > s, h, S
> ∅ elsewhere
CLUSTERS
*/s, */h, */S > /
C
O
N *m remains unchanged.
S
O *n > n / #__
N NASALS
A è _
V_

N > ∅(~) elsewhere

T
S

LIQUIDS

*w, *j, *l remain unchanged.

AND

GLIDES

*R > R / Vè__
*R > ∅ / V)__V)
VIBRANTS __Vè
> R elsewhere
> ∅ elsewhere

61