The clausal organization of Tuparí, an indigenous Brazilian language

Abstract

This paper provides a detailed description and analysis of the clausal organization of Tuparí, a Tupían language that is spoken by approximately 350 people in the Brazilian state of Rondônia. The paper focuses on several interrelated issues that have broader comparative and typological importance, including (a) the distribution of head-initial and head-final phrase structure, (b) the diverse surface realizations of the Tense Phrase, and (c) the distinction between true pronouns and pronoun-like agreement enclitics. Data are drawn from an in-progress corpus of native language texts, everyday conversations and elicited utterances. Differences between Tuparí and the other languages belonging to the Tupían family's Tuparían branch are highlighted at various points for comparative purposes.