draft manuscript - Linguistics - University of California, Berkeley

2.2.3.2.4 Subject Nominalizer -suRi The ecclesiastical texts exhibit two attestations of the
subject nominalizer -suRi, on wiSani ‘be dishonest’ and m1ta ‘deceive’, as in (2.29). 58
(2.29) nesapiaRitipa aikiaRa, upakatu Dios kumesamaikana, aisetui Dios, upai ikuataRa, Roaya
wiSanisuRi, Roaya m1tasuRi, Dios kumesaikua?
ne= sapiaRi =tipa aikiaRa upa =katu
2sg= obey =interr dem.prox.ms all =intsf
aise -tui Dios upai ikua -taRa Roaya
true -? God every know -act.nomz neg
-suRi Dios kumesa =ikua
-subj.nomz God say =reas
wiSani
be.dishonest
Dios kumesa
God say
-suRi
-subj.nomz
=mai =kana
=inact.nomz =pl.ms
Roaya m1ta
neg deceive
‘Do you obey all the words of God, true God, all-knowing, not deceitful, because God says
them?’
(example (6.33a))
Additional stems derived with -suRi in modern Omagua are given in Table 2.10. 59
Table 2.10: Modern Omagua Nouns and Verbs Nominalized with -suRi
Root Gloss Stem Gloss
aikua be sick aikuasuRi sickly person (Sp. enfermizo)
kumIsa say, speak kumIsasuRi gossip (Sp. hablador)
muna steal munasuRi thief
musanaka heal, cure musanakasuRi healer, curer
piata ask piatasuRi nosy person (Sp. preguntón)
saipuRa be drunk saipuRasuRi drunkard
tamana ask for tamanasuRi begger (Sp. pidelón)
umanuta kill umanutasuRi killer
Vallejos Yopán (2010a:232-233) characterizes Kokama-Kokamilla as a ‘proficient-agent nominalizer’;
however, in Omagua, -suRi may attach to predicates whose arguments receive no thematic
agent role, as with the pair aikua ‘be sick’ and aikuasuRi ‘sickly person’. Because of these facts, we
analyze -suRi as a subject nominalizer. In addition, nouns derived with -suRi denote entities that
carry out the event denoted by the root in a habitual fashion, rather than proficiently, and also tend
to carry pejorative semantics, with the notable exception of musanakasuRi ‘healer’.
Although not attested in Old Omagua, modern Omagua exhibits an endocentric nominalizer
-waRa. With two exceptions, this form attaches solely to nouns (Table 2.11), 60 and in fact it has
cognates to other endocentric nominalizers across the Tupí-Guaraní family. 61
We posit that the extension of -waRa to appearing on verbs is the result of the semantic development
of -suRi, wherein as the latter acquired increasingly pejorative semantics, -waRa was extended
58 An additional attestation is found in Uriarte’s diaries, on yawapaRa ‘flee’ (see (8.4)).
59 Note that -suRi is no longer widely productive, and the forms in Table 2.10 are all those that have arisen in natural
speech or been elicited.
60 The endocentric nominalizer -waRa is also attested on nouns borrowed from Spanish: carro ‘car’, carrowaRa ‘driver
of a car’; minga ‘work party’, mingawaRa ‘work party participant’; santo ‘saint (image)’, santowaRa ‘maker of saints’.
61 For example, see Tupinambá -BoR (Lemos Barbosa 1956:264-265) and Kamaiurá wot (Seki 2000).
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