draft manuscript - Linguistics - University of California, Berkeley

awa =kai =suaRa =puRa
man =? =advblzr =foc
Roaya
neg
Dios =kai =suaRa puRai Ra= umanu 1m1nua
God =? =advblzr contr.foc 3sg.ms= die long.ago
‘As a man. He did not die as God.’
(example (6.17b)
Note in (2.75) that puRai also occurs in conjunction with the nominal past =puRa, which formally
resembles puRai. In yet another example, as in (2.77), various grammatical factors may conspire
such that =puRa and puRai appear adjacent to one another.
(2.77) Roaya Dios muRa. aikiaRa upakatu maRainkana Dios yaw1k1maipuRa puRai muRa.
Roaya
neg
Dios muRa
God 3sg.ms
aikiaRa upa =katu maRain =kana Dios yaw1k1 =mai =puRa
dem.prox.ms all =intsf thing =pl.ms God make =inact.nomz =nom.pst
puRai muRa
contr.foc 3sg.ms
‘They are not God. All these things are God’s creation.’
(example (6.6b))
What is interesting from a diachronic perspective is that puRai is not attested synchronically
in modern Omagua, and that modern Omagua =puRa no longer productively encodes past tense
on nouns, but rather marks focus following narrative peaks (see Michael et al. (in prep) for more
discussion). 98 This suggests to us that two distinct forms =puRa and puRai collapsed, perhaps
because of a reanalysis of their functions in contexts such as (2.77) in which they co-occur adjacently,
and that the function of puRai came to replace that of =puRa. It is worthy of note that the loss of
nominal tense may have already begun at this point, since a reflex of the Proto-Omagua-Kokama
nominal future =Ra is attested only once with that function in Old Omagua (see §2.2.2.4), it having
otherwise already grammaticalized as a purposive marker (O’Hagan 2012b). Nevertheless, that the
tense functions of these morphemes are prior is easily shown by comparison with cognates across
the Tupí-Guaraní family (see §2.2.2.3). A discussion of whether puRai is at all related to =puRa
historically is outside the scope of this work.
2.3.8.2 Contrastive Focus =nani
The enclitic =nani attaches to nominal elements and encodes contrastive focus. It is attested only
twice in the ecclesiastical texts, once in each of two parallel passages from the catechism fragment
and the full catechism. The occurrence in the catechism fragment is shown in (2.78).
(2.78) Roaya muRa musap1R1ka Dios. aikiaRa musap1R1ka personakana uyepesemai Dios muRa. santísima
trinidadnani RaSiRa.
Roaya
neg
muRa musap1R1ka Dios
3sg.ms three God
98 Two frozen stems show the erstwhile nominal past function of =puRa – see §2.2.2.3.
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