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'Hixkaryana' is one of the Carib languages, spoken by just over 500 people on the Nhamundá river, a tributary of the Amazon River in Brazil. It is one of a few known natural languages that normally use Object Verb Subject word order, and may have been the first such language to be described (by linguist Desmond C. Derbyshire).

''toto''	''yonoye''			''kamara''
toto	y-	ono	-ye	kamara
person	3SG-	eat	-DIST.PAST.COMPL	jaguar
"The jaguar ate the man."

Indirect objects, however, follow the subject:

''bɨryekomo''	''yotahahono''				''wosɨ''	''tɨnyo''	''wya''
bɨryekomo	y-	otaha	-ho	-no	wosɨ	tɨnyo	wya
boy	3SG-	hit	-CAUS	-IMM.PAST	woman	her-husband	by
"The woman caused her husband to hit the boy."

Moreover, word order in nonfinite embedded clauses is SOV. [1]. Like most other languages with objects preceding the verb, it is postpositional.

Contents

Phonology

Grammar

External links

References

Phonology

Hixkaryana has the following phonemic inventory:

	Labial		Alveolar		Postalveolar		Velar	Glottal
Plosive
Fricative
Nasal
Tap
Semivowel

is a retroflex tap with a lateral release. The orthography used is as follows: = ; = ; = ; = ; = . The vowels are , , , , and , written , , , , and .

Grammar

In Hixkaryana, arguments are indexed on the verb by means of person prefixes. These prefixes form an inverse-like pattern in which the argument highest in the hierarchy 2nd > 1st > 3rd is indexed on the verb. If the object of a transitive verb outranks the subject according to this hierarchy, the appropriate O-prefix is used; otherwise, an A-prefix is used.

A-prefixes		O-prefixes
1A	/ɨ-	1O	r(o)
2A	m(ɨ)-	2O	o(j)-/a(j)-
1+2A	t(ɨ)-	1+2O	k(ɨ)-
3A	n(ɨ)-/j-

Intransitive verbs take prefixes mostly similar to the transitive prefixes given above. The arguments' grammatical number is indexed on the verb by means of portmanteau suffixes that combine tense, aspect, mood, and number.
In most cases, the person prefixes unambiguously determine which of the arguments in the subject and which is the object. When both the subject and the object are third person, however, the person prefix is inadequate to fully determine the identity of the arguments. In these situations, therefore, word order is crucial in determining their identity. The example above, 'toto yonoye kamara', cannot be given the SVO reading "the man ate the jaguar; the OVS reading -- "the jaguar ate the man" -- is the only possible one.

External links

★ Hixkaryana Linguistic Overview

★ Metathesis in Hixkaryana

★ Ethnologue report on Hixkaryana

References

★ The Amazonian Languages, Aikhenvald, A. & Dixon, R. (Eds.), , , Oxford University Press, 1999, ISBN 0-521-57021-2

★ Hixkaryana, Derbyshire, D., , , North-Holland Publishing, 1979, ISBN

★ Hixkaryana and Linguistic Typology, Derbyshire, D., , , Summer Institute of Linguistics, 1985, ISBN 0-88312-082-8