‘Subject Marker’ in Some Jê Languages (Macro-jê): diachronic sources and grammaticalization

• Autor(a) principal: Miranda, Maxwell Gomes
• Data de Publicação: 2023
• Tipo de documento: Artigo
• Idioma: por; eng
• Título da fonte: Signum: Estudos da Linguagem
• Texto Completo: https://ojs.uel.br/revistas/uel/index.php/signum/article/view/45855
• topic: caso; nominativo; gramaticalização.; línguas Jê; Descrição e Análise linguísticas; case; nominative; grammaticalization; Jê languages; linguistic analysis and description

This paper examines the likely diachronic sources from which the nominative case markers tóg and ra developed in the Kaingáng languages, and Kĩsêdjê (Suyá) and Tapayuna respectively, in which they have been referred to generically as ‘mark of subject’. The starting point of the study is the pioneering work of Professor Ludoviko Carnasciali dos Santos and, at the same time, explores this property in the first two languages, to which he dedicated a large part of his academic production. Data analysis is based on grammaticalization theory, according to which it was allowed to establish distinct diachronic sources for nominative case markers, although they are related to the conceptual domain of spatial deixis. Given the different grammatical functions presented by nominative case markers, it is argued that this multiplicity of uses constitutes an exemplary case of polygrammaticalization. Although these case markers have emerged from different lexical sources, the results obtained connect the Kaingáng, Kĩsêdjê (Suyá) and Tapayuna languages in terms of this grammaticalization process and shed light on grammatical characteristics still little explored in synchronic and diachronic studies of Jê languages (Macro-Jê).