Apinajé psp. prtv. One; some; other. Inflectional pattern and relational prefix: OBJ=t=õ.

Alternate form: ũ. (Oliveira 2005: 400)

The indefinite pronouns ɲəm ‘[someone; somewhere] else’ and mɛõ ‘someone’, waõ
‘someone’ have the alternating forms ɲam and mɛũ, waũ respectively.
The alternation between mɛõ, waõ and mɛũ , waũ appears to be phonetically motivated;
these pronouns seem to result of a combination of the indefinite pronoun õ with each of the
number markers mɛ and wa. (Oliveira 2005: 163-164)

Xikrin o pronome indefinido õ ‘INDEF’ que, ao se combinar com a palavra genérica mẽ

(pessoa, gente), refere a entidades indefinidas e humanas (Costa 2015: 87)

ɲũm ‘quem’ pronome interrogativo

--- mẽ=õ ‘alguém’ (> pronome indefinido õ ‘INDEF’

--- məja õ ‘algo’

Suyá

mɛ=tõ ‘alguém’ (Santos 1997: 30)

Panará (Dourado 2001: 51-52)

--- prẽ ‘alguém’
--- piã ‘algo’
--- yũ ‘partícula interrogativa’
--- nõpiõ ‘três ou quatro’, ‘alguns’, ‘poucos’

O’s previsibility O’s unprevibility

aw=jahɨ aw=jakrɛ
-ũ=jahɨ-r ‘cut big O’ -ũ=jakrɛ ‘promise O’
aw=jak o
h
aw=jak rã
h

-ũ=jakho-r ‘smoke O’ -ũ=jakhrã ‘share O’

aw=jipro aw=jamã
-ũ=jipro ‘put O [pity]’ -ũ=jamã-r ‘take care of O’
aw=kanã aw=kape
-ũ=kanã-r ‘endure O’ -ũ=kape-r ‘throw O’
aw=kaprĩ aw=jarẽ
-ũ=kaprĩ ‘pity O’ -ũ=jarẽ-n ‘tell O’
aw=pã aw=pa
-ũ=pã-r ‘smell O’ -ũ=pa=r ‘hear O’

-ũ ‘algo/alguém’ nome relativo (Timb)

jũm (Timb), mẽ=õ (Mẽb) ũ (Kaing) u (Lakl) ‘alguém’; jũm (Timb), ɲũm (Xik) ũ (Kaing)
pronome interrogativo ‘quem’
Apinajé :: mɛõ, waõ ~ mɛ=ũ ~ waũ ‘alguém’ (> -õ ‘one’, ‘other’, ‘some’)
mɛbɔj ‘algo’

aõ ‘coisa’ Karajá > -nõ ‘algum’ (Timb), məja=õ ‘algo’, nén=ũ ‘alguma coisa’
2.1. Apinajé (Oliveira 2005: 260)

(1) a. kɔt paj amɲĩ mǝ̃ mebɔj j-apro (transitive)

IRLS 1.IRLS REFL DAT things RP-buy
‘I’ll buy something for myself’

b. kɔt paj amɲĩ mǝ̃ awjapro (antipassive)

IRR 1.IRLS REFL DAT go.shopping
‘I’ll do my shopping (for myself)’

Lexical restrictions on antipassive derivation have been pointed out in several

works on this topic (Heath 1976:211; Cooreman 1994:59; Tsunoda 1988:598). In a
more recent contribution, Say (2021) discusses a set of semantic properties that would
characterize a typical natural antipassive. Among them, we will highlight (i)
specification of the A’s manner and (ii) narrow class of potential P-arguments, in order
to assess its applicability to the Jê languages considered here.

Typically, the antipassive occurs with “manner verbs”, i.e. verbs that denote
actions performed in a particular manner with no entailed result-state (Rappaport Hovav
and Levin 2010 and references therein) (Polinksy 2017:317)

This set of transitive verbs includes some lexical items that express
psychological states.
Although antipassive constructions have not been consistently taken as a topic of
investigation in languages spoken in and outside the Amazon, they did not escape
typological generalizations such as those made by Polinsky (2005, 2013), according to
which the majority of the languages spoken in this region represented in their sample
have no antipassives.1 A more close examination will reveal that the presence of
antipassives in this region and adjacent areas is more widespread than has often been
claimed, indicating in some cases typological tendencies in relation to the source-
constructions from which antipassives developed in genetically unrelated languages, as
well as relatively unusual grammatical devices employed to get such as detransitived
constructions, as will be discussed in section 00.

In a more incisive stance, Aikhenvald (2012: 232) points out that a shared
typological feature of antipassive constructions (henceforth APs) in Amazonian
languages would be that they do not have the option of including the demoted O, i.e.
they are patientless APs. At first glance, this prediction would fit perfectly in Jê
languages, as can be seen in the examples (00) and (00) from the Apinajé and Krahô
languages respectively.

1
Inconsistent information also prevails in such typological generalizations. See the map referring to the
productivity of antipassive constructions presented in Polinsky (2005: 239), in which it is assumed that
there are no such constructions in Amazonian languages. Further (Idem:440), two languages, Sanuma
(Yanomami) and Canela (Jê, Macro-Jê) are indicated to present “oblique patient.” This position is
maintained in the online version of The World Atlas of Language Structures (Polinsky 2013).
An issue related to criterion (a) directly concerns the productivity of anti-passive
constructions in a given language, whether it applies to any transitive verb or only to a
limited set of such verbs, and is therefore lexically restricted.

Although APs with a demoted object such as (1b) and (2b-c) are rather frequent,
which would corroborate Aikhenvald’s (2012) typological generalization, it is however
possible to express O as an oblique with some verbs, as in (3), from Krahô (Timbira).
(00) ― h pa mã wa ramã a=Ø-tɛ amjĩ tetɛ [i=tɔ]
― sim, 1SG.NOM TOP 1SG.NOM já 2SG.ABS=OBL REFLX
para.fora 1SG.ABS=INSTR

a=j-ũ=kape-r krinarɛ tɔ=hajr.

2SG.ABS=REL.C=jogar.PL-NMLZ muito assim
Sim, é eu que você, para fora, jogou muito [muitas vezes] mesmo ― disse
Katse=kwỳj.

--- Moreover, the existence and distribution of different AP morphemes, as exemplified

in (2c) and (3) with respect to (2c), may depend on the finiteness of the sentence (verbal
sentence vs. [nominalized] insubordinated sentence). The reflexes of this structural
contrast directly affect the case marking system of the languages in question, which
belong to the so-called split type (Dixon 1994), involving mainly (i) the use of different
pronominal forms distributed according to the verbal/nominalized nature of the
sentence, and (ii) the marking of nuclear arguments by postpositions.

2.1. Apinajé (Oliveira 2005: 371)

(5) a. kt kaj ma krĩ_rač mə tẽ ne iɲ-mə aw=j-
apro
IRLS 2SG.IRLS DIR downtowns at go CNT 1SG-DAT AP=RP-shop
‘[I want] you to go downtown and do some shopping for me.’

b. di k t u=j-apro =čwəɲ ja na i-nã na

woman 3.ERG AP=RP-shop.NF=AGT DEM RLS 1SG.POSS-
mother ?
‘The woman who went to do the shopping is my [formal] mother.’

2.2. Krahô (Timbira) (Miranda, fieldwork notes)

(6) a. itar=mã mẽ=h-kheat nẽ aw=j-ahɨ

here=FOC PL=RP-everyone CNT AP=RP-cutt
‘It’s here that everyone stand and cutting [something].’

b. h-ũmrɛ ata-je mã ma irm khãm mõ h-ũ=j-ahɨ-r katsuw

RP-male dem-PL FOC DIR wood LOC go RP-AP=RP-cutt-NMLZ
PURP
‘It's those men who are going to the forest to cut [something].’

2.4. Txucahamãe, dialect of Mẽbêngôkre language (Jefferson 2013: 75, 132-133)

(10) i=dʒ-u=j-arẽ-ɲ ket

1SG.ABS=RP-AP-say-NMLZ NEG
‘I didn't tell you all about it.’

(11) dʒã ne ga a=dʒ-u=kaprĩre?

INT RLS2SG.NOM 2SG.ABS=RP-AP=kind
‘You are kind?’

(12) mẽ u=kanga  ɲ

PL AP=laziness INSTR sit.AUX
‘They (all) are lazy.’ (Lit. They (all) are sitting lazily)

Marcação ergativa do sujeito de construções antipassivas derivadas não são incomuns

tipologicamente, como tem sido apontado por Polisky (2017: 311-312). Ver Warlpiri
(Hale 1973: 366), Djaru (Tsunoda 1981: 149) e Goonyandi (Tsunoda 1988: 627).

In still other languages, new morphemes have developed with an analogous function,
such as the prefix roP- in Xavante (Estevam 2009), which possibly replaced older
constructions by replicating the same grammaticalization pattern with new material (rP
being a generic word meaning ‘thing/world/nature’).
Clause constructions admitting the expression of the object in an oblique function, mark
it by means of the locative postposition nã, as exemples from (15) to (18).

(15) piõ Ø-te rb=z-epata [ti=ra nã]OBL

woman 3SG.NOM-IRLS AP=RP-suffer 3.COR-son POSP.LOC
‘A woman suffers [something] for her son.’

piõ Ø-te rb=z-epata õ=di [ti=ra nã]OBL

--- Synchronically, it is possible that other Jê languages, such as Kaingáng and Laklãnõ
(Xokléng), may have lost or replaced antipassive constructions;

--- In Kaingáng and Laklãnõ (Xokléng), although the indefinite word ũ has reference [+
human] meaning ‘someone, who’ (Wiesemann 2011: 91; Gakran 2016: 122); in some
cases there is a neutralization of this semantic feature, as in former nén ũ ‘something’
(idem: 104) and do ũ ‘some arrows’ (idem: 149), in last case, similarly to what would
have take place in Krahô and other Northern Jê languages.

--- Alredy in the Panará language, relics of morpheme -ũ/-u are found on some radicals
in certain verbal themes, as is shown in (19) in comparison to (20c), from Krahô.

Panará (Northern Jê, Dourado 2001: 193)

(19) ĩkyẽ hẽ Ø=re s-ũpan nãkã
I ERG RLS.TRANS=1SG.ERG RP-be.afraid snake
‘I'm afraid of snakes’

Krahô (Timbira, Miranda fieldwork notes)

(20) a. pẽmkahɐk krɛ-r t, ke nẽ awkapɐt khãm mẽ=in-krɛ-r narɛ,

ritual sing-NMLZ INSTR EMPH NEG night LOC PL=PR-sing-NMLZ
NEG

tsãm mẽ=ku-mã mẽ_karõ cu-pa

because PL=RP-DAT spirit be.afraid
‘With songs of pẽmkahɐk, they don't sing at night because they are afraid of
spirits.’

b. akhrajrɛ ke ha i=mã aw=pa

children EMPH IRLS 1SG.ABS=DAT AP=be.afraid
‘The children will be afraid of me’

c. i=mã h-ũ=pa
1SG.ABS=DAT RP-AP-be.afraid
‘I'm afraid (of something) of him.’ (Lit. There is a fear [of something] of him
for me)

Cavineña, a Pano-Takana language, for example, employs reduplication of transitive

inflectional verbal roots as illustrative of the first type, as well as exchange of the
transitive auxiliary verb by the intransitive auxiliary (Guilhaume 2007). In (00), the
intransitivity of the clause derived by reduplication is signaled by the change in the
subject's marking pattern.

ABS Absolutive
ACT Active
ADVT Advertive
APASS/ANTIP Antipassive
ART ARTICLE
ATEN Atenuative
AUX Auxiliar
CNT Conective
COM COMITATIVE
CTFG Centrifugal
CTPT Centripetal
DAT Dative
DEF Definite
DS Different Subject
DUAL Dual (Number)
EMPH Emphatic
ERG Ergative
EPIST Espistemic
FACT/FCT Factual (Aspect)
FUT Future
GEN Genitive
HAB Habitual
IMPERF Imperfective
INACT Inactive
INDEF Indefinite
INSTR Instrumental
IRLS Irrealis
LOC Locative
NEG Negation
NEG.IMP Negative imperative
NF
NMLZ
NOM
OBJ
OBL
PAST/PST
PERF
PL
POST/PSP Postposition
POSS
PROG
PS
PURP
REL.C
REL.NC
RP
RLS
SG
SM SUBJECT MARKER
STAT
SUBORD
TOP
TRANS TRANSITIVE