A Grammar of Paraguayan Guarani, (Grammars of World and Minority Languages)

The history of Guarani is a history of resilience. Paraguayan Guarani is a vibrant, modern language, mother tongue to millions of people in South America. It is the only indigenous language in the Americas spoken by a non-ethnically indigenous majority, and since 1992, it is also an official language of Paraguay alongside Spanish. This book provides the first comprehensive reference grammar of Modern Paraguayan Guarani written for an English-language audience. It is an accessible yet thorough and carefully substantiated description of the language's phonology, morphosyntax, and semantics. It also includes information about its centuries of documented history and its current sociolinguistic situation. Examples come from literary sources and film, scholastic grammars, online newspapers, blogs and other publications, publicly accessible social media data, and the author's own fieldwork. They are specifically chosen to reflect the diversity of uses of modern-day Guarani, with the aim of providing a realistic picture of the current state of the language in twenty-first century Paraguay. This book will benefit researchers and students of Guarani and Paraguay, such as linguists, anthropologists, ethnographers, sociologists, historians, or cultural studies and literature scholars. Typologically-oriented researchers and students of other Tupian and Amerindian languages will have reliable data for comparative purposes. Given the unique socio-historical profile of Guarani, researchers in fields such as language contact, bilingualism, code-switching, language planning, language education, and literacy will find this book a valuable reference resource Cover Half Title Title Page Copyright Page Contents List of figures Preface Acknowledgments Note on the presentation of language examples 1. Introduction 1.1. Overview of the language 1.2. Brief history since the European colonization of the region 1.3. Sociolinguistic information 1.4. Basic pronunciation summary 1.5. Typological information 1.6. Contact with Spanish and other languages 1.7. Guarani as a second or foreign language 1.8. Pointers for students 2. Phonology and orthography: the sound system and its written representation 2.1. Sound inventory and pronunciation (segmental phonology) 2.1.1. Vowels and diphthongs 2.1.2. Consonants 2.2. Suprasegmental phonology 2.2.1. Syllable structure 2.2.2. Stress 2.2.3. Nasal harmony 2.2.4. Prosody sketch: practical considerations for pronunciation 2.3. The alphabet or achegety and modern orthographic conventions in Paraguay 2.3.1. History of orthographic conventions 2.3.2. Recommended orthography 3. Nominals 3.1. Nouns 3.1.1. Plural marking 3.1.2. Gender marking 3.1.3. Relational (multiform) nominal roots 3.1.4. Functions of noun phrases in a sentence 3.2. Forming nouns from other words 3.2.1. Nominalizations 3.2.1.1. Nominalizing suffixes 3.2.1.1.1. General nominalizer -ha 3.2.1.1.2. Passive -py 3.2.1.1.3. Adjectival -va 3.2.1.1.4. Abstract -kue 3.2.1.2. Nominalizing prefixes 3.2.1.2.1. Resultative/instrumental t-embi- 3.2.1.2.2. Reflexive/passive/impersonal je- 3.2.1.2.3. Reciprocal jo 3.2.1.2.4. Abstract t-eko- 3.2.1.2.5. Abstract mba'e- 3.2.2. Nominal/adjectival negation 3.2.3. Diminutives and attenuatives 3.3. Adjectival modifiers of the noun 3.4. Determiners 3.4.1. Articles 3.4.2. Demonstratives 3.4.3. Numerals and quantifiers 3.5. Pronouns 3.5.1 Personal pronouns 3.5.2 Interrogative pronouns 3.5.3 Indefinite and negative pronouns 3.5.4 Demonstrative pronouns 3.5.5 Possessive pronouns 3.6. Possessive noun phrases 3.7. Nominal temporal-aspectual markers 4. Verbs 4.1 Intransitive verbs 4.1.1. Active verbs 4.1.2. Inactive verbs 4.2. Transitive verbs 4.3. Ditransitive verbs 4.4. Postpositional complement verbs 4.5. Irregular verbs 4.6. Relational (multiform) verbs 4.7. Verbs with increments 4.8. Verbs with loss of initial consonant 4.9. Verbal negation 4.10. Expressing properties of events: tense, aspect,mood/modality, evidentiality 4.10.1 Tense 4.10.2 Aspect 4.10.3 Mood and modality 4.10.3.1. Expressing commands 4.10.3.1.1 Basic imperative mood 4.10.3.1.2 Imperative modalizers 4.10.3.1.3 Prohibitive mood 4.10.3.2. Expressing possibility and ability 4.10.3.3. Expressing obligation and permission 4.10.3.4. Expressing desire and volition 4.10.3.4.1 Volitive mood 4.10.3.4.2 Hortative and optative mood 4.10.3.5. Expressing negative evaluations 4.11. Verbalizations 4.12. Modifiers of the verb 4.13. Verb compounds 5. Postpositions 5.1. Postpositions marking a predicate’s complements 5.2. Postpositions of place 5.3. Postpositions of time 5.4. Other postpositions 6. Voice 6.1. Active voice 6.2. Inactive voice 6.3. Passive/reflexive/impersonal voice 6.3.1. With intransitive verbs: generic and impersonal interpretations 6.3.2. With transitive verbs: passive and reflexive interpretations 6.4. Reciprocal voice 6.5. Antipassive voice 6.6. Causative voice 6.6.1. Causative voice for intransitive verbs 6.6.2. Sociative causative 6.6.3. Causative voice for transitive verbs 7. Evidentiality 7.1. Emphatic and veridical markers 7.2. Markers of hearsay 7.3. Markers of direct evidence 7.4. Markers of reasoned evidence 8. Basic clauses 8.1. Word order in simple clauses 8.2. Predicative and equative clauses 8.3. Location and existence clauses 8.4. Sentences expressing possession 8.4.1. Non-verbal possessive sentences 8.4.2. Verbal possessive sentences 8.5. Questions 9. Quantification 10. Degree expressions 10.1. Comparatives 10.2. Superlatives 11. Noun incorporation into the verb 12. Complex sentences 12.1. Coordinated clauses 12.2. Subordinate clauses 12.2.1. Relative clauses 12.2.2. Complement clauses 12.2.3. Adverbial clauses 12.2.3.1. Purposive 12.2.3.2. Concessive 12.2.3.3. Causal 12.2.3.4. Conditional 12.2.3.5. Manner 12.2.3.6. Temporal 12.2.3.7. Locative 13. Information structure 13.1. Focus 13.2. Topic 14. Order of affixes, clitics and other particles in the predicate 15. Common vocabulary 15.1. Food 15.2. Body parts 15.3. Senses 15.4. Numbers 15.5. Kinship terms 15.6. Animals 15.7. Time 15.8. Dwelling 15.9. Colours 16. Text samples 16.1. Interview 16.2. Narrative 16.3. Poem 16.4. Theatre 16.5. Newspaper article 17. Paradigms 17.1. List of circumfixes 17.2. List of prefixes 17.3. List of postpositional particles 17.4. List of morphemes with consonant allomorphs conditioned by nasal harmony 17.4.1. Affixes and clitics 17.4.2. Roots 17.5. List of relational roots and morphemes 17.6. List of aireal verbs 18. Common phrases and expressions References Data sources Suggested resources General introductions Phrasebooks Textbooks and online courses Dictionaries Grammars Linguistic overviews Online resources Online bookshops Academic works consulted Glossary Index