Guarani Language Research Articles

Word Order In Paraguayan Guaraní

This paper explores constraints on clausal word order in Paraguayan Guarani on the basis of a corpus of naturally occurring data. We find that grammatical function is a strong predictor of word order for direct objects, since they are almost exclusively realized postverbally, as well as for indirect objects, which all occur postverbally. The placement of subjects, however, depends on a variety of factors, in particular discourse status and the transitivity of the verb. We find only partial support for the claim that Paraguayan Guarani has a basic subject-verb-object word order (e.g., Gregores and Suarez 1967), since there does not seem to be a basic position for subjects. We conclude by comparing constraints on word order in Paraguayan Guarani to constraints reported for other Tupi-Guarani languages.

Governance and the Revitalization of the Guaraní Language in Paraguay

This article takes a governance perspective to examine the contemporary revitalization of Guarani, a “repressed” language that is spoken by a majority of the population in Paraguay. A historical overview highlights the striking endurance of the language in spite of two centuries of official subjugation. The article traces the positive impact of political democratization since 1989 on the revitalization of Guarani by examining four interrelated areas that are closely linked to the governance agenda: the education system, the media, the political system, and popular culture. However, the absence of a comprehensive language policy continues to limit progress in improving governance, as the weak impact of the official poverty reduction program exemplifies. The case of Guarani demonstrates the need for wider recognition of the importance of language policy in promoting good governance through citizen empowerment and accountability of the state. Resumen: Este articulo examina la revitalizacion contemporanea de Guarani, un idioma reprimido hablado por la gran mayoria de paraguayos, desde la perspectiva de la gobernabilidad. Una resena historica resalta la resistencia llamativa del idioma a pesar de dos siglos de subyugacion oficial. El articulo traza el impacto positivo de la democratizacion politica desde 1989 sobre la revitalizacion de Guarani mediante una revision de cuatro areas interrelacionados que estan muy vinculados a la agenda de gobernabilidad: el sistema educativo, los medios de comunicacion, el sistema politico y la cultura popular. Sin embargo, la ausencia de una politica integral de lenguas sigue limitando el progreso en cuanto a la gobernabilidad, tal como demuestra el debil impacto del programa oficial de reduccion de pobreza. El caso de Guarani demuestra la necesidad de un mayor reconocimiento de la importancia de politicas de lenguas en promover la buena gobernabilidad a traves del capacitacion de la ciudadania y una mayor rendicion de cuentas por parte del estado.

A typological overview of Emerillon, a Tupí-Guaraní language from French Guiana

This article offers a typological overview of the Emerillon language, a Tupi- Guarani language spoken by a small community in French Guiana. General information is provided on various aspects of the grammar, within the domains of phonology, morphology, and syntax. Special attention is given to a few features of the language that are rather rare and/or poorly discussed in the typological literature, namely morphemic nasal harmony, a hierarchical person indexation system, a rare type of nominal predication, and the existence of a specific marker for sociative causation. These features are all typical of the Tupi-Guarani family.

Serial Verb Constructions in Paraguayan Guarani

This article shows that Guarani predicate chains designate a single macro‐event and that unitary eventhood is a matter of degree, involving a variety of formal and semantic configurations. Temporal relations and, in particular, event separability/orderability motivate the formal differences among types of predicate sequences. Levels of formal coalescence range from relatively individuated predicates, carrying their own concordant inflection, to tightly woven predicates which form a single word. Following Talmy’s macro‐event model, I analyze framing events and their supporting co‐events. The positioning of a framing event is correlated with whether or not the construction is interpreted sequentially: in V2 in the case of simultaneous predicate chains and in V1 in sequential chains. Framing predicates are consistently motion- or posture‐related and tend to house grammaticization processes.

Audiovisual documentation of oral consent: a new method of informed consent for illiterate populations

Informed consent is a legal and ethical requirement of most research in human beings, but obtaining proof of consent in illiterate populations can prove problematic. We used audiovisual documentation of oral consent (video and audiotape recording and photography), a new method of informed consent designed for illiterate populations, in the Guarani Indians Project, a genetic study in the Paraguayan Guarani Indians. We obtained consent from 42 of about 100 potential participants. We believe that our procedure allowed more than half the potential participants to exercise their freedom of refusal. We propose to include this new method as a standard procedure for clinical research in illiterate populations as an alternative to written and signed consent.

A contribution to comparative studies in the Guaraní linguistic family

The front vowels of four Guarani languages are examined with special attention to the development of Siriono which exhibits asymmetry in the front vowels derived from Proto Guarani *i and *i.

Guarani: rhetoric and reality

Paraguay is a bilingual country in which 50% of the population speak only Guarani. But the Guarani language and way of life are suffering from a kind of cultural amnesia on the part of the authorities.

The Bilingualism of Paraguay

Of the nations of the New World, Paraguay is the only one that is bilingual. There are several countries (Bolivia, Mexico, Peru) where more than one language is spoken, countries in which there is an official European language, but in which large segments of the population still retain their indigenous tongue. Yet Spanish has always been the language of the literate classes, and it would be rare to find an educated person well versed in one of the more primitive languages, such as Nahua or Quichua. The case of Paraguay is different. To be sure, Spanish is the official language of the country, but as a part of his racial heritage, every Paraguayan also learns Guarani. The use of Guarani is by no means limited to rural regions or to uneducated classes. In Paraguay, journalists, school teachers, lawyers, doctors, professors, and cabinet ministers all speak Guarani just as fluently as Spanish. Here the rarity would be the person who could not speak the indigenous language. In some educated families parents have been known to prohibit the use of Guarani by their children, presumably because they fear that it will corrupt their Spanish, but this is as futile as trying to keep the children from breathing the same air as other people breathe. Guarani is heard on all sides, and something more powerful than parental authority would be required to keep a child from learning it. It is the popular language of Paraguay, the language that Paraguayans feel is peculiarly their own. The average person prefers it to Spanish, and one may even hear well-educated people assert that Guarani is a more expressive language than Spanish. Paraguayans are wont to tell one that Guarani lends itself particularly well to the expression of tender sentiment and is, therefore, ideal for lovers. They often add that it is equally expressive and useful when a repertory of insults is required. It also appears that the stock of popular jokes in Guarani is much more abundant than it is in Spanish. Four centuries of contact with Spanish have not been sufficient to establish definitely the supremacy of Spanish over Guarani. This would not be strange in a country where there had been little mixing of races, but such is not the case in Paraguay. Here the population is overwhelmingly mestizo. The pure Indians constitute only a small minority of the population, and among these Indians, there are comparatively few survivors of the Guarani tribe. Spanish and Guarani blood fused in the production of a new nationality, the Paraguayan. The fact that Guarani is still the language of the masses is explained in part by the fact that during the long period of Jesuit domination, a systematic study of the Indian tongue was made by the Jesuits (1), so that works might be published in Guarani and used for the instruction and conversion of the natives. It is of some significance to note that the most authoritative grammars of the Guarani language have been written by Jesuit fathers. Of course the use of Guarani as a medium of religious instruction did not result in its universal adoption as a written language, but it probably contributed something toward the maintenance of Guarani as the popular spoken language of Paraguay. Another explanation of its persistence may be found in the structure and quality of the language itself. Had it not been a fairly welldeveloped and flexible language it would