Maká language

Maká is a Matacoan language spoken in Argentina and Paraguay by the Maká people. Its 1,500 speakers live primarily in Presidente Hayes Department near the Río Negro, as well as in and around Asunción.^[2]

Velar consonants alternate with palatal consonants before /e/ and sometimes before /a/. Examples include /keɬejkup/ ~ [ceɬejkup] 'autumn' and /exeʔ/ ~ [eçeʔ] 'stork'. The palatal approximant /j/ is realised as a palatal fricative [ç] before /i/, as in /inanjiʔ/ ~ [inançiʔ].^{[3][page needed]}

Syllables in Maká may be of types V, VC, CV, CCV, and CCVC. When a consonant cluster appears at the beginning of a syllable, the second consonant must be /x/, /h/, /w/, or /j/.

Maká has two genders—masculine and feminine. The demonstratives reflect the gender of a noun.^[4]

In the plural the gender distinction is neutralized, and the plural demonstrative is the same as the feminine singular:

Maká nouns inflect for plurality. There are several distinct plural endings: -l, -wi, -Vts, and -Vy. All plants take the -wi plural, but otherwise the choice seems to be unpredictable.^[5]

Maká does not have any overt case marking on nouns. Consider the following sentence, where neither the subject nor object shows any case.^[6]

Nouns agree with their possessor in person.^[7]

Verbs agree with their subject and object in a rather complex system. Gerzenstein (1995) identifies five conjugation classes for intransitive verbs.^{[3][page needed]} The following two examples show intransitive verbs from conjugation classes 1 and 3.

Transitive verbs belong to a different conjugation class, Conjugation 6. The following forms show a transitive verb with a 3rd person object:

If the object of the transitive verb is 1st or 2nd person, then certain combinations of subject and object are shown by a portmanteau morpheme.

Other combinations involve an object agreement marker which may either precede or follow the subject marker.^[8]

Verbs in Maká have a series of suffixes called 'postpositions' in Gerzenstein (1995), which have the effect of introducing new oblique objects into the sentence.^{[3][page needed]}

The following examples show the applicative suffixes -ex 'instrumental ('with')' and -m 'benefactive ('for')'

In noun phrases, the possessor precedes the possessed noun.^[9]

Noun phrases show the order (Demonstrative) (Numeral) (Adjective) N.^[10]

The basic word order for a transitive clause in Maká is subject–verb–object, as seen in the following example.^[11]

For intransitive clauses, the basic order is verb-subject.^[12]

In yes–no questions, the usual subject–verb–object order changes to verb-subject-object following an initial particle me.^[13]

Sentences with wh-questions show a sentence-initial question word. Maká has a very small inventory of question words, with only three members: łek 'who, what', pan 'which, where, how many', and inhats'ek 'why'. The following example shows an interrogative sentence with an initial question word.^[14]

• Gerzenstein, Ana (1995). Lengua Maká. Estudio descriptivo. Archivo de Lenguas Indoamericanas (in Spanish). Buenos Aires: Universidad de Buenos Aires. ISBN 950-29-0176-2.
• Herzfeld, Anita; Lastra, Yolanda (1999). Las Causas sociales de la desaparición y del mantenimiento de las lenguas en las naciones de América: trabajos presentados en el 49avo Congreso Internacional de Americanistas, Quito, Ecuador, julio 7-11, 1997 (in Spanish). USON. ISBN 978-968-7713-70-0.

• Argentinian Languages Collection of Ana Gerzenstein, containing audio recordings of Maká, from the Archive of the Indigenous Languages of Latin America.
• Maca (Intercontinental Dictionary Series)