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.

Phonology
Velar consonants alternate with palatal consonants before and sometimes before. Examples include ~  autumn and  ~  stork. The palatal approximant is realised as a palatal fricative  before, as in  ~.

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, , , or.

Gender
Maká has two genders—masculine and feminine. The demonstratives reflect the gender of a noun.

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

ne’	sehe-l

these	land-PL

‘these lands’

ne’	naxkak-wi

these	tree-PL

‘these trees’

Number
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.

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

Ne’ efu Ø-tux ka’ sehets.

DEM.F woman A3-eat INDEF.M fish

‘The woman eats fish.’

Agreement with the possessor
Nouns agree with their possessor in person.

Agreement with subject and object
Verbs agree with their subject and object in a rather complex system. Gerzenstein (1995) identifies five conjugation classes for intransitive verbs. 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.

łe-ts-ikfex

2.SUBJ-1SG.OBJ-bite

'you bite me'

xi-yi-łin

1PL.INCL.OBJ-3-save

'he/she saves us (inclusive)'

Applicatives
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.

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

Ne’ efu ni-xele-ex ke’ ute na’ nunax.

DEM.F woman A3-throw-with INDEF.M rock DEM.M dog

‘The woman threw a rock at the dog.’

H-osxey-i-m na’ sehets na’ k’utsaX

A1-grill-P3-for DEM.M fish DEM.M old.man

‘I grill fish for the old man.’

Noun phrases
In noun phrases, the possessor precedes the possessed noun.

e-li-ts łe-xiła’

2-child-PL 3-head

'your children’s head'

Noun phrases show the order (Demonstrative) (Numeral) (Adjective) N.

Ne’ efu t-aqhay-ets ne’ ikwetxuł fo’ tiptip-its

DEM.F woman S3-buy-toward DEM.PL four white horse-PL

’The woman bought four white horses.’

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

Ne’ efu ni-xele-ex ke’ ute na’ nunax.

DEM.F woman A3-throw-with INDEF.M rock DEM.M dog

‘The woman threw a rock at the dog.’

For intransitive clauses, the basic order is verb-subject.

Wapi ne' efu.

rest DEM.F woman

'The woman rests'

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

Me y-eqfemet-en na' k’utsaX na' xukhew?

Q A3-injure-CAUS DEM.M old.man DEM.M man

‘Did the old man injure the man?’

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.

Łek pa' tux na' xukhew?

what DEM.M eat DEM.M old.man

‘What did the old man eat?’