Pyhcop Cati Ji Jarcwaa: alinhamentos morfossintáticos e marcação diferencial

Abstract

This dissertation aims to describe aspects of the grammar of the Pykobjê language, investigating its Case system in order to analyze its elaborate system of differential subject marking. Pykobjê is a language part of the Timbira dialectal complex, which forms the Jê family of languages, itself part of the Macro-Jê stock. It is a language spoken by the Gavião do Maranhão people, who inhabits the Governador Reservation, in Amarante do Maranhão, Brazil. The central hypothesis of this research is that it operates with four morphosyntactic alignments, namely nominative-accusative, ergative-absolutive, nominative-absolutive, and dative-accusative. The theoretical framework adopted includes the proposal by Woolford (2006) about Case systems, the proposal by Dixon (1994) about ergativity and morphosyntactic alignments, and the proposals by Butt (2006a) and Butt & King (1991, 2003, 2005) about Differential Case Marking. The theory chosen contributes to our analysis of the differential subject marking in Pykobjê. The results achieved show that the Case system in Pykobjê operates through a quadripartite system, since its nuclear arguments can receive up to four cases, namely: nominative, accusative, ergative, and dative. Nominative and accusative are considered structural cases, while ergative and dative are considered inherent, since they are linked to the semantic role of the argument.