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
+ConsonantsLabialDentalAlveolarPalatal/VelarUvularGlottal Nasal Plosive Fricative Approximant
Velar consonants alternate with palatal consonants before and sometimes before . Examples include ~ and ~ . The palatal approximant is realised as a palatal fricative before , as in ~ .
+Vowels Front Back High Mid Low
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 .
Morphology
Nouns
Gender Maká has two genders—masculine and feminine. The demonstratives reflect the gender of a noun. Masculine nounsFeminine nouns
In the plural the gender distinction is neutralized, and the plural demonstrative is the same as the feminine singular:
Number
Maká nouns inflect for plurality. There are several distinct plural endings: , , , and . All plants take the plural, but otherwise the choice seems to be unpredictable. singularpluralgloss
Case Maká does not have any overt case marking on nouns. Consider the following sentence, where neither the subject nor object shows any case.
Agreement with the possessor
Nouns agree with their possessor in person.
Verbs
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.
tremble (conjugation class 3) dance (conjugation class 1) .
Transitive verbs belong to a different conjugation class, Conjugation 6. The following forms show a transitive verb with a 3rd person object:
love (conjugation class 6)
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.
love (conjugation class 6) subject/object combination 1SUBJ›2OBJ 3SUBJ›1OBJ 3SUBJ›2OBJ
Other combinations involve an object agreement marker which may either precede or follow the subject marker.
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 and
Syntax
Noun phrases
In noun phrases, the possessor precedes the possessed noun.
Noun phrases show the order (Demonstrative) (Numeral) (Adjective) N.
Sentences
Affirmative The basic word order for a transitive clause in Maká is subject–verb–object, as seen in the following example.
For intransitive clauses, the basic order is verb-subject.
Interrogative In yes–no questions, the usual subject–verb–object order changes to verb-subject-object following an initial particle .
Sentences with wh-questions show a sentence-initial question word. Maká has a very small inventory of question words, with only three members: , , and . The following example shows an interrogative sentence with an initial question word.
Notes
References
External links 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)