Guarani/Grammar

Overview

The main grammatical categories of words in Guarani are nouns, adjectives, verbs, pronouns, adverbs, nominal postpositions, verbal postpositions, conjunctions, and interjections. Guarani does not keep track of gender and has no definite article (although lo and la from Spanish are sometimes used). Nouns are differentiated from other word classes by their ability to take the following morphemes: -kue (e.g., oga-kue 'former house'), -rã 'nominal future' (e.g., oga-rã house'), -kuéra 'plural' (e.g., mitã-kuéra 'children'), -eta 'a multitude of (e.g., mitã-ita 'a multitude of children), ko 'this' (e.g., ko-mita 'this child'), and pe 'that' (e.g., pe-mitã 'that child'). [1] Guarani seems not have a well-defined class of adjectives since there is no morphological process or syntactic behavior that can be uniquely associated with forms indicating properties. Morphologically, adjectives behave either as nouns or most commonly as intransitive predicators. [2]

Tense Morphemes

One interesting aspect of Guarani is the use of a tense morpheme to mark verb tense. Rather than having different verb conjugations to indicate tense, Guarani uses several affixes to indicate tense.

Guarani Present Tense

This section will cover the conjugation for Guarani verbs in the present tense. Verbs will be tagged with <v>. There are two main classes for Guarani verb stems: areal, which are active verbs, and chendal, which are stative verbs. There is also a the stem aireal, which is usually considered a subclass of areal. These will all be tagged with <ar>, <air>, and <chen>. We will mark present tense with <pres>. The person tag will be marked with <p1>, <p2> and <p3>. Additionally, verbs in Guarani distinguish between inclusive and exclusive for the first person plural, which we will mark with <incl> and <excl>, respectively. For the chendal verbs, person is marked with a separate pronoun, except in the third person, which uses a prefix.

«guata» ("walk") is an «areal» verb:

• guata<v><ar><pres><p1><sg> ↔ aguata
• guata<v><ar><pres><p2><sg> ↔ reguata
• guata<v><ar><pres><p3><sg> ↔ oguata
• guata<v><ar><pres><p1><pl><incl> ↔ jaguata
• guata<v><ar><pres><p1><pl><excl> ↔ roguata
• guata<v><ar><pres><p2><pl> ↔ peguata
• guata<v><ar><pres><p3><pl> ↔ oguata

«pyvu» ("beat") is an «aireal» verb:

• pyvu<v><air><pres><p1><sg> ↔ aipyvu
• pyvu<v><air><pres><p2><sg> ↔ reipyvu
• pyvu<v><air><pres><p3><sg> ↔ oipyvu
• pyvu<v><air><pres><p1><pl><incl> ↔ jaipyvu
• pyvu<v><air><pres><p1><pl><excl> ↔ roipyvu
• pyvu<v><air><pres><p2><pl> ↔ peipyvu
• pyvu<v><air><pres><p3><pl> ↔ oipyvu

«japu» ("lie") is an «chendal» verb:

• japu<v><chen><pres><p1><sg> ↔ che japu
• japu<v><chen><pres><p2><sg> ↔ nde japu
• japu<v><chen><pres><p3><sg> ↔ ijapu
• japu<v><chen><pres><p1><pl><incl> ↔ ñande japu
• japu<v><chen><pres><p1><pl><excl> ↔ ore japu
• japu<v><chen><pres><p2><pl> ↔ pende japu
• japu<v><chen><pres><p3><pl> ↔ ijapu

Nominal Tense

One fairly unusual aspect of Guarani is the use of nominal tense. Nouns can have suffixes that indicate either past or present tense. For past tense, either «-kue» or «-re» are used and for future tense «-rã» is used. The tags <past> and <fut> will be used to indicate this. Additionally, the suffix «-kue» takes the form «-ngue» when following a nasal.

«pa'i» ("priest"):

• pa'i<n><fut> ↔ pa'irã (future priest, seminarian)
• pa'i<n><past> ↔ pa'kue (ex-priest, former priest)

«ména» ("husband"):

• ména<n><fut> ↔ menarã (future husband, fiance)
• ména<n><past> ↔ menare (ex-husband)

«ao» ("clothing"):

• ao<n><fut> ↔ aorã (clothing to be made in the future? Not too sure what this would express)
• ména<n><past> ↔ aokue (old clothing)

The future and past suffixes can be chained together to express more complex ideas.

«tembireko» ("wife"):

• tembireko<n><fut> ↔ tembirekorã (future wife, fiance)
• tembireko<n><past> ↔ tembirekokue (ex-wife)
• tembireko<n><past> ↔ tembirekorãngue (ex-future wife)

Noun Number

Guarani distinguishes singular and plural nouns using the nominal suffix «-kuera».

«jagua» ("dog"):

• jagua<n><pl> ↔ jaguakuera

«sapatu» ("shoe"):

• sapatu<n><pl> ↔ sapatukuera

«haiha» ("pencil"):

• haiha<n><pl> ↔ haihakuera

There is an alternate form «-nguera» that is used when following a nasal word.

«mitã» ("child"):

• mitã<n><pl> ↔ mitãnguera

«kuña» ("woman"):

• kuña<n><pl> ↔ kuñanguera

«okẽ» ("door"):

• okẽ<n><pl> ↔ okẽnguera

Negation Circumfix

The negation of vowels in Guarani is achieved through the circumfix n(d)(a)-...-i. The prefix portion of the circumfix varies between n- and nd- depending on whether the verb being negated is oral or nasal. For first person plural inclusive verbs, an epenthetic a is included before the root. For second person verbs, an epenthetic e is inserted instead. To mark this, we will use the tag <neg>.

«japo» ("do, make"):

• japo<v><ar><pres><p1><sg><neg> ↔ ndajapoi
• japo<v><ar><pres><p2><sg><neg> ↔ nderejapoi
• japo<v><ar><pres><p3><sg><neg> ↔ ndojapoi
• japo<v><ar><pres><p1><pl><incl><neg> ↔ ndajajapoi
• japo<v><ar><pres><p1><pl><excl><neg> ↔ ndorojapoi
• japo<v><ar><pres><p2><pl><neg> ↔ ndepjapoi
• japo<v><ar><pres><p3><pl><neg> ↔ ndojapoi

«kororõ» ("roar, snore"):

• kororõ<v><ar><pres><p1><sg><neg> ↔ nakororõi
• kororõ<v><ar><pres><p2><sg><neg> ↔ nerekororõi
• kororõ<v><ar><pres><p3><sg><neg> ↔ nokororõi
• kororõ<v><ar><pres><p1><pl><incl><neg> ↔ nañakororõi
• kororõ<v><ar><pres><p1><pl><excl><neg> ↔ norokororõi
• kororõ<v><ar><pres><p2><pl><neg> ↔ napekororõi
• kororõ<v><ar><pres><p3><pl><neg> ↔ nokororõi

Additionally, when negating a verb that ends in i, the ending part of the circumfix becomes -ri.

«jupi» ("go up, rise"):

• jupi<v><ar><pres><p1><sg><neg> ↔ ndajupiri
• jupi<v><ar><pres><p2><sg><neg> ↔ nderejupiri
• jupi<v><ar><pres><p3><sg><neg> ↔ ndojupiri
• jupi<v><ar><pres><p1><pl><incl><neg> ↔ ndajajupiri
• jupi<v><ar><pres><p1><pl><excl><neg> ↔ ndorojupiri
• jupi<v><ar><pres><p2><pl><neg> ↔ ndapejupiri
• jupi<v><ar><pres><p3><pl><neg> ↔ ndojupiri