Descrição e análise de propriedades semânticas e morfossintáticas de nomes contáveis nomes massivos em Parkatêjê

Abstract

This work aims to describe the behavior of countable and mass nouns in Parkatêjê, language spoken by the Parkatêjê indigenous people who live in communities situated along the BR-222, in Bom Jesus do Tocantins County, in Pará state. In agreement with Rodrigues (1986), this language belongs to Timbira Dialetal Complex, Jê family, macro linguistic Jê stock. Many studies have shown that the majority of languages have two distinct groups of nouns: countable and mass. According to Paraguassu-Martins and Muller (2007), Jespersen (1924) paper was the first work in linguistics about this topic. To this author, countable names are the ones which convey an idea of something defined, with a clearly defined shape and precise limits, while mass nouns do not present these characteristics, regardless of being concrete or abstract. However, to establishing some concepts and criteria for the count/mass distinction is still being a major challenge for those who work with analysis and description of natural languages considering the significant variation between them, even those which are relatively similar. To bring out this study in Parkatêjê language, the author has done data collection with native speakers of this indigenous community. The methodology was based on Lima (2014), on her work about counting and individuation in Yudja and also on the questionnaire elaborated by Lima and Rothstein. The results obtained show which countable and massive nouns present distinguished morphosyntax aspects. It was verified which quantity expressions, in the majority, works as distinct proprieties in this nominal class. Countable nouns are combined directly with numerals without the necessity of a measure phrase. Mass nouns are combined with numerals in those circumstances: 1) when there is some insertion of a measure phrase between the name and the numeral; and 2) when there is no insertion of a measure phrase, although this one will be implied in the context. There are quantifiers used with all the nouns, but there are some others that occur specifically with countable nouns and others only with massive nouns. The behavior of these nouns in Parkatêjê which were observed is similar to the behavior of the languages which have number marking, which converges in part with what was proposed by Chierchia (1998a, 1998b, 2010 apud LIMA, 2014) about language types, given that it has both features from number-marking languages and features from languages that are numerically neutral.