Panará (, ), also known as Kreen Akarore (from Mẽbêngôkre , ) and spelled Panãra, is a Jê language spoken by the Panará people of Mato Grosso, Brazil. It is a direct descendant of Southern Kayapó. Although classified as a Northern Jê language in earlier scholarship, Panará differs considerably from the Northern Jê languages in its morphosyntax and has been argued to be a sister language to Northern Jê rather than a member of that group.

History An early form of Panará, Kayapó do Sul, was formerly spoken by the Southern Kayapó. It was spoken in a vast region that comprised Triângulo Mineiro, Goiás, southeastern Mato Grosso, northeastern Mato Grosso do Sul, and northeastern São Paulo (Brazil), in particular on the rivers Rio Turvo, Corumbá, Meia Ponte, Tijuco, Rio das Velhas, Rio Pardo, Sucuriju, Aparé, Rio Verde, and Taquari.

Two dialects have been identified based on the scarce documentation of the language. The variety spoken in São José de Mossâmedes (as attested by Johann Baptist Emanuel PohlPOHL, J. E. Reise im Innern von Brasilien: auf allerhoechsten Befehl seiner Majestät des Kaisers von Österreich, Franz des Ersten, in den Jahren 1817–1821 unternommen. Vol. 1. Viena: A. Strauss’s Sel. Witwe e J. B. Wallishausser, 1832. 448 pp. and Augustin Saint-Hilaire in short wordlists) is characterized by the retention of the Proto-Goyaz Jê rhotic *r. In contrast, the variety spoken in Santana do Paranaíba (as attested by Kupfer,KUPFER, Dr. Die Cayapo-Indianer in der Provinz Matto-Grosso. Zeitschrift für der Gesellschaft für Erdkunde zu Berlin, Berlim, n. 5, p. 244–254, 1870. Carl Nehring,NEHRING, C. Sud-Cayapo: Wörterlisten. In: EHRENREICH, P. Materialen Zur Sprachekunde Brasiliens. Zeitschrift fur Ethnologie, n. 26, p. 136–137, 1894. and Joaquim Lemos da Silva in short wordlists) and in the Triângulo Mineiro region (as documented by Barbosa in an extensive wordlist) innovated by palatalizing the rhotic (i.e. *r > j) in certain environments and is thought to be the ancestor of Panará.

Phonology: +VowelsFrontCentralBackClosei, ĩɨ, ɨ̃u, ũMide, ẽəo, õOpena, ã +ConsonantsLabialAlveolarPalatalVelarGlottalStopvoicelessptkprenasalᵐpⁿtᵑkAffricatevoicelesst͡sprenasalⁿt͡sFricative(s)ʃNasalmnɲŋSonorantwɾjh /ʃ/ exists only in the Mossâmedes dialect. /ɲ, ŋ, h/ exist only in the Santana dialect. /t͡s, ⁿt͡s/ can be heard as [s, ⁿs] in free variation.

Phonology Consonants The consonantal inventory of Panará is as follows. Labial AlveolarPalatal VelarPlosive Plain Geminate FricativePlain Geminate Nasal Plain Geminate Approximant

The underlying nasals are post-oralized to preceding an oral vowel or one of , as in 'new'.

The geminates occur both in underived roots (such as 'foreigner') and at morpheme junctions, as in 'fish' + 'dead' → 'dead fish'. Consonant length is phonemic in Panará, hence the inclusion of geminates in addition to the existing Panará obstruents. A geminate is a consonant that is held for a longer period of time than a singleton consonant. The geminate is realized as by many speakers as a sociolinguistic variation between generations. The use of is associated with pre-contact with the colonizers and is thus used by the older generation of Panará speakers. The younger generation uses as well as the geminate as the language shifts.

Vowels The vowel phonemes of Panará are as follows. Oral Nasal Front Central Back Front Central Back Close Mid Open

The vowels are realized as the diphthongs as a result of the phonological rule long vowel diphthongization. Low vowel reduction is also used in Panará; the vowel can be reduced to or when unstressed.

Syllabic structure The known possible combinations for syllables in Panará are as follows: V, CV, C1C2V, V:, CV:, C1C2V:, CVC3, CV:C3, C1C2VC3, C1C2V:C3. Sequences where C1 and C2 share the same active articulator are disallowed phonotactically.

+ Syllabic Identification Chart Symbol Permissible Phonemes C Any consonant V Any vowel V: Any long vowel C1 Nasal consonant or stop (either singleton or half of a geminate) C2 An approximant C3 Nasal consonant or a non-geminate consonant

[i] epenthesis It has been argued that many word-initial and word-final instances of are epenthetic in Panará. Word-initial epenthesis aligns with the following table where [T] refers to a singleton stop, [CC] references a geminate, and [NT] refers to the allophonic realization of nasal stops, like: . + Lapierre epenthesis chart initial in [T] in root [CC] in root [NT] in root Monosyllabic Optional Obligatory Obligatory Polysyllabic ungrammatical Optional Optional Examples for each scenario:

Monosyllabic singleton [T] → 'belly' Monosyllabic geminate [CC] → 'tapir' Polysyllabic geminate [CC] → 'clothes' Monosyllabic allophonic nasal stops → 'water' Polysyllabic allophonic nasal stops → 'small hole' Note: For the optional locations an alternate is also provided.

Word-final epenthesis follows obstruent codas. Examples are shown below: → 'fish' → 'chair' → 'stuff'

Stress Stress falls on the last underlying vowel of a phonological word (the epenthetic is never stressed). If after the application of the epenthesis the stress falls of the penultimate vowel, the stressed vowel is lengthened: 'picture, spirit', 'an aquatic monster', 'dog, jaguar'.

Orthography Orthography for Panará has been developed by Panará teachers, with help from literacy workshops, over the last 20 years. The following charts for both consonants and vowels are the result of the aforementioned workshops between Panará groups and academics, specifically Bernat Bardagil-Mas and Myriam Lapierre, in 2016 and 2017 and represent the orthography that has been adopted since then.

The orthography of Panará was shown above using the angle brackets in the phonetic tables.

Morphology

Postpositional case marking In Panará, their case-marking is done postpositionally. These postpositions "indicate various semantic relations, including place, time, cause, goal, means or source, among others". The postpositions include ablative case, adessive, allative, comitative, comitative-locative, desiderative, essive, final, inessive, instrumental comitative case, instrumental comitative, locative-inessive, locative, malefactive, perlative, possessive, and purposive.

Some of the more infrequent types include: the comitative-locative that expresses accompaniment at a location, the locative-inessive , which indicates location inside a physical container, the malefactive , which expresses an event that takes place against X's will or interest, and the purposive which expresses purpose, but unlike the desiderative, it does not convey desire.

Nominal number Nominals inflect for number in Panará. Singular is unmarked, dual is marked with the suffix , and plural is marked with the suffix . These suffixes may be attached to nouns and pronouns alike: 'you (singular)', 'you two', 'you guys (plural)'. The expression of number via suffixes is optional (this contrasts with the indexation of the argument number on verbs via clitics, which is obligatory).

Panará number suffixes

+ Nominal Suffixes Singular Dual Plural Absolutive Ø Ergative Ø

Nominal number is inflected for singular, dual, and plural and pronominal clitics are also used for agreement with the verb.

Numerals Panará does not have a set of numerals beyond one and dual. There are words for few and many. Some numerals were translated from Portuguese but most are just said in Portuguese if they are needed. Panará Translation one one-DU (Two) Few Many

Countability Pluralization is always acceptable with animate nouns and sometimes acceptable for inanimate nouns with a numeral placed before it. However, some nouns are not acceptable even with the numeral addition, illustrating a category akin to mass nouns. Here are some examples of mass nouns: Panará Translation water rain mud blood

Clause type Verbs in Panará may receive inflectional suffixes that have been analyzed as encoding mood (the available values being realis and irrealis, as in realis / irrealis 'to kill', realis / irrealis 'to fly, to dance') and clause type (paratactic vs. hypotactic, as in paratactic / hypotactic 'to kill').

Mood In Panará, mood is a more functional category that corresponds to tense. The irrealis mood is often thought of as future tense, whereas realis mood corresponds to non-future non-modal clauses.

Syntax In Panará, the roles of the arguments in a clause are indicated both by postpositional case marking and by a series of proclitics which encode the role of the arguments as well as their person and/or number features. Within X-bar theory, Panará has a very free positioning of XP's compared to other Jê languages.

In Panará, the roles of the arguments in a clause are indicated both by postpositional case marking and by a series of proclitics which encode the role of the arguments as well as their person and/or number features.

Postpositional case-marking The case marking in Panará follows an ergative-absolutive pattern. Transitive agents (A) are marked by the ergative postposition , whereas transitive patients (P) and the sole arguments of intransitive verbs (S) are unmarked.

Clitics Proclitics encode a wide array of features in Panará, including the role and the person/number features of the arguments (person indexes), mood, voice, and direction. The person indexes are organized ergatively in the realis mood and accusatively in the irrealis mood.

The table below shows the slots found in realis or conditional clauses.

+ Clitics in Panará (realis/conditional) 9 8 7 6 5 4 3 2 1 0 mood A 2PL (A/S/P) voice direction recipient incorporatedpostpositional phrase(or person index) dual (A/S/P) absolutive index verb RLS.INTR COND COND.INTR 1SG/DU 1/3PL 2 3SG/DU 2PL RCPR REFL REGR/ITER CTPT 1SG/DU 1PL 2 3SG 3DU 3PL DU 1SG/DU 2 3SG/DU 1PL 3PL verb (realis form)

Irrealis clauses receive the mood marker .

Language play Code-switching puns While all languages have and utilize various humour forms, code-switching puns are a form of humour which is quite specific to Panará. These puns arise from the interplay of Panará and Portuguese, the colonizing language. For example, after a doctor mispronounces someone's name as , a Panará individual then repeats this mispronunciation to their friends and continues deforming its pronunciation until arriving at an end form , meaning "swollen eye". Panará speakers also use their form of humour self-reflexively, where during a Panará conversation they add a boastful interjection with purposely mispronounced Portuguese (using a heavy Panará accent) such as "I know a lot". This code-switching humour originated from the neighbouring Kayabi nation ridiculing Panará speakers' mispronunciation of Portuguese; however, it was adopted by Panará speakers as a form of cultural humour with which they in turn ridicule outsiders' misuse and mispronunciation of Panará. Code-switching puns have since become culturally important to the Panará people. Forcing previously isolated nations such as the Panará and the Tupian-speaking Kayabi onto the same reserve can create tensions and loss of identity due to inter-tribal contact, in addition to contact with colonizers. Therefore, code-switching puns in Panará have become an important way of maintaining Panará identity and agency, both regarding inter-tribal tensions and as a way to fight colonization.

Importance