2.10. Evidentiality

The coding of evidentiality takes place at two different levels.  First, a major distinction between first-hand information and second-hand information is established.  Upon this basic distinction, two other markers may be added to indicate inference or speculation. Evidentiality is not a verbal category in SK but is expressed through clitics generally appended to the first major sentence constituent; however, if the first major constituent is a finite verb, evidentials precede the plural and finite aspectual morphology.  In narratives, the direct and reportative evidentials do not occur on every clause or sentence, but are used to mark certain discourse units.  Reported imperative expressions are possible in SK to transmit someone else’s orders or requests.  Evidentials have epistemic and mirative functions. 

2.11. Other Salient Features

The phoneme /ö/ is one of the four vowels SK has; this segment has been posited as one characteristic feature of Amazonian languages (Aikhenvald and Dixon 1999:8).  Probably the most interesting phoneme is the retroflex approximant 

/?/, which is a highly variable segment.  Some morphemes exhibit alternate allomorphs depending on whether they attach to an element with an even or an odd number of moras.  This phenomenon has been called “alternate mora-timing” (Lauriault 1948).  However, the answer as to whether codas or only nuclei should count as moraic in SK is not straightforward as can be drawn from the examination of stress patterns and morpho-phonological distributions.

SK exhibits several instances of case-stacking, so that a nominal may receive up to four (reconstructible) case-markers.  Ablatives are always formed upon locatives.

A few verbal suffixes indicate specific tense distinctions such as different degrees of past and a ‘tomorrow’ future.  Other interesting verb categories are those coding deictic-directive / adverb-type meanings.  With regard to valency-changing mechanisms, SK has a few causativizers encoding different degrees of force-dynamics, three applicatives one of which is restricted to transitive stems, a middle marker (with reflexive, anticausative and sometimes passive senses), and a dedicated reciprocal.  Verb stems can contain body-part prefixes, as well as onomatopoeic roots which combine with transitive and intransitive semantically generic verbs.  Short answers to polar questions are interesting since they involve the semantically generic verbs functioning as pro-verbs, as well as same-subject marking.  First person plural inclusive exhortatives and negative imperatives are biclausal.  Relative clauses can be prenominal, postnominal, circumnominal, or adjoined. 

2.12. Diachronic Observations

Certain verbs have become or are in the process of becoming bound verbal modifiers while simultaneously retaining their former function; e.g., the negative existential verb yama- is also the negative verbal suffix, the transitive verb pake- ‘cause to fall’ may be appended to another transitive verb to code distributive action, the verbs ‘come’ and ‘go’ seem to have combined with a second marker to become venitive and andative suffixes, and the verb toshi- ‘pop up, burst’ may be added to another verb stem to encode a sudden event.  As mentioned above, when added to a finite verb, second position clitics obligatorily precede the plural -kan and aspectual morphology, thus suggesting a relatively recent grammaticalization of the plural and aspect markers.  There is identity in form and semantic compatibility between applicatives and same-subject markers; this may be due to a diachronic connection (Valenzuela 1999).  A common origin is also posited for certain pairs of formally identical clauses, which nevertheless exhibit distinct finite versus nominalized syntactic status.  There are a few periphrastic finite verb forms such as the “narrative past,” whose structures reveal an obvious nominalized origin.

Some postpositions have developed from nouns denoting body parts to which an oblique marker has been added; e.g. pekáo ‘behind’ < peká ‘back’ + the approximative locative -o.  The comitative postposition betan has developed into a noun phrase conjunction while retaining its former function.  A shortened version of the comitative is also found in combination with the prefix ra- ‘body, person’ to form the numeral rabé ‘two.’  The intensifier -yora probably developed from yora ‘person, body’ (see also Semantic and Cultural Observations below).

Participant agreement on adjuncts exhibits traces of an older tripartite case-marking system; Chapter 20 provides a synchronic and comparative analysis of this typologically salient feature.  Reference-marked demonstratives have developed into interclausal and intersentential conjunctions.  The medial demonstrative ja has become the third person singular pronoun, and may also function as definite article, whereas the numeral ‘one’ may be used as indefinite article.  

2.13. Negative Characteristics

SK has no gender or noun class categories, no classifiers, no obvious alienable versus inalienable possession distinction, no first person plural inclusive versus exclusive distinction (but see hortatives), no dual number (although the verb suffix -bekon indicates action carried out by two participants), and no honorific pronouns.  As for verbs, these do not exhibit cross-referential pronominal morphemes.

Another negative characteristic is the absence of voice mechanisms of the canonical sort, such as agentive passive and antipassive. 

2.14. Semantic and Cultural Observations

Most perception, cognition and utterance events are morpho-syntactically encoded through prototypical transitive clauses.  Emotions are generally expressed via extended intransitive clauses, with the experiencer coded as S and the stimulus argument coded as oblique.  Forces, illnesses and other inanimates depicted as affecting other entities behave morpho-syntactically as highly transitive subjects.  For example, the only way to express the equivalent to the English ‘drown (intr.)’ is through a transitive construction involving the verb ‘kill,’ with the flowing water coded as A and the affected participant coded as O.  In turn, to express the equivalent of the English ‘drown (tr.)’ a causative construction with the literal translation ‘X caused the flowing water to kill Y’ would be required (see exx. (8)-(9) in Chapter 16).  The same holds for ‘to die suffocated’ or ‘to die from vomiting’ which involve the nouns join ‘air’ and kinan ‘vomit,’ respectively.  Also, body parts are encoded as transitive subjects in order to express the meaning ‘ache.’

Compounding is a very productive process.  Animal and plant names at the generic biological level tend to be monomorphemic, while most categories at levels below the genus are compounded.  It is common to employ the name of a highly salient animal or plant as a modifier that refers metaphorically to a distinctive characteristic of the species.  For example, ino-rono ‘jaguar-snake’ is a kind of snake whose head is said to resemble that of a jaguar (Valenzuela 1998b).  Traditional Shipibo proper names are also compounded.  As a general rule, the first element is common to women and men, and at least some may be related to former clan names; the second element is usually specific to each sex.  Ethnonyms are generally based on animal names; e.g., Kashibo [kaSi ‘bat’ + -Bo collective / plural] ‘Bat People.’  

Onomatopoeia, often in combination with the intransitive and transitive semantically generic verbs or auxiliaries, is a common lexicalization strategy.  This may be used in the coining of new vocabulary; e.g., to’-a-ti [ONOM-do.T-INF] ‘shotgun’ (lit. ‘sth. to make “to” to so./sth. else’), to’ ak- [ONOM-do.T] ‘kill with a shotgun,’ to’ ik- [ONOM-do.I] ‘kill oneself with a shotgun.’ 

The adverb bakish is best translated as ‘one day from today’ since it corresponds to both ‘yesterday’ and ‘tomorrow.’  There are two different words for English ‘water;’ while jene refers to flowing water, onpax refers to contained water.  Therefore, when bathing in the river one must take care that little children do not swallow jene, but one can only drink a glass of onpax.  Jene also means ‘sap’ or ‘juice;’ when preceded by xoma ‘breast,’ it means ‘milk.’

The derived noun piti is composed of the root pi- ‘eat’ and the irrealis nominalizer or infinitive suffix -ti; therefore, piti literally means ‘food.’  However, piti is primarily interpreted as ‘fish,’ which is the Shipibo food par excellence.  Consider the following excerpt from Valenzuela (2000a:4) (see also 1.3.6):  “The impressive resources of the major rivers and adjacent ox-bow lakes constitute the principal source of protein for the Shipibo, for whom “a day without fresh fish is a day of starvation” (Lathrap op.cit., p.19)”.  There is an additional term, yapa, which means ‘fish.’    

Color terms are joxo ‘white,’ wiso ‘black,’ chexe ‘sharp (color), black,’ yankon ‘blue / green,’ panshin ‘yellow,’ joshin ‘red’ (also ‘ripe’).  Note that the last two terms share the ending -shin.  An additional term, emo, is best translated as ‘faded white, colorless’ (like an old piece of cloth that has lost its original color).  SK is relatively rich in categories describing olfactory perception; some ten different terms describing kinds of smells have been identified (Tournon, p.c.).

Native numerals are only westíora ‘one’ and rabé ‘two;’ further on Quechua numerals have been borrowed.  Westíora might derive from westí ‘few, sparse’ + yora ‘body, person’ > intensifier suffix; and as mentioned above, rabé derives from ra- shortened form of ‘body, person’ + -bé shortened form of the comitative beta(n) also attested on pronouns.

The terms wetsa and poi refer to ‘same-sex sibling’ and ‘opposite-sex sibling,’ respectively; i.e., wetsa designates a man’s brother or a woman’s sister, and poi a man’s sister or a woman’s brother.  The term rayos means either a man’s parent-in-law, or a man’s or woman’s son-in-law but not daughter-in-law.  According to Shipibo culture, relatives holding the relationship of rayos must not speak directly to each other, but communicate through their daughter or wife.  This socio-cultural behavior triggers the relatively frequent use of jussive constructions (e.g., ‘May your husband bring firewood’ instead of ‘Bring firewood!’).  The term chichi means both ‘maternal grandmother’ and ‘highest authority.'