Ye'kwana

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Variant orthographies
ALIV -emje
Brazilian standard -emje
New Tribes -emje

Etymology 1

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Alternative forms

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Pronunciation

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Suffix

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-emje

  1. forms adverbs from verbs with a resulting meaning of ‘ready to X’, ‘capable of X’ for intransitive verbs and ‘ready to be X-ed’, ‘capable of being X-ed’ for transitive verbs; must be accompanied by the prefix t-
Usage notes
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It is unclear if t- -emje is best analyzed as an adverbializing circumfix or as a separate unspecified person prefix t- and adverbializing suffix -emje.

It is likely that this suffix has further allomorphs similar to those of the adverbializer -e; the corpus collected by Cáceres (2011) did not contain enough attestations to establish them. In any case, it is known that the form -emje is used after stems ending in ü, and -mje after stems ending in a or ö.

Etymology 2

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Alternative forms

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Pronunciation

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Suffix

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-emje

  1. forms adverbs from verbs with a resulting meaning of ‘recently X-ed’
Usage notes
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When this suffix is attached to intransitive verb stems, they do not bear person markers, nor is this suffix used with t- or the prefixes w- and n-. Consonant-initial stems experience palatalization of their initial consonants, and, if a stem begins with two consonants, this suffix takes the form of a circumfix i- -'da instead of its ordinary shape. However, when this suffix derives an adverb from a transitive verb, it (possibly) carries a person marker referring to the object of the verb; reports are conflicting.

It is likely that this suffix has further allomorphs similar to those of the adverbializer -e; the corpus collected by Cáceres (2011) did not contain enough attestations to establish them. In any case, it is known that the form -emje is used after stems ending in ü, and -mje after stems ending in a or ö.

References

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  • Cáceres, Natalia (2011) “-emje”, in Grammaire Fonctionnelle-Typologique du Ye’kwana[1], Lyon, pages 154–155, 199–200, 438