Pirahã: a language without
complexity?
Jeanette Sakel
University of the West of England
jeanette.sakel@uwe.ac.uk
University of Bristol
13.05.2013
1
The Pirahã
• Pirahã: Muran language
• between 350-450 people
• living along the Maici river, Amazonas,
Brazil
• lifestyle: traditional - hunter-gathers
• contact with the outside world for 2
centuries (ongoing contact, though not
living in direct vicinity to Portuguese
speakers)
2
3
The Pirahã
4
Contents
• Introduction to the debate on cultural
constraints & recursion
• Introduction to the structure of Pirahã
• Examples & discussion:
– -sai
– Mental verbs
– Complexity? Why it isn’t necessary
• Extra: [Complexity in the contact variety (Portuguese
pidgin)]
5
Recursion
• Repetition of the same rule within itself –
e.g. phrases within phrases (1) sentences
within sentences (2):
(1) John’s sister’s son’s dog.
(2) John overheard that Mary said that
George believed that Sally ate the entire
cake!
6
Recursion: THE one [core] characteristic
of human language?
Yes: according to Chomsky (e.g. Hauser, Chomsky &
Fitch 2002)
But: Dan Everett (2005) Pirahã has no recursion. Culture
influences language
Immediacy of Experience Principle (IEP) - the Pirahã
only talk about what they have experienced themselves
or what has happened to people they know.
Pirahã has no recursion, no numbers, no
color terms, etc. due to cultural influence
(Dan Everett)
http://www.newyorker.com/reporting/2007/04/16/070416fa_fact_colapinto
7
Pirahã ways of expressing the same
concepts
NPs in NPs: ‘John’s father’s cat’ in Pirahã =
(3) John has a father, the father has a cat
Sentences in sentences: ‘He said that because it is
raining he is not going to hunt in the forest’ in
Pirahã =
(4) He said something. It is raining. I am not
going to the forest.
 It’s all in the discourse! Parataxis, juxtaposition.
8
(5)
a. He said that I suspected that the students
were hung over.
b. Hearsay perhaps the students are hung
over.
-so ‘when’:
(6)
Ai
ka’aí ka’ai-o
abá-ti piiboí-so.
DM house house-LOC stay-1 rain-DIS
‘Well, I stay in the house if/when it is raining.’
9
The structure of Pirahã
The sound system
• Small vowel and consonant inventories
• two tones
• allophony (e.g. hi~k): ‘not’ in Pirahã can be:
– Hiaba
– Kaba
• Intonation: various layers
– Shouting
– Whistling
– Monotonous recital
10
The structure of Pirahã: numerals
• Hói, hoí, baágiso
• Lack of numerals (Gordon 2004,
Frank et al 2008): three-way
distinction of ‘few’, ‘some’ and
‘many’.
11
The structure of Pirahã: grammar
• Suffixing, with synthesis in verbs.
• Nominal morphology: no core cases, an oblique marker -o
(location), grammatical relations are expressed by word
order alone (SOV).
• Complex verbal morphology (mood, aspect, interrogative
markers, negation, incorporation and ‘situational’ markers),
but the verb is not marked for tense or person.
• Sentence particles expressing counter-expective, linked to
the discourse context, etc.
• Clause combinations: juxtaposition of two simple clauses.
Context.
12
Examples & discussion
• A marker that has been discussed as a
possible subordination marker (-sai)
• Ways in which complex constructions are
expressed in Pirahã (and other languages):
mental verb constructions
• Reasons for why languages do not ‘need’
recursion
13
Examples & discussion: -sai:
Nominalisation? Subordination?
(7)
(8)
(9)
Piiboi-bai-sai
ti
kahápi-hiaba.
rain-INTENS-SAI 1
go-NEG
‘If it is raining I won’t go.’
Piiboi-bai
ti
kahápi-hiabi-sai.
rain-INTERS
1
go-NEG-SAI
‘If it is raining I won’t go.’
Piiboi-bai
ti
kahápi-hiaba.
Rain-INTENS
1
go-NEG
‘If it is raining I won’t go.’
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Examples & discussion: mental verbs
(10)
(11)
(12)
Garippíiru
bog-ai-haí-híai.
Brazilian.worker
come-ATELIC-DOUBT-HEARSAY
‘(I heard that) the Brazilian worker has probably not come
here.’
Hi
kagáihiai
koabái-p-á-há
3
jaguar
kill-PERF-REM-COMP_CERT
‘(I’m sure) he shot the jaguar’
Piboi-bai
hi
kahápi-hiab-áagahá
Rain-EMPH 3
go-NEG-OBSERV
‘It is raining; (I see) he is not going (to the forest)’
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Table 1: attitude suffixes in Pirahã
Verbal suffix
Function, meaning
-áti
-haí
-há
Uncertainty
relative certainty
complete certainty
-sog
-híai
-sibiga
Desiderative
Hearsay
deductive
-xáagahá
observation, matter
of fact
emphasis, intensifier
-bai / -koí
Equivalent in English
Mental verb
Adverb
I doubt, I’m not sure maybe, perhaps
I think, I guess
probably
I know, I bet, I’m
definitely, certainly
sure
I wish, I want, I hope hopefully
I heard
apparently, allegedly
I understand, I
apparently,
suspect I get the
seemingly
impression
I notice, I see, I’m
clearly
certain (lit. use)
I bet, I mean
obviously, certainly,
(clarification)
for sure
From Sakel & Stapert (2010)
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Recursion? Why it isn’t necessary
• Spoken language: less use of recursion e.g.
Finnish and Japanese (Laury & Tsuyoshi 2010)
(13) I was like “yeah, I’ll go” and he was
like “sure”
• That-omission in relative clauses
(14) He bought the house (that) he viewed
yesterday.
• Esoteric language use vs. exoteric language use
(Wray and Grace 2007)
17
Conclusion
• Complexity in Pirahã?
– Not necessarily
– Recursion (at the syntactic level) is not
necessarily THE core feature of language
– Rather: recursion appears more readily in
complex settings (written language, etc.)
– Pirahã = a complex, complicated language in
other ways!
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References
Everett, Daniel. (2005). Cultural constraints on grammar and cognition in Pirahã: another
look at the design features of human language. Current Anthropology 76(4): 621-646.
Frank, Michael; Daniel Everett; Evelina Fedorenko & Edward Gibson (2008) ‘Number as a
cognitive technology: Evidence from Pirahã language and cognition’ in Cognition
108(3): 819-824.
Gordon, Peter (2004) ‘Numerical cognition without words: evidence from Amazonia’ Science
306: 496-499.
Hauser, Marc. D., Noam Chomsky, W. Tecumseh Fitch (2002). The faculty of language:
what is it, who has it, and how did it evolve? Science 298: 1569-1579.
Jarvis, Scott & Aneta Pavlenko (2008) Crosslinguistic influence in language and cognition.
New York: Routledge.
Laury, Ritva and Ono Tsuyoshi. 2010. ‘Recursion in conversation: what speakers of Finnish
and Japanese know how to do’ p. 69-92 in Harry Van der Hulst (ed.) Recursion and
human language. Berlin: Mouton de Gruyter.
Sakel, Jeanette (Forthc.) ‘Transfer and language contact: the case of Pirahã’ to appear in J.
Sakel and J. Treffers-Daller (eds.) ‘Transfer and language contact’, special issues of
International Journal of Bilingualism.
Sakel, Jeanette & Eugenie Stapert (2010) ‘Pirahã - in need of recursion?’ p. 3-16 in Harry van
der Hulst (ed.) Recursion and human language. Berlin: Mouton de Gruyter.
Wray, Alison and George W. Grace (2007) The consequences of talking to strangers:
Evolutionary corollaries of socio-cultural influences on linguistic form. Lingua 117: 543–
578.
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Fieldwork
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Complexity in the contact variety
(Portuguese pidgin)
• Language contact with Portuguese
• Portuguese (a language with recursion)
influencing Pirahã?
 Contact theory: subordination markers &
constructions are often borrowed (cf. Matras &
Sakel 2007)
21
Language contact
• Widespread monolingualism among the
community, even though a wealth of
Portuguese loanwords exist.
• A number of middle-aged men
“gatekeepers” take over the role as
communicators:
– Basis communication
– Portuguese pidgin?
• The rest of the Pirahã are monolingual
22
Aspects of the gatekeepers’
language
• The Pirahã system to express quantities is replicated in the
gatekeepers’ language (Sakel forthc. 2010):
(15)
R:
Cuantos
meninos tem
você?
how.many
children have.2/3.SG you
‘How many children have you got?’
GK: MUIIITO!
eeh
MUITO
many
DM many
‘Many, many’
• = conceptual transfer from Pirahã (Jarvis & Pavlenko 2008)
(Portuguese elements in CAPITALS)
23
Examples of transfer and
parataxis
(16)
(17)
Ee
NOOOYJJJ, ee
NOOOYJJJ
DM far
DM far
‘It is far, it is very far.’
AGORA
NO
NO
CAZA ai
now
not
not
hunt DM
‘Now it (the dog) is not hunting; it is ill.’
MAAS ee.
more DM
DOEE ai.
ill
DM
 Juxtaposition of two elements to express causal, temporal and
other relationships
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(18)
Ai
ai
AKI his-o
KEECHE
DM DM here sun-LOC
hot
KWAADO
AKI his-o
FRIIO
when(DIS)
here sun-LOC
cold
ai
kaba KEEMA
ai
DM NEG burn
DM
ai
MUITO
BRAAKO.
DM very
white
‘It is hot here in the sun. When it is cold here in the
sun, you do not burn. (You are) very white.’
|1|
|2|
|3|
|4|
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Portuguese equivalent:
(19)Se
fizesse
frio
e
se
if make.SUBJ.IMP
cold and
if
a
sua
pele não fosse
DET.F
POSS.F
skin NEG be.SUBJ.IMP
muito
branca
você não
queimaria.
very
white.F
you
NEG burn.COND
‘If it was cold and if your skin wasn’t very fair you
would not burn.’
Pirahã expresses similar concepts with -so ‘when’:
(20)Ai ka’aí ka’ai-o
abá-ti
piiboí-so.
DM
house
house-LOC stay-1 rain-DIS
‘Well, I stay in the house if/when it is raining.’
26
(21)
Nai, ai
Pao’ai
higáisai
ti
DM DM Dan he.said
1SG
abíi-hai
gaisi nó’ ai,
stay-REL_CERT
say
there DM
Pao’ai ti
abíi-hái
gaisi’ CUANDO
Dan 1SG stay-REL_CERT
say
when
CUANDO
VAI
ai
kaháp-ii’.
when
go.3SG
DM leave-INTENT
‘This, thus Dan he spoke. “I will stay”. Dan, “I will stay
there” he spoke. When he goes. “I will go”.’ (GK1)
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(22)
Ma
eu
quería
só
CIMI mesmo.
but
I
want.COND.1SG
only CIMI itself
Voce trabalha
la
ponte’,
ne’?
you work.2SG
there bridge
TAG
Quería
vir
aqui, ne’?
want.COND.1SG
come.INF
here TAG
‘But I would only want CIMI itself. You work there, at the
bridge (i.e. in the other Pirahã village), right? I would want
you to come here, okay?’
(GK4)
[This example was recorded by Dan Everett at the Pirahã settlement at mouth
of the river in 2009]
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Conclusion: contact variety
• Portuguese on the surface, but conceptual transfer
from Pirahã
• In some cases: possible incipient complexity
• However: much of this can be analysed in terms of
pragmatics / discourse structure - not necessarily
as syntactically recursive structures
• Changes in the future: very likely
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