1000090310

The Language o!

t~e

Tacana lndians (Bolivia).

465

The accessible material is no! so extensive as to give an accurate idea of

the

pos~essives

in al! their parts. Still, in the Cavineña there o'ccur severa!

forms, from which we may infer that !he suffixes

-qui, -quía,

are emphatical

particles, meaning

of-my-being.

CARDús gives:

Tacana

Cavi neña

Mar opa

mi-quie-mimi ema babe,

1 understand thy

language

mi-qui-xana iquie babe

mi mimi me [,ambaxda

In the short Cavineña text, as published by LAFONE QuEVEDO, we find

mi-equia ecarani-xu quie

(of-thy-being-womb-in-the-being)

of thy belly;

mi–

w e eban.i,

thy name.

Taca na

mique neda,

thy sickness

mique epuna,

thy

wi!e

mique xutsa-cuana,

thy sins

The Araona possessives are followed by !he word

emetse

which simply

means pro pe r t y, pos ses si o n, from

eme,

hand,

cf. eme-tsene,

to take

possession of a thing ;

eme-tara,

finger-ring.

The dental

and

o! the Tacana possessives become guttural in both the

Araona and Cavineña. The vowel

is weakened befo re predental

as in :

tuna, tune-za, mi-wana, mi-cuane-zu

s2.

The vocabularies and short grammatical sketches which have been

published from the Tacana dialects, of course, contain serious errors both in

regard to the translation and the compound nominal and verbal forms, as well

as in many other respects. Leas! trustworthy of al_l are !he diacritical marks.

This subject to which !he highest importance should have been attached was

carelessly neglected in both the Tacana and Cavineña materials. ·

As to !he l

sing.

e-ma (eama),

LAFONE QuEVEDO

is mistaken, for

it can be subject as well as object.

T aca n a

enma 1/utlsama-xixi,

1-that-loked (at)

rama zu elata,

(!)

will nail

saipiave ema

(good-well-being-1)

1 feel well

tsama-qae ema!

look at me!

The suffixes

and

xa,

in !he form

mique-?a, lu-xa-que,

are used in !he

demonstrative sense.

The following d e monstratives occo ur:

this

these

that

those

this one

these ones

T aca n a

ihe-ise

ilze-cuana

itSu

itSu-cuana

xi-?a

xi-?a-cuana

Ara o n a.

uxa, uaxa

uaxa-cuana

xuma

xuma-cuana

V0-?0

va-¡a-cuana

Ca Vi

e ñ.a

rie

rie-cuana

xue-que

xuma-e-cuana

mi-cuane-tda (= ¡a),

your, it appears of course erroneously in the Absolute per–

sonal pronouns of the Tacana-CARDÚS.

HTacana",

108, 11.