Hierarquia referencial em línguas Tupi

Abstract

Certain languages of the Tupi-Graurani family present a referential hierarchy that occurs at the morpho-syntactic level, in the form of verbal prefixes that specify the subject or object. It is referencial hierarchy that determines the occurrence of personal verbal prefixes in those languages. Recent studies in linguistic universals Howkinson & Hyman (1974), Foley (1976) and Silverstein (1977), propose the existence of the natural topic hierarchy and provide evidence for the mechanism of the referred hierarchy in other languages of the Tupi-Guarani family and in certain languages which belong to other families of the Tupi stock. In the conclusion of the paper the hypothesis is existence of a referential hierarchy in previous stages of languages discussed - i.e., in Proto-Tupi – is formulated provides an explanation for the shifts taking place in their present stage.