Ikpeng language

The Ikpeng were known to inhabit the same land as the Txipaya peoples, near the Iriri River, and they a strong alliance with that group in times of war. One oral history traces the Ikpeng ancestral territory as far as the Jari River (Rodgers, 2013). By 1850, the Ikpeng were known to inhabit an area of converging rivers thought to be the Teles Pires-Juruena river basin (Menget & Troncarelli, 2003). Before 1900, the Ikpeng were at war with several polities, and even encountered settlers of European descent (2003). War and the colonization of the Teles Pires-Juruena basin pushed the Ikpeng across the Formosa Mountain formation and into the Upper Xingu Basin (2003).

On October 19, 1964, Orlando and Cláudio Villas-Boas encountered Ikpeng villages as they were flying over the Ronuro River in Mato Grosso (Pacheco, 2005). They lived near the Ronuro and Jabotá rivers and, when they were found malnourished and exposed to disease, they accepted resources and later relocation to the Xingu National Park in 1967 (Menget & Troncarelli, 2003). The Ikpeng dispersed for a short time, with different family groups living in different parts of the park, but later regrouped in the early 1970s near the Leonardo Villas-Boas Indigenous Post (2003). By the 1980s, they had moved to the middle Xingu region, and currently administer the Pavuru Indigenous Post, as well as the Ronuro Vigilance Post, which is near their traditional land on the Jabotá river (2003). From this post, they help defend the Xingu Park from illegal loggers and fishermen (Campetela, 1997). The Ikpeng made an expedition in 2002 to the Jabotá River to collect medicinal plants and shells. They currently seek to regain this territory (Menget & Troncarelli, 2003).

In the 1990s, the Ikpeng began to elaborate an education system within their community (Campetela, 1997). In 1994, Ikpeng teachers developed a form of writing with the help of linguists (Menget & Troncarelli, 2003). This was done through the Instituto Socioambiental's Teacher Training program, which has allowed Ikpeng children to learn their own language alongside Portuguese in the Ikpeng School (2003). This school plays a central role in the project, and it is responsible for the creation of material and distribution of this material for Ikpeng communities within the Xingu Park (2003).

• /β̞/ and /j/ can also be realized as fricatives [β] and [ʝ].
• /p/ can be heard as a fricative [ɸ] in word-medial position, in front of a rounded back vowel, as voiced [b] when preceding /l/ in word-medial position, or as a voiced fricative [β] when between vowels.

• /e, o/ can also be heard as open mid [ɛ, ɔ].
• /i, u/ when occurring after a consonant, or preceding a vowel, can be shortened as [i̯, u̯].
• /e, o/ may also be nasalized as [ẽ, õ] when preceding nasal consonants in medial position.

In English, there exist separate verbs to express desire, like for instance 'to want.' By contrast, the Ikpeng language contains a morpheme to express desire or want, called a desiderative. The morpheme is /–tɨne/, and it is attached as a suffix to the verb in order to indicate that one wants to do a certain action (the verb) (Pacheco, 2001).

This morpheme is also used with auxiliary verbs, when the predicate has non-verbal elements at its core.

Ikpeng uses to morphemes to conjugate verbs in the "immediate past," meaning a period of time understood to be the moment right before the present and, at the very latest, yesterday (Campetela, 1997). These morphemes are /–lɨ/ and /–lan/, with /–lɨ/ being used for actions witnessed by the speaker, and /–lan/ for actions that were not witnessed by the speaker (1997).

(This event happened moments before and is witnessed by the speaker.)

(This event happened the day before and was not witnessed by the speaker.)

Ikpeng has two different methods to determine increasing valency through causatives related to the verb: the morphological causative, which is added as an affix to the verb, and the lexicalized causative, which uses an independent causative verb and another word is added as sentence complement (Pacheco, 2001).

Morphological causatives (affixes) are used to change both transitive verb sentences and intransitive verb sentences to transitive causative verbs and intransitive causative verbs respectively (2001). The morpheme used for the affix is /-nopo/, with allomorphs such as /nop/ or /nob/ when inserted after a vowel, /pon/ and /poŋ/ after consonants, and /mpo/ which can be explained as an assimilation of the nasal sound (n) in /nopo/ (2001). Below are examples of the construction of the causative verb using morphemes.

In the above sentence, the causative morpheme indicates that it was the woman who caused the manioc to dry, instead of simply saying "the manioc dried."

A particular hierarchy needs to be considered when dealing with morphological causatives, concerning the type of argument that is found in the sentence (S- subject, A- agent, and O- object) (2001).

"Subject or Agent (S, A) > direct object (O) > not direct object or Oblique" (2001).

Lexicalized causatives are separate verbs in the sentences used to indicate increased valency. In Ikpeng, these are often verbs such a (in English) 'to order' (2001). These only happen in cases where the main verb is the causative (the ordering verb like 'to order,' or 'to do') and the action that is being ordered is added as complement of the phrase, instead of an otherwise completed verb (2001).

In this sentence, the first highlighted verb is the commanding verb "order" in this case, and the bracketed section is the verb that is being ordered, in this case "to run." The lexicalized verb in this case is 'to order.'

Ikpeng has multiple suffixes and prefixes which denote plurality of objects, events, verbs and nouns.

To denote plural objects in Ikpeng, the suffixes /-tke/ and /-ke/ are employed. Additionally, these suffixes can be interpreted as iterative suffixes as they are also used to express the repetition of an action. Distinguishing the use of the suffixes is contextual as there is no consistent differentiation between the two uses (Campetela 1997, pg. 84–85).

Verb plurals are classified in three ways, plurals for the not future, and questions (interrogative).

To express plurality or a collective in not future tenses, the suffix /-kom/~ /ŋmo/ is attached to the end of the verb (Pacheco, 2001, pg. 84–85).

To express plurality or a collective in an interrogative phrase, the suffix /-tom/~/rom/ is attached at the end of the verb. This suffix is typically associated with the use of second person (Pacheco, 2001, pg. 84–85).

To express the quantity of whom possesses an object in the promonimal context, the suffix /-kom/~ /ŋmo/ is attached to the object (Pacheco, 2001, pg. 103).

To express the quantity of the possessors in the nominal form, the suffix /-niŋkɨn/ is after the nominal morpheme.

When there is an agreement between nominal morphemes, /-niŋkɨn/ is used after the morpheme /keni/ to indicate plurals.

In Ikpeng, demonstrative third-person pronouns are used to indicate the distance and animacy of the entity in relation to the speaker (Pacheco, 2001, pg. 120).

Independent personal pronouns express free grammars and occupy argumentative position (Pacheco, 2001, pg. 119).