Maká
Maká
Pronunciation	maˈka
Native to	Argentina Paraguay
Region	Presidente Hayes Department, Asunción
Native speakers	(1,500 cited 2000)[1]
Language family	Matacoan Maká
Language codes
ISO 639-3	mca
Glottolog	maca1260
ELP	Maká
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Maká is a Matacoan language spoken in Argentina and Paraguay by the Maká people. Its 1,500 speakers live primarily in Presidente Hayes Department near the Río Negro, as well as in and around Asunción.^[2]

Consonants

		Labial	Dental	Alveolar	Palatal/ Velar	Uvular	Glottal
Nasal		m	n
Plosive	plain	p	t	ts	k	q	ʔ
	ejective	pʼ	tʼ	tsʼ	kʼ	qʼ
Fricative		f	ɬ	s	x	χ	h
Approximant		w	l		j

Velar consonants alternate with palatal consonants before /e/ and sometimes before /a/. Examples include /keɬejkup/ ~ [ceɬejkup] 'autumn' and /exeʔ/ ~ [eçeʔ] 'stork'. The palatal approximant /j/ is realised as a palatal fricative [ç] before /i/, as in /inanjiʔ/ ~ [inançiʔ].^{[3][page needed]}

Vowels

	Front	Back
High	i	u
Mid	e	o
Low	a

Syllables in Maká may be of types V, VC, CV, CCV, and CCVC. When a consonant cluster appears at the beginning of a syllable, the second consonant must be /x/, /h/, /w/, or /j/.

Maká has two genders—masculine and feminine. The demonstratives reflect the gender of a noun.^[4]

Masculine nouns	Feminine nouns
na’ DEM.MASC sehe’ land na’ sehe’ DEM.MASC land 'this land'	ne’ DEM.FEM naxkax tree ne’ naxkax DEM.FEM tree 'this tree'
na’ DEM.MASC nunax dog na’ nunax DEM.MASC dog 'this (male) dog'	ne’ DEM.FEM nunax dog ne’ nunax DEM.FEM dog 'this (female) dog'

In the plural the gender distinction is neutralized, and the plural demonstrative is the same as the feminine singular:

Maká nouns inflect for plurality. There are several distinct plural endings: -l, -wi, -Vts, and -Vy. All plants take the -wi plural, but otherwise the choice seems to be unpredictable.^[5]

singular	plural	gloss
sehe	sehe-l	'land(s)'
naxkax	naxkax-wi	'tree(s)'
tenuk	tenuk-its	'cat(s)'

Maká does not have any overt case marking on nouns. Consider the following sentence, where neither the subject nor object shows any case.^[6]

Nouns agree with their possessor in person.^[7]

y-exi’ 1S-mouth y-exi’ 1S-mouth 'my mouth'

Ø-exi’ 2-mouth Ø-exi’ 2-mouth 'your mouth'

ł-exi’ 3-mouth ł-exi’ 3-mouth 'his/her/their mouth'

in-exi’ 1PL.INCL-mouth in-exi’ 1PL.INCL-mouth 'our (inclusive) mouth'

Verbs agree with their subject and object in a rather complex system. Gerzenstein (1995) identifies five conjugation classes for intransitive verbs.^{[3][page needed]} The following two examples show intransitive verbs from conjugation classes 1 and 3.

	tremble (conjugation class 3)		dance (conjugation class 1)
1	tsi-kawelik	'I tremble'	hoy-otoy	'I dance'
2	łan-kawelik	'you tremble'	ł-otoy	'you dance'
3	yi-kawelik	'he/she trembles'	t-otoy	'he/she dances'
1pl.incl	xiyi-kawelik	'we (inclusive) tremble'	xit-otoy	'we (inclusive) dance'

Transitive verbs belong to a different conjugation class, Conjugation 6. The following forms show a transitive verb with a 3rd person object:

love (conjugation class 6)
hi-su'un	'I love (him/her)'
łi-su'un	'you love (him/her)'
yi-su'un	'he/she loves (him/her)'
xite-su'un	'we (inclusive) love (him/her)'

If the object of the transitive verb is 1st or 2nd person, then certain combinations of subject and object are shown by a portmanteau morpheme.

love (conjugation class 6)		subject/object combination
k'e-su'un	'I love you'	1SUBJ›2OBJ
tsi-su'un	'he/she loves me'	3SUBJ›1OBJ
ne-su'un	'he/she loves you'	3SUBJ›2OBJ

Other combinations involve an object agreement marker which may either precede or follow the subject marker.^[8]

Verbs in Maká have a series of suffixes called 'postpositions' in Gerzenstein (1995), which have the effect of introducing new oblique objects into the sentence.^{[3][page needed]}

The following examples show the applicative suffixes -ex 'instrumental ('with')' and -m 'benefactive ('for')'

In noun phrases, the possessor precedes the possessed noun.^[9]

Noun phrases show the order (Demonstrative) (Numeral) (Adjective) N.^[10]

The basic word order for a transitive clause in Maká is subject–verb–object, as seen in the following example.^[11]

For intransitive clauses, the basic order is verb-subject.^[12]

In yes–no questions, the usual subject–verb–object order changes to verb-subject-object following an initial particle me.^[13]

Sentences with wh-questions show a sentence-initial question word. Maká has a very small inventory of question words, with only three members: łek 'who, what', pan 'which, where, how many', and inhats'ek 'why'. The following example shows an interrogative sentence with an initial question word.^[14]

• Gerzenstein, Ana (1995). Lengua Maká. Estudio descriptivo. Archivo de Lenguas Indoamericanas (in Spanish). Buenos Aires: Universidad de Buenos Aires. ISBN 950-29-0176-2.
• Herzfeld, Anita; Lastra, Yolanda (1999). Las Causas sociales de la desaparición y del mantenimiento de las lenguas en las naciones de América: trabajos presentados en el 49avo Congreso Internacional de Americanistas, Quito, Ecuador, julio 7-11, 1997 (in Spanish). USON. ISBN 978-968-7713-70-0.

• Argentinian Languages Collection of Ana Gerzenstein, containing audio recordings of Maká, from the Archive of the Indigenous Languages of Latin America.
• Maca (Intercontinental Dictionary Series)