The Northern Jê^[1]: 6 or Core Jê^[2] languages (Portuguese: Jê Setentrionais) are a branch of the Jê languages constituted by the Timbira dialect continuum (which includes Canela, Krahô, Pykobjê, Krikati, Parkatêjê, and Kỳikatêjê) and a number of languages spoken to the west of the Tocantins River, the Trans-Tocantins languages Apinajé, Mẽbêngôkre, Kĩsêdjê, and Tapayúna. Together with Panará (and its predecessor, Southern Kayapó), they form the Goyaz branch of the Jê family.

The term Northern Jê has been sometimes used to refer to a broader group of languages, which also includes Panará and Southern Kayapó.^{[3]: 547 [2]} In this article, the label Northern Jê is used in the narrow sense (that is, excluding Panará and Southern Kayapó).

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The Northern Jê languages have been noted for their outstanding relation between the nasality vs. orality of the nuclei and the allophonic realization of the adjacent nasal consonants. In Apinajé^[4] and Kĩsêdjê,^{[5]: 127–8} for instance, underlying nasal consonants surface as partially oral (for example, /m/ [mb]) if the nucleus of the syllable is oral; this allophony pattern has been characterized by Wetzels and Nevins (2018) as nasal shielding.^[6]: 860

All Northern Jê languages have similar phonotactic restrictions. Typically, the maximal syllable is CRWVC, where C stands for a consonant, R for a rhotic (typically /ɾ/), W for a glide (/w j/), and V for a vowel. Several additional co-occurrence restrictions apply: only /p m k ŋ/ may form a complex onset with a rhotic, /j/ never follows coronals (i.e., clusters such as ˣ/nj/, ˣ/cj/ or ˣ/pɾj/ are not permitted; */tj/ is reconstructed for Proto-Northern Jê but is not preserved in any contemporary language), and /w/ never follows labials (i.e., */pw pɾw mw bw ww/ are ruled out). In specific languages, some of these restrictions have been altered due to sound change. For example, Kĩsêdjê has lost Proto-Northern Jê */pɾ/ for hr [hɺ] through debuccalization. In Apinajé, the fricatives /v z/ replaced the earlier glides */w j/, resulting in the inversion of the order of the elements in the triconsonantal clusters from CRW to CWR (e.g. */kɾw/ > /kvɾ/), which has been attributed to the different treatment of glides and fricatives by the Sonority Sequencing Principle.^[4]: 54 The Timbira varieties only have CRVC and CWVC, but not *CRWVC.

The inventory of Proto-Northern Jê onsets (including complex onsets) is reconstructed as follows.^{[7]: Appendix A} Note that underlying nasals acquired an oral phrase preceding an oral nucleus (this is preserved in all Northern Jê languages with the exception of Mẽbêngôkre, which no longer has the postoralized allophones of the underlying nasal stops). Conversely, the underlying voiced stops */ĵ/ and */g/ were nasalized to *[ɲ] and *[ŋ] preceding nasal nuclei.

Specific Northern Jê languages innovated in multiple ways with respect to the reconstructed inventory. For example, the Timbira languages, Apinajé and the Tapajós languages coincide in no longer employing the feature [voice] (in most cases, however, the oppositions present in Proto-Northern Jê have been preserved by introducing contrastive aspirated consonants). In the Tapajós languages, the palatal stops were dentalized, whereas the original dentialveolar consonants acquired considerable retraction. In addition, Tapayúna got rid of all labial consonants.^{[7]: 559–61}

The following table shows the usual reflexes of the Proto-Northern Jê onsets in the individual languages. The reconstructions are cited after Nikulin & Salanova (2019)^{[7]: Appendix A} in the Macro-Jê alphabet, whereas for the reflexes in the contemporary languages the official orthographies in use by the respective language communities are preferred. The underlying representations are given in the International Phonetic Alphabet.

In all Northern Jê languages, the syllables may be either open or closed. The maximum number of consonants in the coda position is one (that is, only simplex codas are allowed). The nasal codas which follow oral nuclei may be subject to nasal shielding in some languages, whereby the initial phase of the nasal consonant is oralized, as in Apinajé /om/ [ˈobm] ‘its powder’.^[4]: 40

In most (if not all) Northern Jê languages, codas may be followed by epenthetic vowels called echo vowels. Most commonly, the echo vowels are exact copies of the nuclei, but some nuclei (especially /a/) may trigger height dissimilation of the echo vowels; in addition, codas may influence the quality of the echo vowels (details vary from language to language).^{[8]: 168–9} In the Tapajós languages Kĩsêdjê and Tapayúna, the echo vowels are represented orthographically; in Mẽbêngôkre, the echo vowels are written out only after r, whereas in the remaining languages the echo vowels are not reflected in writing.

The inventory of Proto-Northern Jê codas comprised nine phonemes, whose reflexes in the daughter languages are shown below.^{[7]: Appendix A} The character V stands for the echo vowels whose quality is a precise copy of the respective nucleus. For the Tapajós languages Kĩsêdjê and Tapayúna, which represent the echo vowels orthographically, both possibilities (without and with the echo vowel) are given, separated by a slash.

The inventory of Proto-Northern Jê monophthongs is reconstructed as follows.^{[7]: Appendix A}

In addition, six complex nuclei can be reconstructed, of which three are falling (*/ɨwă/, */uwă/, */ijă/, represented by Nikulin & Salanova (2019) as *ŷ, *û, *î^[7]: 534) and three are raising (*/wa/, */ja/, */je/).

The following table shows the usual reflexes of the Proto-Northern Jê nuclei in the individual languages. The reconstructions are cited after Nikulin & Salanova (2019)^{[7]: Appendix A} in the Macro-Jê alphabet as well as in the International Phonetic Alphabet. For the reflexes in the contemporary languages, the official orthographies in use by the respective language communities have been preferred.

In all Northern Jê languages verbs inflect for finiteness and thus have a basic opposition between a finite form and a nonfinite form. Finite forms are used in matrix clauses only, whereas nonfinite forms are used in all types of subordinate clauses as well as in some matrix clauses (at least in some languages). Nonfinite forms are most often formed via suffixation and/or prefix substitution.^[7] Some verbs (including all descriptives with the exception of *kato ‘to exit’, whose nonfinite form is *kator) lack an overt finiteness distinction.

For the protolanguage, five nonfinite suffixes have been reconstructed: *-r (the most common option, found in many transitive and intransitive verbs), *-ñ (found in some transitive verbs), as well as *-k, *-m, and *-c (found in a handful of intransitive verbs which take a nominative subject when finite).^[7]: 543

In a handful of verbs, all of which end in an underlying stop, the nonfinite form does not receive any overt suffixes, but it is nevertheless distinct from the finite form because the latter lenites the stem-final consonant (*-t, *-c, *-k → *-r, *-j, *-r).^[7]: 544

A small set of verbs form their nonfinite forms by employing one of the aforementioned processes and a morphophonological process whereby the onset of the stressed syllable becomes palatal, and the nucleus of the stressed syllable is raised (if possible); this has been attributed to the influence of an underlying palatalizing nonfinite prefix.^[7]

In addition to the aforementioned processes, the finiteness inflection may involve prefix substitution or loss. For example, the valency-reducing prefixes are *a(j)- (anticausative) and *a(p)- (antipassive) in finite verb forms, but *bi(t)- and *jə-/*ju-, respectively, in the nonfinite forms.^{[7]: 541, 544} In addition, some verbs which denote physiological activities or movement have a prefix (*ij- and *a-, respectively) in their finite forms but not in the nonfinite form.

In all Northern Jê languages verbs, postpositions, and relational nouns inflect for person of their internal argument by taking absolutive ("internal") or accusative person prefixes. The accusative series is required by a subclass of transitive verbs (in finite clauses only) as well as by some postpositions; the absolutive series is the default one and is found with most transitive and all intransitive verbs in finite clauses, with all verbs in nonfinite clauses, with all relational nouns, and with some postpositions.^[7] External arguments of verbs are not indexed by person prefixes but are rather encoded by nominative/agentive (unmarked) noun phrases (including personal pronouns) in finite clauses, or by ergative phrases in nonfinite clauses.

In the table below, the label class II refers to a subclass of vowel-initial stems which take the thematic consonant */ĵ-/ in the basic (uninflected) form as well as in some inflected forms (e.g. *∅-j-arkwa ‘my mouth’, *ba-j-arkwa ‘our mouths’, *rop j-arkwa ‘the jaguar's mouth’) but not in others (*g-arkwa ‘your mouth’, *c-arkwa ‘his/her/its mouth’). The archaic allomorphs *∅-/ĵ-/ (first person, class II) and *g- (second person, class II) are only marginally preserved across Northern Jê: the former is preserved in Pykobjê (as in j-apackre ‘my ear’),^{[9]: 47, 97} whereas the reflexes of the latter have been found in Kĩsêdjê, Canela, Pykobjê^{[1]: 213–4} and in the triadic kinship terms of Mẽbêngôkre.^{[1]: 217–8}

Two valency-reducing operations are encoded by prefixes in Northern Jê: the anticausative voice (finite *a(j)-, nonfinite *bi(t)-) and the antipassive voice (finite *a(p)-, nonfinite *jə-/*ju-).^{[7]: 541, 544}

In most Northern Jê languages, nouns which denote human beings may receive an overt collective plural suffix (Proto-Northern Jê -jê). Its reflexes have been attested in Kĩsêdjê (-jê), Tapayúna (-jê),^[10] Parkatêjê (-jê), Pykobjê (-ji), Canela (-jê), among others. In fact, this suffix is part of many names of Northern Jê peoples, as in Kĩsêdjê, Parkatêjê, Pykobjê (self-denomination Pyhcopji), Apànjêkra, and is the ultimate origin of the term Jê itself.

All Northern Jê languages make use of at least one diminutive suffix (Proto-Northern Jê *-re) and of an augmentative suffix (*-ti), which may occur in nouns and descriptives.^{[11]: 257–9 [9]: 36–7 [10]: 69, 79–81 [12]: 52} These are widely used in the names of animal and plant species.

For most Northern Jê languages, nominalization suffixes or clitics of two kinds have been described: instrumental/locative nominalizations (Proto-Northern Jê *-ĵə)^{[13]: 111 [9]: 47 [10]: 81} and agent nominalizations (Proto-Northern Jê *-ĵwə̂ñ^[13]: 111 or *-kandê^{[12]: 53–4 [10]: 82}). Note that both attach to the nonfinite (nominal) form of the verb. The latter fact has been used as an argument for a nominal interpretation of the reflexes of *-ĵə and *-ĵwə̂ñ in Mẽbêngôkre, where djà and djwỳj have been claimed to be relational nouns meaning ‘container’ and ‘master’, respectively:^[14]: 88

In the literature on other Jê languages <...>, these have been considered to be an instrument and an agent nominalizer, respectively. Our contention is that what the "nominalizers" attach to is already nominal <...>, and they themselves are no more than the semantically bleached nouns dʒʌ ‘container’ and dʒwɤj ‘master’.

In Northern Jê languages, many predicates appear to contain fossilized prefixes of different shapes (such as Proto-Northern Jê *ka-, *ñõ-, *ku-, *py-/*pu-, *ja-, *ju-, *ñĩ-), whose semantic contribution is not always straightforward. These have been variously referred to as formatives^{[13]: 116–28} or transitivity prefixes.^{[7]: 539–40}

All Northern Jê languages are head-final.

Prototypically, finite matrix clauses in Northern Jê languages have a split-S alignment pattern, whereby the agents of transitive verbs (A) and the sole arguments of a subclass of intransitive verbs (S_A) receive the nominative case (also called agentive case^[1]), whereas the patients of transitive verbs (P) and the sole arguments of the remaining intransitive predicates (S_P) receive the absolutive case (also called internal case^[1]).^[15] In addition, transitive verbs are subdivided into two classes according to whether the third person patient is indexed as absolutive (Proto-Northern Jê *c-) or accusative (Proto-Northern Jê *ku-),^{[7]: 538–9} which has been described as an instance of a split-P alignment.^[1]: 272 There are only several dozen of transitive verbs which take an accusative patient, all of which are monosyllabic^{[13]: 181, 219} and have distinct finite and nonfinite forms.^{[5]: 13, 133} It has been suggested that all transitive verbs which satisfy both conditions (monosyllabicity and a formal finiteness distinction), and only them, select for accusative patients,^[7]: 538 while all remaining transitive verbs take absolutive patients in Northern Jê.

Nonfinite clauses (including all subordinate clauses) are headed by nonfinite verbs and are ergatively organized: the agents of transitive verbs (A) are encoded by ergative postpositional phrases, whereas the patients of transitive verbs (P) and the sole arguments of all intransitive predicates (S) receive the absolutive case (also called internal case^[1]).^[15] The ergative-absolutive alignment in subordinate clauses is found in all Northern Jê languages and is reconstructed by Castro Alves (2010) for Proto-Northern Jê.^[15]

In addition, in some Northern Jê languages former biclausal constructions (with an ergatively organized subordinate clause and a split-S matrix clause) have been reanalyzed as monoclausal, resulting in some cases in constructions with a nominative-absolutive alignment pattern.^[15][16]

The following table summarizes the proposed classes of predicates in Northern Jê languages.^[7]

In the Northern Jê languages, transitive verbs take accusative or absolutive patients in finite clauses, depending on the verb class. In nonfinite clauses, all transitive verbs take absolutive patients. Note that nouns do not receive any overt marking either in the accusative or in the absolutive case; the difference between these two cases is seen in the third person index, which is reconstructed as *ku- in the accusative case and as *c- in the absolutive case.

The transitive verbs which index their patient in the accusative case (in finite clauses) are known as *ku-verbs. All *ku-verbs are monosyllabic^{[13]: 181, 219} and have distinct finite and nonfinite forms.^{[5]: 13, 133} The remaining transitive verbs index their patient in the absolutive case. All verbs that belong to this class satisfy at least one of the following conditions:

• they contain at least two syllables (for example, *pumbu ‘to see’, *kacô ‘to suck’, *kuˀcõ ‘to wash (solid objects)’),
• their finite and nonfinite forms are identical (for example, *côk ‘to paint’, *kre ‘to plant’, *ĵũn ‘to insult’).

Finite *ku- verbs further differ from all other transitive verbs in that under certain circumstances they index their agent (rather than patient) on the verb. This happens when a second-person agent acts over a third-person patient. The phenomenon has been attested in Mẽbêngôkre,^{[17]: 55–6} Apinajé,^{[18]: 178 [19]: 4–5} and Canela.^{[12]: 104–5}

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All Northern Jê languages have intransitive predicates which take absolutive (rather than nominative) subjects, known as descriptives. They have been variously described as verbs^[11][13][15] or nouns.^[14] An example of a reconstructed Proto-Northern Jê clause headed by a descriptive is *ij-ŋgryk ‘I am angry’ (literally 1SG^ABS-be.angry).

Verba sentiendi with dative subjects have been described for a variety of Northern Jê languages, such as Canela,^{[20][12]: 56} Apinajé,^{[13]: 233–7} and Kĩsêdjê.^{[5]: 31–3}

Monovalent verba sentiendi take only one argument (experiencer), which is encoded by a dative postpositional phrase, as in the following reconstructed example: Proto-Northern Jê *ij-mə̃ prə̃m ‘I am hungry’^[7]: 537 (literally 1SG^ACC-DAT hunger).

Bivalent verba sentiendi take two arguments. The experiencer is encoded by a dative postpositional phrase, and the theme receives the absolutive case, as in the following reconstructed example: Proto-Northern Jê *ij-mə̃ a-kĩñ ‘I like you’^[7]: 537 (literally 1SG^ACC-DAT 2^ABS-fun).

The Northern Jê languages commonly employ different lexemes for the so-called singular and plural predicates. As Nikulin and Salanova (2019) put it,

Archetypally, certain verbs have distinct forms according to the number of the absolutive argument (if the argument in question is not human, number is not marked independently on it but rather only on the verb). In addition, verbal number can indicate repeated action, even if all participants are singular. Further nuances of the plural include a more prolonged or sluggish carrying out of an action, incomplete or ineffective carrying out of the action, and perhaps even indirect evidence for the action.^[7]: 540

There are several dozen pairs of predicates which contrast in number. Plural predicates are not regularly derived from their singular counterparts but are rather expressed by unrelated lexemes (in a handful of verbs, it is possible to the fossilized prefix *ja- encoding plural). Some examples of Proto-Northern Jê verbs which differ in number include:^[7]: 541