Hup language

Hup
Hupdë
Pronunciation	[húpʔɨ̌d]
Native to	Brazil
Ethnicity	Hupd'ëh, Yohup
Native speakers	1,700 (2006–2007)[1]
Language family	Naduhup Hup
Language codes
ISO 639-3	Either: jup – Hup yab – Yuhup
Glottolog	hupy1235
ELP	Hupda
	Yuhup[2]
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The Hup language (also called Hupdë,^[3] Hupdá, Hupdé, Hupdá Makú, Jupdá, Makú, Makú-Hupdá, Makú De, Hupda, and Jupde) is one of the four Naduhup languages. It is spoken by the Hupda indigenous Amazonian peoples who live on the border between Colombia and the Brazilian state of Amazonas. There are approximately 1500 speakers of the Hup language. As of 2005, according to the linguist Epps, Hup is not seriously endangered – although the actual number of speakers is few, all Hupda children learn Hup as their first language.

Although their territory was the target of forced transferrals throughout the 17th and 18th centuries, due to their isolation, the Naduhup were among the least affected, since they were protected by the geography of their land. They were also the target of several Catholic missions, though those ultimately failed, as the Naduhup refused to send their children to Catholic education centres.^[4]

Contact with the Tucanoan people, also known as the River Indians, who live along the rivers rather than in the forests, has significantly impacted the Naduhup, both culturally and linguistically. Since before European contact, the Naduhup and Tukanoan peoples have engaged in trade, the Naduhup providing labour and hunted meats and the Tucanoan providing agricultural goods. However, the Naduhup are viewed as inferior by the Tucanoan, because of their linguistic and lifestyle differences. Because of this inequality, most Naduhup people can understand and/or speak a Tucanoan, while it is the opposite vice versa – very few, if any Tucanoan people speak Hup.^[5]

Relatively few linguistic materials of Hup are available, due to the isolation of the Hupda. Incomplete vocabulary lists and dictionaries were established in 1955 (Giacone) and 1993 (Erickson and Erickson). The most complete descriptive grammar of Hup, A Grammar of Hup, was written by Patience Epps in 2005, was updated in 2008, and outlines Hup phonology, parts of speech, morphology, aspect, tense, modality, among many other features.

Hup is one of four languages in the Naduhup (Makú) family. Though Makú is the term most commonly used to refer to this language family, there is controversy over its usage, since it is also an ethnic slur, translating to “without language”, used by the Tukanoan towards the Naduhup. There has not been a consensus on a replacement term, although Epps proposed “Naduhup”, which combines the names of the four members of the language family - Nadëb, Dâw, Hup, and Yuhup.^[6] Of the four members of the language family, Hup is most closely related to Yuhup, followed by Dâw, and then lastly by Nadëb. Hup and Yuhup are nearly mutually intelligible, sharing more than 90% of their basic vocabularies.^[6]

There are nineteen contrasting consonants in Hup, with the twentieth /p’/ occurring in the morpheme-initial position in only one word of only some Hup dialects. /j/, /g/, and /ç/ only appear in morpheme-final position, while all other consonants may appear in morpheme initial, medial, and final position. Hup has glottalized consonants of both stops and approximants which can be seen in the chart below.^[7] This language also has nasal allophones of the voiced stops.^[7]

		Bilabial	Denti- alveolar	Palatal	Velar	Glottal
Plosive	voiceless	p	t	c ⟨ch⟩	k	ʔ
	voiced	b	d	ɟ ⟨y⟩	g ⟨k⟩
	glottalized	bˀ (pʼ)	dˀ	ɟˀ ⟨yʼ⟩	gˀ ⟨kʼ⟩
Fricative				ç ⟨ch⟩		h
Glide	plain	w		j ⟨y⟩
	ejective	wʼ		jʼ ⟨yʼ⟩

Adapted from Epps (2005), p. 40.

Hup contains a large segmental phonemic inventory, in comparison to the Tukanoan languages that neighbour it geographically. Hup vowels are composed of nine contrasting sounds, with no occurring diphthongs:^[8]

	Front	Central	Back
Close	i	ɨ	u
Mid	e	ə	o
Open	æ	a	ɔ

However, these nine sounds occur only in non-nasal contexts. In nasal morphemes, there are only six distinct vowels:

	Front	Central	Back
Close	ĩ	ɨ̃	ũ
Open	æ̃	ã	ɔ̃

Adapted from Epps (2005)^[9]

According to Epps (2005), this indicates that the contrast between mid-vowels and high/low vowels are neutralised in nasal contexts. Nasalisation is morphemic at the syllable level and targets all segments – generally, every syllable is either fully nasal or fully oral.^[9]

Hup tonality functions in what is called a word-accent system – there is a word-level tone contrast system; the contrast is restricted to one syllable per word, which is predictable and also exhibits other features of stressed syllables (greater intensity, longer duration, and higher pitch). There are two tones: rising and high, which only appear in nouns and adjectives.

Hup Tones
Rising	/cǎʔ/ [cǎʔ] "clump of roots"
High	/cáʔ/ [cáʔ] "box, nest"

Nouns and verbs are open class, while adjectives are closed class. Nouns usually appear as arguments of clauses and can appear bare in the clause, while verbs must be inflected in some way. Hup is highly agglutinative and concatenative, with a high rate of synthesis and low rate of phonological fusion of morphemes. Therefore, its morphemes are easily segmented. Roots typically undergo compounding, while formatives are affixed or cliticised.^[10]

	Subject	Object	Oblique	Possessive
				Downriver Hup dialects	Umari Norte dialect
1sg	ʔɑ̃h́	ʔɑ́n	ʔɑ̃h́-ɑ̃t́	nɨ̌	nɨ̌h
2sg	ʔɑ́m	ʔɑ́m-ɑ́n	ʔɑ́m-ɑ́t	ʔɑ́mɨ̌h	ʔɑ́m-nɨ̌h
3sg	tɨ́h	tɨ́h-ɑ́n	tɨ́h-ɨ́t	tɨnɨ̌h	tɨh-nɨ̌h
1pl	ʔɨ́n	ʔɨ́n-ɑ́n	ʔɨ́n-ɨ́t	ʔɨnɨ̌h	ʔɨn-nɨ̌h
2pl	nɨ́ŋ	nɨ́ŋ-ɑ́n	nɨ́ŋ-ɨ́t	nɨŋɨ̌h	nɨŋ-nɨ̌h
3pl	hɨ́d	hɨ́d-ɑ́n hɨɾan (TD)	hɨ́d-ɨ́t [hɨɾɨt] (TD)	hɨdnɨ̌h hɨdɨ̌h [hɨɾɨh] (TD) yɨʔd’ə̌h-nɨ̌h	hɨd-nɨ̌h

Adapted from Epps (2005), p. 138

Inflection	Demonstratives[11] (forms and meanings)				Interrogative
uninflected	nu- / nɨ- Proximal	n'i- Distal	yu- / yɨ- Intangible	cã- 'other'	hɨ̃ Interrogative

Some nouns of Hup are semi-verbal, namely those which have to do with the passage of time, as well as periods of time, which are “inherently progressive and impermanent.”^[12]

“Passage of time” words:

• wəhə́d "old man"
• wɑ́ "old woman"
• dóʔ "child"

“Periods of time” words:

• wɑ́g "day"
• j'ə́b "night"

While these words belong to the noun class (they typically appear as arguments of a clause, and aspectual inflection is not required), they have verb-like qualities, such as occurrence in verbal compounds (which is normally restricted to only verbs):

The enclitic =wəd, derived from the word for “old man” wəhə́d, can be inserted as a respect marker when referring to spiritual beings or other humans. The feminine form of this is =wa.

This marker is usually used to refer to someone older or of higher status, though it can also be used to indicate someone to be feared, especially when used to refer to dangerous spirits.^[13]

The usage of =wəd is also not necessarily respectful. The enclitic can also be affixed to children's names as a sign of affection, comparable to doing the same in English with the titles “Mister” or “Miss”.^[14]

Negation is complex in Hup, as three separate strategies can be used to express negation in the language. The most common form of indicating negation is through the negator suffix [-nɨ́h] on verbal or adjectival predicates.^[5] Secondly, predicative particle [pã̌] can be used with noun phrases to express negation; similarly, and lastly, the article [ʔǎp] expresses negation against an entity within a clause or the against entire clause itself.^[5]

Adapted from Epps (2005), p. 726^[5]

Adapted from Epps (2005), p. 738^[6]

Adapted from Epps (2005), p. 742^[6]

Negative responses to questions or refusals to offers in Hup require one of the strategies above; there is no general lexeme/morpheme for 'no' in Hup.^[5]

The most frequent and grammatically simplest word order in Hup is Subject (Agent), Object, Verb (SOV). Epps notes that the agent, the actor/argument of a transitive sentence, precedes the object and verb in the syntactic structure of Hup.^[6]

Adapted from Epps (2005), p. 168^[8]

Adapted from Epps (2005), p. 180^[5]

The verb-final construction of clauses in Hup, as seen above, is best characterized as AOV (agent, object, verb).

Hup is nominative-accusative. All subjects are unmarked, while the object and other noun cases are suffixed. Which suffix is used can depend on number, animacy, type of noun, and grammatical function, as shown in the table below. Case marking extends also to the noun phrase and relative clause, and the suffixes attach to the final constituent of the phrase.

Grammatical function	Nouns	Nouns marked for number	Pronouns, demonstratives
S, A	-ø	-ø	-ø
O (Direct object)	Human: -ɑ̌n, Animal: -ɑ̌n (optional), Inanimate: -ø	-ɑ̌n (Plural: -n’ɑ̌n)	-ɑ̌n
O (beneficiary, recipient of ditransitive verbs)	-ɑ̌n	-ɑ̌n (Plural: -n’ɑ̌n)	-ɑ̌n
Directional oblique	-an
Oblique	-V́t	-V́t	-V́t

Adapted from Epps (2005), p. 143

Though the object case and directional oblique markers are almost identical phonologically, the only difference being the stress, directional oblique is mainly used to indicate direction, and sometimes, location, in which it coincides with oblique case.

Modification is a semantic operation and syntactic construction by which referents in a language can be modified. There are three types of modifier constructions, each of which are present in Hup: subcategorizing modification, selecting modification, and situating modification.

Subcategorizing modification includes property concept modification. In Hup, property concept modification is constructed using a juxtaposition strategy (zero strategy). As noted by Epps, adjectives (property concepts in a modifying relationship with a referent) follow the nouns they modify, which is in contrast to other types of noun phrases containing a modifier like numerals, demonstratives, and compounded nouns, which precede the noun.^[5]

Selecting modification includes numeral concept modification. In Hup, numeral modification is constructed using a juxtaposition strategy (zero strategy). Epps notes that numerals can occur both as nominal modifiers and as nominal heads in a noun phrase, and that as modifiers, they typically precede the noun using a juxtaposition strategy.^[5]

In Hup, object modification is constructed using a relational or flag strategy. An adposition marks a modifying relationship between an object concept and referent. According to Epps, expression of possession in Hup--a type of object modification relationship--involves the conjunction of two nouns and the postpositional particle [nɨ̌h], which indicates inalienable possession.^[13]

Situating modification includes deictic modification. In Hup, deictic modification, including the modifying relationship of demonstratives with a referent, is constructed using a juxtaposition strategy (zero strategy). In Hup, deictic modifiers and demonstratives precede the referent noun in a noun phrase.

The plurality marker for nouns is =d'əh and follows an animacy hierarchy: humans, animals, and inanimates. For humans, plural marking is obligatory, though exception is made for a non-specific referent.^[15]

However, the marker is present for groups of people, which are considered conceptually plural.^[16]

Animals are generally also marked for plurality, but differ in that the marker is not obligatory for groups of animals. As with humans, non-specific referents are also not marked.^[17]

Inanimate objects are not marked for plurality and rely on numerals to indicate such. Plural inanimate entities are regarded with low importance, due to usually having low conceptual salience, and therefore are also almost always unmarked for number in discourse as well.^[18]

Numerals in Hup are fairly etymologically unambiguous, which is very rare cross-linguistically. For the cardinal numerals 1-5, the forms likely derive from grammaticalized phrases, referring to the quantity of various salient phenomena for Hup people, with some variation between dialects. These dialectal variants will be labeled further as TD (Tat Deh), B (Barreira), UN (Umari Norte), and NF (Nova Fundação).The quantifier morpheme (-ʔǎp) is already integrated into the numerals '2' and '3' and may be used for the numerals 4+, but is not mandatory. For the cardinal numerals 6-20, there is much more variation, and their forms have not been lexicalized to the extent of numerals 1-5. Furthermore, through lexical borrowing, "virtually all speakers prefer Portuguese numerals for 6+," and for numerals 20+, Portuguese forms are exclusively used.^[19]

	Numeral	Likely Etymology
1	ʔayǔp (TD, B) ʔǽp (UN)	compare with demonstrative 'yúp' - 'that' (intangible)
2	koʔǎp (B) kaʔǎp (TD, UN) kəwěg-ʔǎp (NF?)	'eye-quantity'
3	mɔ́twaʔǎp (B) mɔ́ɾaʔǎp (TD) mɔ́t-wɨg-ʔǎp (NF?) bab' pẵ (UN)	'rubber.tree-seed-quantity' 'sibling NEG:EX' (UN)
4	hi-bab'-nǐ (TD, B) bab'-nǐ (TD, UN)	'(FACT)-have_sibling/accompany.NMZ'
5	ʔayup dapṹh (TD, B) ʔædapṹh (TD) nap'ṹh (variant B) ʔæp d'apṹh (UN)	'one hand'

Abbreviation	Meaning
AGAIN	repetitive aspect / topic-shift
COOP	cooperative
DECL	declarative
DEP	dependent marker, topic marker
DIR	directional oblique
DYNM	dynamic
EXCL	exclusive
EXCL2	exclusive (dialectical variant)
FACT	factitive
FLR	following marker
IMP	imperative
INCH	inchoative
ITG	intangible
NEG	negative (verbal)
NEG:EX	negative existence
NMZ	nominalizer
OBJ	object
PL	plural/collective
POSS	possessive
REP	reportive evidential
RESP	respect marker
VENT	ventive
EMPH1	emphatic (1st person)
REP	repetitive aspect
NONVIS	nonvisual experiential

• Patience Epps (2008) A Grammar of Hup. Mouton de Gruyter.
• Moore, Barbara J.; Franklin, Gail L. Breves notícias da língua Maku-Hupda. Summer Institute of Linguistics, 1979 [1]

• Hup Vocabulary List (from the World Loanword Database)
• Hup basic lexicon at the Global Lexicostatistical Database
• Hup Collection of Patience Epps at the Archive of the Indigenous Languages of Latin America. Contains audio recordings and transcriptions of Hup language materials, "most from the Middle Tiquié River (primarily villages of Tat Dëh / Taracua Igarapé and Barreira Alta). A few texts from other communities, including Umari Norte of the upper Tiquié."