Bernat Bardagil - Research

non scholæ, sed vitæ

My main fields of interest are in the areas of syntax and morphology in Amazonian languages, especially Panará (Jê) and Mỹky (isolate), two indigenous languages of Brazil on which I periodically conduct fieldwork. I have also done fieldwork with Mẽbêngôkre (Jê), and more sporadically with Tapayuna/Kajkwakhratxi (Jê), Kaiabi/Kawaiwete (Tupian) and Rikbaktsa (Macro-Jê).

As a syntactician, my research focuses on the morphosyntax of participants (case marking of core arguments, the syntactic status of obliques, the features that participate in cross-reference morphology, grammatical relations) and of interlocutors (interlocutor agreement, genderlects, honorificity, evidentiality, epistemicity). I also investigate the relationship between linguistic structure, speech practices and musical traditions, and how linguistics, ethnomusicology and ethnoarchaeology may allow us to obtain glimpses into the deeper history of Amazonian indigenous nations. Language documentation and revitalization have also become a central focus of my research as a linguist.

The syntax of interlocutors and interaction

Many languages present a morphological expression of elements that are part of the speech situation, such as the knowledge of the interlocutors, their intentions and expectations, or their characteristics. Some of these refer to the source of information of the utterance (evidentiality) or the epistemic authority (egophoricity), the expectancy of this information (mirativity), or the degree of certainty (epistemic modality). These are clear instances of morphosyntactic exponence of the speaker and the addressee, i.e. the interlocutors, and their interaction. In this, Mỹky is far from the only South American language whose grammar encodes in a very prominent way grammatical notions that correspond to the interlocutors. However, it is not clear in our models of syntax which areas of grammar result in the observed crosslinguistic variation in interlocutor-interactional phenomena.

Map from Snethlage (1937).

Subjecthood and grammatical relations in the Amazon

In linguistic research, the term "subject" is often thrown around as an intuitive concept. Principled definitions exist, but they are anything but unanimous. In my recent Rubicon postdoctoral project, The subject in the Amazon, funded by NWO, I looked into the complexities of the notion of grammatical subject through the particular lens of Amazonian languages, and explored the reliability of subjecthood diagnostics in an Amazonian context.

In my current FWO senior postdoctoral project, Argument marking in the Amazonian languages of the Guaporé-Mamoré region, I investigate the properties of grammatical relations in a sample of Amazonian languages spoken in the highly diverse Guaporé-Mamoré area in Brazilian and Bolivian Amazonia. The goal of this research is to deepen our knowledge of the grammatical landscape in the highly diverse and endangered indigenous languages spoken in the Guaporé-Mamoré region, and to throw light on the linguistic convergence across the language families and the numerous isolated languages in the area.

Panará

Panará (ISO: kre) is a Northern Jê language spoken in the Amazon area in central Brazil, in the region of the headwaters of the Iriri, the largest tributary of the Xingu river. The Panará were contacted in the 1970s during the expansion of settlements in the state of Mato Grosso. However, some of them had already experienced a lengthy and mostly conflictive contact with the Portuguese/Brazilian society since the XVII century, when they were known as the Southern Cayapo.

I have been conducting fieldwork since 2014 as a guest of the Panará people, mostly in the village of Nãnsêpotiti, and wrote my PhD dissertation on the morphosyntax of case and agreement in Panará and in Jê languages. I am interested in the ways in which morphology expresses valency and grammatical relations, and more generally in the application of linguistic theory to find motivated explanations to unexpected constraints in the language. My main research at the moment focuses on a variety of empirical phenomena including alignment patterns of case and agreement, extraction asymmetries, argument structure, complex predicates, and polysynthesis. I am also interested in Panará phonology and in the diachrony of the (Northern) Jê languages.

A sample of what Panará sounds like:

Aka tall.mp3

Manoki and Mỹky

Mỹky is an isolate Amazonian language spoken by two communities, the Mỹky and the Manoki. The two communities speak different varieties of the same language, and their sociolinguistic situation is radically different. ISO code irn (for Iranxe) was established before the term Mỹky became the name used for the language, encompassing both varieties.

The Manoki, also known as Iranxe, were contacted during the first half of the 20th century in western Mato Grosso. In the 1950s the Manoki community was settled in the Jesuit mission of Utiariti, where other groups were also brought. At the mission, parents and children were separated and forbidden from speaking in their language. After reaching a population low of 33 individuals in 1960, they started a demographic recovery in part due to intermarrying with members of other linguistic groups. Today, they live in a demarcated indigenous land on the Juruena basin in Mato Grosso. The fluent speakers of Manoki amount to four, the youngest of whom are in their 60s.

A smaller group of Mỹky speakers remained uncontacted until the 1970s. The language is much more vital among this community, a majority of whom are native speakers, although proficient knowledge of Portuguese is not uncommon. Both communities maintain frequent contacts and consider each other as part of the same people.

Here you can hear Mỹky spoken in the Manoki variety:

luiz-manoki.mp3

Language documentation and revitalization

In addition to morphological and syntactic research, I am deeply involved in the scholarship and practice of language documentation and revitalization. Besides my endeavour to better understand the grammar of Panará, since 2015 I have been documenting the language and I am working with the community in Nãnsêpotiti to increase their access to written materials in Panará.

In the past few years I have been working on a documentation project for Manoki, an endangered variety of the isolated Mỹky language. I am working with several young people in the Manoki nation and with the three elders who are the remaining fluent speakers of Manoki to document both the language, in multiple forms, and the collective and individual memory of the community.

I am also working with the Manoki school teachers to revitalize the language among the younger members of the community, and produce language materials of various types. To this end, in 2019 we created the Watjuho Ja'a Collective. With the name "together for language", this language study collective brings together a group of motivated Manoki language learners. It also holds Manoki language schools, language meetings, and produces language-learning materials.

Outreach

In 2026 I gave an outreach talk, Per què salvar una llengua?, at Casa Golferichs, in Barcelona.
In 2024 I was interviewed about language endangerment and revitalization at Vilaweb.
In 2024 I talked about my research and about indigenous Amazonians at the Catalan radio station RAC1 and also at Catalunya Ràdio.
In 2023 I was interviewed for the Catalan language newspaper Ara.
I was featured in a 2021 news piece on the indigenous languages of the Americas for October 12, together with Elena Benedicto (Purdue) and Francesc Queixalós (CNRS).
A 2021 article on the situation of indigenous languages during this pandemic emergency, featuring the Manoki.
A 2019 news article about the Manoki people, for which I was interviewed.
The radio show Els Viatgers de la Gran Anaconda, on Catalunya Ràdio, interviewed me in 2019. This is the program, and here you can hear me talk about the Panará.

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