Kadiwéu language

Kadiwéu is a Guaicuruan language spoken by the Kadiweu people of Brazil, and historically by other Mbayá groups. It has around 1,200–1,800 people in Brazil. It is mainly a subject–verb–object language.

The name Kadiweu has variants such as Kaduveo, Caduveo, Kadivéu, and Kadiveo. This language is spoken near the Brazil-Paraguay border in the state of Mato Grosso do Sul. The nearest town is Bodoquena, which is 60 kilometers away. According to data collected in 1999 by FUNAI, the total population of the Kadiwéu is 1,014; however, more recent data collected in 2014 shows that the population increased to 1,413 over the past couple of years, while the most recently researched data (from 1976) showed that there were 500 speakers of the language. None of the works on Kadiweu discussed the level of endangerment.

The first accounts of the Kadiwéu people date back to the 16th century, where European expeditions documented the existence of this indigenous people. The Kadiwéu people were often referred to as the "horseman Indians." However, as the centuries went by the group found itself stuck between the two imperial powers of Spain and Portugal. During the wars between Paraguay and Brazil, the Kadiwéu fought on the latter side. This ensured that the Kadiwéu held the rights to their territory. Nevertheless, in recent times the relations between Kadiwéu and cattle ranchers has become more hostile. This is due to the penetration of cattle farmers into the original Kadiwéu lands, which were gained by fighting and sacrificing their lives. However, as of the 1950s cattle ranchers have gained official permission from the SPI (Indian Protective Service) to usurp the Kadiwéu territory to raise cattle on.

In terms of the linguistic literature on Kadiweu, linguists Glyn and Cynthia Griffiths published an entire Kadiweu–Portuguese dictionary in 2002. Glyn Griffiths also translated the Old and New Testament of the Bible into Kadiweu. Linguist Filomena Sandalo, who worked with the Kadiweu people for a couple of years, offers an extensive analysis of the morphological components of the language.

Projects that began working with Kadiweu were created in the mid 1950s. However, they were short lived due to unexplained reasons. However, in 1968 the Griffiths partnered with SIL (Sociedade Internacional de Lingüística), which led to the documentation of the Kadiweu language. Their book Aspectos da Língua Kadiweu discussed the formation and grammatical structure of the language. Moreover, an influential source according to Povo Indigenas no Brazil is the 18th-century ethnographic account of Kadiwéu by F. José Sanchez-Labrador. These are just some of the many writings on the language that uncover the vast and complex language that is Kadiweu.

Kadiweu has interesting linguistic aspects that highlight and distinguish it from other native languages. The work of linguist Maria Filomena Sandalo, A Grammar of Kadiweu, presents a general description of the language. Sandalo highlights and analyzes the morphological aspects of Kadiweu.

Valency is defined as "the number and type of bonds which the verb may form with a number of dependent elements referred to as arguments". Valency change is the number of arguments controlled by a verbal predicate. While there are two types of valency change, reducing and increasing, after analyzing Sandalo's data it appears that Kadiweu has an increasing valency change. This author uses valency change to refer to the syntactically relevant components of meaning specified in the lexicon of Kadiweu. She claims that the [+cause] and [+become] features of the language must be added as suffixes in order for the verb to become a predicate. She proposes that the suffixes operate by adding or deleting the [+cause] and or [+become] feature.

For example, as seen in example 278 below, the root is a verb. However, in example 279 a suffix that denotes [+cause] is added which changes the meaning of the sentence.