In all Tuparian languages, the main clauses follow the cross-linguistically rare nominative–absolutive pattern. Person prefixes on the verb are absolutive, i.e., they index the sole argument of an intransitive verb (S) and the patient argument ('direct object') of a transitive verb (P). Person pronouns, which follow the verb (either cliticizing to it or not) are nominative: they may encode the sole argument of an intransitive verb (S) or the agent argument of a transitive verb (A), but not the patient of a transitive verb (P). The example below is from Wayoró.[6]: 99
^Andrade, Rafael (to appear). As consoantes alvéolo-dentais do Proto-Tuparí: revisão e reconstrução fonológica. In: OLIVEIRA, Christiane Cunha de (ed.). Memórias do II Encontro dos Americanistas no Cerrado. Goiânia: Universidade Federal de Goiás.
^Moore, D. & Vilacy Galucio, A. (1994). Reconstruction of Proto-Tupari consonants and vowels. In Langdon, M. (eds.), Survey of California and Other Indian Languages, Report 8. 119-30, Columbus: Ohio State University. Accessed from DiACL, 9 February 2020.
^Galucio, Ana Vilacy; de Souza Nogueira, Antônia Fernanda (20 July 2018). "From object nominalization to object focus: The innovative A-alignment in the Tuparian languages (Tupian family)". Journal of Historical Linguistics. 8 (1): 95–127. doi:10.1075/jhl.16025.gal.
