Waimiri Atroari grammar: Some phonological, morphological, and syntactic aspects

Abstract

The Waimiri Atroari people, who call themselves kinja 'people' and whose language belongs to the Carib family, live today in an area in the northern part of the State of Amazonas and in the southern part of the State of Roraima. Like many other languages of the Carib family, Waimiri Atroari is a chronically underdescribed language. There are few linguistics studies about Waimiri Atroari, most of them being phonological sketches (Hill and Hill 1985; and Lacerda 1991, 1996). Taking this situation into consideration, this dissertation intends to describe some phonological, morphological, and syntactic aspects of the Waimiri Atroari grammar. First, in the introductory chapter I provide some information about their language and culture, and I discuss their experience with formal education. Second, I describe the segmental phonology and analyze the syllable structure and reduplication process under Optimality Theory. Next, I present the word classes and a description of their morphology. Then, I investigate the system of case marking. Finally, in syntax I analyze the phrase structure and the word order under the framework of X-bar theory. The appendices contain a set of verbal paradigms and a collection of texts.