Arawak Language Research Articles

Words, Phrases, Pauses and Boundaries

This paper discusses the phonological properties of words and phrases in two Northern Arawak languages of the Upper Rio Negro, Brazil. These features are h-prosody, vowel harmony triggered by the glottal fricative h, vowel nasalization and vowel diphthongization. A feature that is used to mark a word in one language may mark a phrase in the other. There is a regular interdependence between morphemes and syllables. The most unusual characteristic of the languages is the existence of pausal forms which mark phrase-final and utterance-final boundaries. The phonological character of pause marking devices, viewed cross-linguistically, contradicts a wide-spread assumption about the entirely phonetic realization of pauses.

PERSON MARKING AND DISCOURSE IN NORTH ARAWAK LANGUAGES

Abstract. A number of North Arawak languages show a connection between discourse‐pragmatic properties of constituents and the way they are cross‐referenced on the predicate. Baniwa and Bare have a special cross‐referencing prefix used to mark a focussed subject (A/Sa). In Warekena and Bare cross‐referencing prefixes on the verb may be totally suppressed if the subject (A/Sa) undergoes preverbal fronting as a contrastive focus. This property shows a certain analogy with other languages (e.g., Chamorro), and contributes to an over‐all typology of discourse‐marking devices in the languages of the world.

Amazonian Linguistics: Studies in Lowland South American Languages

Preface List of Contributors Introduction (Doris L. Payne) I. Historical and Comparative Studies Language History in South America: What We Know and How to Know More (Terrence Kaufman) Some Widespread Grammatical Forms in South American Languages (David L. Payne) Valence-Changing Affixes in Maipuran Arawakan Languages (Mary Ruth Wise) Cross-Referencing Changes in Some Tupi-Guarani Languages (Cheryl Jensen) II. Stress and Pitch-Accent Systems Accent in Aguaruna (David L. Payne) Asheninca Stress Patterns (Judith Payne) III. Morphological Studies Morphological Characteristics of Lowland South American Languages (Doris L. Payne) Noun Classification Systems of Amazonian Languages (Desmond C. Derbyshire and Doris L. Payne) Classifiers in Tuyuca (Janet Barnes) Chiriguano and Guarayo Word Formation (Wolf Dietrich) Incorporation in Nadeb (E. M. Helen Weir) IV. Transitivity and Grammatical Relations Kamaiura (Tupi-Guarani) as an Active-Stative Language (Lucy Seki) You and I = Neither You nor I: The Personal System of Tupinamba (Tupi-Guarani) (Aryon D. Rodrigues) Ergativity and Nominativity in Kuikuro and Other Carib Languages (Bruna Franchetto) Transitivity and Ergativity in Panare (Thomas E. Payne) V. Morphosyntax in Its Wider Context The Positioning of Non-pronominal Clitics and Particles in Lowland South American Languages (Robert A. Dooley) The Non-modal Particles of the Carib Language of Surinam and Their Influence on Constituent Order (Berend J. Hoff) Cause and Reason in Nambiquara (Ivan Lowe )

Movement and Adjunct Morphology in Arawak and Other Languages

Movement and Adjunct Morphology in Arawak and Other Languages

Some morphological elements of Maipuran Arawakan: Agreement affixes and the genitive construction

Despite the relative importance of the Arawakan language family, the advance of historical and comparative studies in the family is at present woefully behind that of many other native American language families. This paper proposes to make a contribution toward establishing affixal cognates for Maipuran Arawakan, specifically to posit and substantiate probable Proto-Maipuran forms for the agreement affixes and the affixes of the genitive construction. Agreement prefixes which normally agree with the subject of the verb or denote the possessor in the genitive construction are posited as *nu- 1SG, *pi- 2SG, *ri- 3SG MASC, *tu- 3SG FEM, *wa- 1PL, *xi- 2PL, and *na- 3PL. Verbal agreement suffixes of the same shapes normally agree with the object or stative subject. Documentation from a wide range of Maipuran languages further substantiates a suppletive suffix with the probable proto-allomorphs *-ni, *-te, *-re, *·V# > -e #, as a possessive suffix on “alienable” nouns. Finally a *-tsi is posited as the form of an “absolute” suffix, i.e., one which indicates the abnormal unpossessed or detached form of inalienably possessed nouns.

Arawak Grammatical Categories and Translation

O. The purpose of the following notes is to draw attention to some categories of the Arawak language which give rise to problems when we try, for whatever reason, to translate isolated words of or into this language. I have taken Swadesh's 100-word diagnostic list as a guide to my choice of examples, but do not hesitate to go outside it where this seems useful. The phoneme inventory employed is as follows: i ([i], [ij), e, a, o ([o], [u], [w]) and i ([i]) are short vowels, ii, ee, aa, oo and ii are long; the consonants are: m, n, b, d, p, t, k, th and kh (aspirated unit phonemes), f (bilabial), s, h, 1 and r. Also nasalized vowels occur, but alternate, stylistically or otherwise, with nasal consonant plus vowel. In other than word-final and (within the word) preconsonantal positions, they are of comparatively rare occurrence; and since no word other than recent loans ends in a consonant, there can be no opposition between forms in Y and those in VnV or VmV. Here they will be indicated by Vn, as in /daithan/ [daj'th1g (, /daithano/ [daj'thano]) I know it and /th6mban/ ['thQb4]

The languages of the Indians of Surinam and the comparative study of the Carib and Arawak languages. (Met Bibliography)

The languages of the Indians of Surinam and the comparative study of the Carib and Arawak languages. (Met Bibliography)

Remarks on an old vocabulary from Trinidad

In 1871 Daniel G. Brinton *) gave an account of the Ara wak language of Guiana, based on the study of a manuscript of Theodore Shultz in the Library of the American Philosophical Society at Philadelphia. distinguished American ethnologist compared the language of the Guiana Indians with that spoken in the Antilles as recorded in the works of early explorers, and pointed to Trinidad as the original home of the Surinam Arawaks. He said: The Arawaks of today when asked concerning their origin point to the north, and claim at some not very remote time to have lived at Kairi, an island, by which generic name they mean Trinidad. This tradition is in a measure proved correct by the narrative of Sir Walter Raleigh, who found them living there in 1595, and by the Belgian explorers who in 1598 collected a short vocabulary of their tongue. This oldest monument of the language has sufficient interest to deserve copying and comparing with the modern dialect. vocabulary of sixteen words which Brinton compared with the dialect of about a century ago was taken from Johannes de Laet's Novus Orbis, published in 1633. He expressed astonishment in finding such close agreement between the old and modern terms, saying: When it is remembered that the dialect of Trinidad no doubt differed slightly from that of the mainland; that

European influence on the Arawak language of Guiana

In collecting material for a vocabulary of the Arawak language as spoken to-day in Surinam, it has been interesting to note such words as are used for cultural elements introduced by Europeans, for which the aborigines had no equivalent terms previous to the discovery of the New World. In many instances the Indians found sufficient means of expression in their own tongue, inventing suitable descriptive phrases, or constructing new words with Arawak roots. As a rule, however, they were content to adopt foreign words or to form hybrid combinations. The sources from which they drew were Spanish, Portuguese, English, and Dutch. Probably the earliest contact of Arawaks with Europeans was with the Spaniards, whose influence on the Indian language is still seen in such words as mulato x) (mulato), mulatto; kapussina (capucino) (Schumann), long beard; tiro (tiro), cannon; arakabosa (arcabuz), gun; bala (bala), ball, shot, lead; bulum (plomo), (Schumann), tin; miyo (navio?), ship; temona (timon), rudder; remo (remo), oar; kampana (campana), bell; vela (vela), sail; banderu (bandera), flag; kar ena (cadena), chain; masseta (mache-