A Reference Grammar of Wanano
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A REFERENCE GRAMMAR OF WANANO by KRISTINE SUE STENZEL B.A., Federal University of Rio de Janeiro, 1983 M.A., University of Colorado, 2002 A thesis submitted to the Faculty of the Graduate School of the University of Colorado in partial fulfillment of the requirement for the degree of http://www.etnolinguistica.org/tese:stenzel_2004 Doctor of Philosophy está disponível para download no seguinte endereço: Department of Linguistics Este arquivo, fornecido pela autora em agosto de 2012, 2004 Examining committee: Dr. Jule Gomez de Garcia Dr. Barbara Fox Dr. David Rood Dr. Melissa Axelrod Dr. Darna Dufour ABSTRACT Stenzel, Kristine Sue (Ph.D., Linguistics) A Reference Grammar of Wanano Thesis directed by Dr. Jule Gomez de Garcia and Dr. Barbara Fox This dissertation is a descriptive reference grammar of Wanano, an Eastern Tukano language spoken by approximately 1600 people living on the Vaupés River in northwestern Amazonia (Brazil and Colombia). Typologically, Wanano is a polysynthetic, agglutinating, nominative/accusative language whose prominent characteristics include suprasegmental nasalization and tone, an elaborate system of noun classification, and highly complex verbal morphology involving root serialization and obligatory coding of clause modality. The grammar is organized into seven chapters. Chapter 1 provides important socio- linguistic background information on the Wanano people: their location, demographics, and social organization, which is grounded in a marriage system based on linguistic exogamy. It also outlines current language maintenance efforts, which include the development of an orthography and materials for a Wanano bilingual education program. Chapter 2 discusses phonology, giving the phonemic inventory and presenting the basic features of suprasegmental nasalization and tonal phenomena. Chapter 3 analyzes grammatical categories: types of morphemes and criteria by which grammatical and phonological words are distinguished. Chapter 4 describes nouns and noun phrases. It includes an overview of the noun classification system, categories of nominal morphology, and types of modification in noun phrases. Chapters 5-7 address different aspects of Wanano verbs. Chapter 5 presents verbal syntax: the coding of arguments and adjuncts, basic verb phrase structure, and types of modification. Chapter 6 analyzes the semantics and morphology of verbs and shows how different classes of verbs participate in unique ways in the paradigm of verbal morphology. Chapter 7 completes the analysis of verbal morphology with a discussion of the coding of clause modality, which distinguishes statements, questions, and commands. It includes a detailed discussion of the complex system of obligatory evidential coding of realis statements, analyzing the core semantics and extended uses of each of the five evidential categories. It shows that evidential notions also permeate categories of interrogatives and irrealis statements, these latter coded by an alternate paradigm which includes Subject agreement morphology. The conclusion reviews the major typological features of Wanano differs and outlines the directions of future research. An appendix gives 11 fully interlinearized texts. This thesis is dedicated with love and gratitude to my mother, Elda, and to my guys, Jorge and Julian. vi ACKNOWLEDGMENTS Although a single name appears on the title page, a dissertation is undoubtedly the product of an enormous group effort. As an aspiring scholar I could never have undertaken such a long and consuming project without being able to count on the infinite patience and understanding of my family and the unfaltering support of my professors. I am very grateful to have had the opportunity to study under the outstanding faculty at the University of Colorado. I particularly wish to acknowledge Zygmunt Frajzyngier and David Rood as examples of dedication and excellence in the area of descriptive linguistics. I would also like to express my gratitude to Barbara Fox, whose vast knowledge and steadfast support guided and nurtured me throughout my studies. Most of all, I would like to thank Jule Gomez de Garcia—dedicated teacher, rigorous scholar, and admirable human whom I am proud to call my friend and mentor. In Brazil, I have been most fortunate to have the guidance and support of Denny Moore of the Muséu Goeldi in Belém, Pará, as well as the comradeship of other researchers of indigenous languages at the Federal University of Pará and the Muséu Nacional in Rio de Janeiro. I would like to express my gratitude to the Instituto Socioambiental, and in particular to Marta Azevedo for her friendship and dedication to the Wanano education project. I am also thankful for scholarly discussions with a number of researchers who have worked in the Rio Negro region, in particular Janet Chernela, Alexandra Aikhenvald, and Elsa Gomez- Imbert. I would especially like to thank Nathan and Carolyn Waltz for their inspiring work on Wanano and for their kindness and encouragement of my research. I do not even know how to begin to thank the Wanano people, who have shared their language, worked with me during this research, and welcomed me into their community. This thesis would certainly not have been possible without the dedication and knowledge of my vii Wanano consultants Mateus Cabral, Agostinho Ferraz, Ricardo Cabral, Emília Cabral, and Domingos Cabral. Additionally, I would like to acknowledge the Wanano community leaders and teachers who are committed to efforts to preserve their language, and would like to thank the people of the community of Carurú Cachoeira for their hospitality and good humor. Finally, research such as mine cannot be accomplished without a great deal of financial and logistic support, and I would like to thank the University of Colorado Graduate School, the Institute of Cognitive Sciences, and the Endangered Languages Fund for their financial support during the initial stages of my research. I am additionally thankful for funding during the main fieldwork and dissertation phases from the Wenner-Gren Foundation and the National Science Foundation, grant number 0211206. viii CONTENTS INTRODUCTION . 1 1. History of the research . 1 2. Methodology and corpus . 4 2.1. Summaries of oral texts . 5 2.2. Samples of Wanano writing . 12 3. Existing scholarship. 12 3.1. Research on Tukanoan languages . 12 3.2. Research on Wanano. 14 4. Summary of the thesis . 15 1. SOCIO-LINGUISTIC BACKGROUND . 19 1.1. The Tukanoan language family . 19 1.2. The Wanano people: demographics and geographic location . 22 1.3. A brief history of contact . 27 1.4. Linguistic exogamy: the Vaupés social system . 29 1.4.1. Multilingualism . 31 1.4.2. Linguistic convergence and divergence . 35 1.5. The spectre of language loss . 36 1.6. Language maintenance and educational projects . 38 1.7. Photos . 43 2. PHONOLOGY . 48 2.1. Phonemic inventory . 48 2.1.1. Consonants . 49 2.1.1.1. Plosives: voiced, voiceless unaspirated, voiceless aspirated . 50 ix 2.1.1.2. The relation of /d/ and /r/ . 55 2.1.1.3. The status of //. 58 2.1.1.4. The /t/ affricate . 63 2.1.2. Vowels . 65 2.1.2.1. Basic characteristics . 65 2.1.2.2. Vowel Harmony . 66 2.2. Allophonic variation . 68 2.2.1. Allophones of approximants . 68 2.2.2. The [r~l] variation . 68 2.2.3. Nasal allophones . 70 2.3. The syllable . 71 2.3.1. Shapes and constraints . 71 2.3.2. Association rules . 72 2.3.3. Stress assignment . 73 2.3.3.1. Mora in prosodic structure . 73 2.3.3.2. Foot parameters . 76 2.4. Suprasegmental nasalization . 78 2.4.1. Scope of the [±nasal] feature and its effect on segments and morphemes . 78 2.4.2. The mechanics of spreading . 79 2.5. Suprasegmental tone . 82 2.5.1. Tone or Pitch-Accent? . 82 2.5.2. Tonal melodies and basic association . 84 2.5.3. The mechanics of spreading . 86 x 2.6. General phonological phenomena . 92 2.6.1. 'Fast-speech' phenomena . 93 2.6.1.1. Fusion of like vowels . 93 2.6.1.2. Vowel devoicing before /h/ . 93 2.6.1.3. Glottal weakening . 94 2.6.2. Vowel devoicing between voiceless segments . 94 2.7. Summary . 95 3. GRAMMATICAL CATEGORIES . 96 3.1. Basic morphological processes . 96 3.1.1. Roots: noun, verb, and particle . 99 3.1.2. Types of words . 101 3.1.2.1. Verbal . 101 3.1.2.2. Nominal . 103 3.1.2.2.1. Simple . 103 3.1.2.2.2. Derived . 104 3.1.2.2.3. 'Adjectival' . 105 3.1.2.2.4. 'Adverbial' . 106 3.1.2.2.5. Other nominals: pronouns, interrogatives, negative . 107 3.2. Roots, suffixes, and clitics . 109 3.2.1. Characteristics of morphemes . ..