Waimiri-Atroarí language

Waimiri-Atroarí
Yawaperí, Crichaná
Native to	Brazil
Region	Amazonas, Roraima
Ethnicity	2,009 Waimiri-Atroari (2018, PWA)
Native speakers	(930 cited 2001)
Language family	Cariban Atruahí–Boanarí Waimiri-Atroarí
Dialects	Atruahi Waimirí Jawaperi
Language codes
ISO 639-3	atr
Glottolog	waim1253
ELP	Template:Endangered Languages Project
Linguasphere	Template:Infobox language/lingualist
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Waimirí-Atroarí is classified as Vulnerable by the UNESCO Atlas of the World's Languages in Danger

Waimiri Atroari (Template:Langx 'people's language') is a Cariban language spoken by the Waimiri Atroari people. The current population is 2,009, and they have 19 villages spread along the rivers of Camanau/Curiau, Alalaii, Jauaperi, and Rio Branquinho. The language is spoken in the northern part of the State of Amazonas and the southern part of the State of Roraima. The people call themselves . The language has many other names, such as Atroahy, Atroahí, Atroarí, Atroaí, Atrowari, Atruahi, Atruahí, Ki'nya, Krishaná, Waimirí, Waimirí-atroarí, Yawaperí. The language seems to have a high transmission as it is spoken by all members of the community and is the main language used for reading and writing.

Classification

Waimiri Atroari belongs to the Carib language family, which is centralized in Northern South America. The Carib languages in northern Brazil are fairly similar, while Waimiri-Atroari is rather different. Carib can be categorized into three groups: Northwest Amazon, Guiana area and Upper Xingu Basin. Waimiri Atroari seems to fall into the second group, Guiana area.

Documentation

João Barbosa Rodrigues’ wordlist seems to be the first to document the language in 1885 and he refers to the people as "Crichanas". A century later, in 1985, a phonological proposal and alphabet were developed by a Catholic missionary couple from the Indigenous Missionary Council. A year after, in 1986, another missionary couple from the Evangelical Mission of the Amazonian (MEVA), created a more accurate orthography.

It seems that the first detailed description was done by Ana Carla Bruno. She released a dissertation in 2003 on the descriptive grammar of the Waimiri-Atroari language. She extensively described the phonology, morphology, lexicon, and syntax of the language. In addition, she has continued detailing the typology of Waimiri-Atroari in further works. In 2004, she published a paper on reduplication in the language. The following two years, she detailed its pronominal system (2005) and causative construction (2006). Then, in 2008 and 2009, she further analyzed the syntactic features of case-marking; phrase structure, clauses and word order. Most recently, she explored the value of linguistic analysis to better language revitalization by analyzing the syllable structure in the orthography and formal education of Waimiri-Atroari (2010).

Phonology

Consonants

		Labial	Alveolar	Palatal	Velar	Glottal
Plosive/ Affricate	voiceless	p	t	t͡ʃ ⟨tx⟩	k	ʔ
	voiced	b	d	d͡ʒ ⟨dj⟩
Fricative			s	ʃ ⟨x⟩		h
Nasal		m	n	ɲ ⟨nj⟩
Rhotic			r
Semivowel		w		j ⟨i⟩

Vowels

	Front		Central		Back
	short	long	short	long	short	long
Close	i		ɨ ⟨y⟩	ɨː ⟨yy⟩	u
Mid	e	eː ⟨ee⟩			o	oː ⟨oo⟩
Open	ɛ ⟨e⟩		a	aː ⟨aa⟩

Morphology

Bruno (2003) creates a thorough documentation of the morphology of Waimiri Atroari which includes nouns of possession, relational morphemes, derivational morphemes, pronouns, non-third person pronouns and third-person pronouns. Verbs have also been documented, covering tense/aspect suffixes, mood (imperatives and negation suffix), interrogative clitic, interrogative forms, causative forms and desiderative suffix. Waimiri Atroari also has documentation of adverbs, postpositions, particles and case markings.

Pronouns

Bruno states that pronouns can take both subject and object positions in Waimiri Atroari.

1st person

Subject position

Bruno states that kara~kra is used when responding to a question or to emphasize that the person did an action or wants something. It is also the only pronoun that can be used in the OSV order.

Object position

It seems that for a 1st person singular object, aa can be used (Bruno 81).

2nd person

Object position

It seems that the morpheme a is used to express a 2nd person singular object as in the examples (5) and (6) below.

Anaphoric (he, she, they, it)

Object position

Mykyka and ka can appear in object position, but Bruno notes that ka seems to be the preferred morpheme in her data.

Proximal

Subject position

By is used to describe animate objects.

Medial and Distal

Subject position

Myry can only be used to describe inanimate objects.

Mymo’ and mo’o are used with inanimate objects, while myky is used with animate objects.

Negation

Waimiri Atroari uses non-verbal negation, that is, negation marked by particles kap~kapy~kapa and wan. These particles act to indicate negation rather than negation being marked on a verb and are often used to negate existence as seen below (Bruno 115).

Causative forms

There are two kinds of causative forms that can be used to signify if a subject causes an event. First, there is the -py morpheme that indicates if someone “made” someone else do something or if they are not resistant to “cause” an event to happen. There is one construction where the morpheme -py appears with the lexicalized verb, such as in examples (27) and (28), where -py attaches to the verb for 'tell' (Bruno 100).

There is also a form where -py does not appear with a lexicalized verb, such as in examples (29) and (30), where -py attaches to the verbs 'bleed' and 'laugh'. It also seems that intransitive verbs like these, behave like transitive verbs when they take a causative form like V[Intr+Caus [A O]] (Bruno 101).

Second, there is a form that indicates if the subject is “letting” the event happen. Someone is ordered or permitted to do something without forcing the other or knowing if the other may fulfill the event. It seems that there is an absence of the morpheme -py, as in examples (31) and (32), and the particle tre’me is notable, however Bruno notes that the particle tre’me may not mean "let" because of example (33), in which it does not indicate "let/permit" (Bruno 103).

Syntax

Split System-S

Waimiri Atroari is what Gildea (1998) classifies to as an Inverse Split system-S. Characteristics of this language system include A and O nominals having no case marking, a lack of auxiliaries and personal prefix set as well as the collective number suffixes. In Inverse Split System-s, also referred to as Set I systems the OV unit may either precede or follow the A, in Wamiri Atroari the order is AOV.

A Verb-Phrase may be formed with just the verb.

A verb may be preceded by a Noun-Phrase.

The particle ram cannot separate elements of a single phrase, however it can be used as a tool to determine which element is moved within a sentence.

In OSV contexts the object may move independently to subject position rather than the Verb-Phrase preceding the Noun-Phrase through the process of topicalization in which its components cannot be separated.

Hierarchy

Hierarchical relationships exist in Waimiri Atroari in which  the third person is ranked lower than the first, second and first plural inclusive and exclusive person.   In situations where second person acts on first person, or first person acts on second person there is may be subject agreement or object agreement. Therefore, it is necessary that subject and object marking follow a hierarchy : 1=2, 1+2/1+3>3. The following table provided by Bruno illustrates how case is marked in Waimiri Atroari as well as the hierarchy present in the language.

Person hierarchy in Waimiri Atroari

1A3O	Template:Interlinear
2A3O	Template:Interlinear
3A3O	Template:Interlinear
1+2A3O	Template:Interlinear
3A1O	Template:Interlinear
3A2O	Template:Interlinear
3A1+3O	Template:Interlinear
3A1+2O	Template:Interlinear
1A2O	Template:Interlinear
2A1O	Template:Interlinear or Template:Interlinear

Semantics

Quantification

Adverbial quantifiers

Noun phrases which possess quantifiers show positional variation, as seen in examples (5) to (9). Adverbials quantifiers may be positioned on either side of the head noun. Bruno (2003) explains the relative mobility of these quantifiers by categorizing them as adjuncts.

Numeral noun phrases

Examples (10) to (12) provide examples of the occurrence of the numeral one. (11) is unique in the set as it refers to 'one group' while (10) and (12) refer to one individual. Example (13) demonstrates use of the number two and examples (14) and (15) provide depictions of the use of number three.

Loanword influence

As of recently, due to western influence, Portuguese loanwords are also used to refer to amounts higher than three, and it is common for younger speakers to use them for amounts lower than three.

Many

However, traditionally, it is common for the Kinja people to use waha~wapy ('many, a lot') for amounts more than three because they did not count up to three.

References

• Bruno, Ana Carla (2003). Waimiri Atroari Grammar: Some Phonological, Morphological, and Syntactic Aspects. Tucson: University of Arizona.
• Bruno, Ana Carla (2010). "Lessons from Waimiri Atraori Syllable Structure". LIAMES. 10: 85–99.
• Bruno, Ana Carla (2015). "Case Marking in Waimiri Atroari: typical nominative/accusative or nominative with some inverse/split-s features". Revista Linguíʃtica. 4 (2).

<section begin="list-of-glossing-abbreviations" />

IMPER:imperative PART:particle 2PART:second position particle VAL:valuative VERBL:verbalizer

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