Estudo do léxico da língua Apurinã uma proposta de macro e microestrura para o dicionário Apurinã

Abstract

This thesis aims to describe and analyze the lexicon of the Apurinã language (Aruák) with the purpose of elaborating a bilingual bi-directional general Apurinã-Portuguese/Portuguese- Apurinã dictionary. Apurinã is an indigenous ethnicity and a minority language spoken mainly in communities scattered along the banks of several tributaries of the Purus River in the south part of the state of Amazonas. This work sought to articulate academic and social objectives in which, on one hand, we have the description and analysis of the lexical system of the Apurinã language and, on the other, a comprehensive documentation of this language in order to ensure written registration of it, helping the Apurinã people in their native language teaching-learning and literacy initiatives. It is noteworthy that, in the case of Apurinã and other Brazilian indigenous languages, the importance of the latter aspect is increasing, since indigenous languages are in danger of extinction. To this end, this thesis was organized in two volumes. The first volume consists in four parts, which in turn consist of seven chapters. The second volume presents the Apurinã dictionary, product of this thesis. In the first part of the first volume entitled, Initial Considerations, we have in the first chapter an introduction to some general characteristics of the language, culture, and territory of the Apurinã people, as well as the context of the research; in the second chapter we present the theoretical contributions necessary for its construction; in the third chapter we discuss about the construction and organization of the corpus used in this research. In the second part, Apurinã Lexicon Structure, we present in the fourth chapter an overview of the phonetic-phonological aspects of Apurinã, where we show the inventory of vowels and consonants, pointing out the variations that occur involving some segments, and the different language spelling proposals; in the fifth chapter we focus on the open lexical categories of the language, beginning with the description of nouns, their subcategories, discuss the processes of lexical innovation, linguistic variation and the phenomenon of double vocabulary, then deal with verbs and their subcategories. In the sixth chapter, we deal with the closed lexical categories (pronouns, demonstratives, interrogative words, floating particles and morphemes), pointing out their main characteristics and functions. In the third part, Apurinã Dictionary, which is made up of the seventh chapter, we discuss how the dictionary was organized and the decisions made regarding the proposed macro and microstructure. The fourth part of this thesis, Final Considerations, is composed by the conclusions, where we make an overview of the work and the possible developments that can be explored from the dictionary, for example, an electronic version of the dictionary, pedagogical dictionaries, glossaries of specific fields of the Apurinã culture and thematic booklets; the appendixes are formed by small texts collected exclusively for this research; and by the questionnaires. Finally, the seconde volume is presented, which consists the proposal of the dictionary for the Apurinã language.