Estudo fonológico da língua Waiwái (Caribe): uma contribuição

Abstract

This study aims to document, describe and analyze some phonological aspects of the Waiwai language, one of the languages of the Cariban family, and apply them for scientific purposes. This language is spoken by the inhabitants of the Indigenous Land Nhamundá / Mapuera, located on the border of the state of Pará with the state of Amazonas. The study is justified by the attempt to update the data on other aspects of phonology and grammar of the Waiwai language. The only works about the phonology of the Waiwai indigenous people are those of Neil W. Hawkins (1952) and Robert E. Hawkins (1998). For this reason, it will seek to establish, more specifically, the phonetic-phonological system of the language. The methodology used is part of a descriptive approach, interpreting, synchronously, the phonological structure of language study in its oral form. The research corpus is based on systematic analysis of the data, identifying and analyzing the vowel and consonant segments, objects of study of phonetics and phonology, giving an account of how this language organizes its sounds, as well as some considerations about the accent and syllabic pattern of the language. For the development of this research we have considered works by structural linguistics and functionalist linguistics scholars.