Waimiri-Atroarí language
The Waimiri Atroari 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 Kinja and call their language Kinja Iara 'people's language'. The language has many other names such as, Atroahy, Atroahí, Atroarí, Atroaí, Atrowari, Atruahi, Atruahí, Ki'nya, Krishaná, Waimirí, Waimirí-atroarí, Yawaperí. This 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
’ 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, 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 and causative construction. 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.
Morphology
Bruno 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, 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.2nd person
Subject position
Object position
It seems that the morpheme a is used to express a 2nd person singular object as in the examples and below.1+2 we inclusive and 1+3 we exclusive
Subject position
Object position
Anaphoric (he, she, they, it)
Subject position
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.
Object position
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.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 and, where -py attaches to the verb for 'tell'.There is also a form where -py does not appear with a lexicalized verb, such as in examples and, 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 VIntr+Caus [A O.
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 and, and the particle tre’me is notable, however Bruno notes that the particle tre’me may not mean "let" because of example, in which it does not indicate "let/permit".
Syntax
Split System-S
Waimiri Atroari is what Gildea 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.| 1A3O | |
| 2A3O | |
| 3A3O | |
| 1+2A3O | |
| 3A1O | |
| 3A2O | |
| 3A1+3O | |
| 3A1+2O | |
| 1A2O | |
| 2A1O | or |