Dâw language

Dâw is a Nadahup language spoken by a hundred people in the northwestern part of the Amazonas state of Brazil, in an area commonly known as Alto Rio Negro. Most of the Dâw people also speak Nheengatu and Portuguese.^[1][2][3][4]

An extinct variety, Kurikuria(r)í, named after the Curicuriari River, was a distinct language sociolinguistically, but at least partially intelligible with Dâw.

Phonology

Vowels

Dâw has 15 vowels:^[5]

Vowels are laryngealized when occurring beside a glottal stop, as seen in the examples below.^[6]

/ʔɛʔ/ [ʔɛ̰́ʔ] "large mouth"

/nɯʔ/ [nɯ̰́ʔ] "to lack"

Vowel harmony

Vowel harmony in Dâw is seen primarily in two situations: in compounding and with the focus marker /-Vʔ/, where V indicates a vowel. When combining two words with the first word having the syllable structure CVC, vowel harmony is not seen, e.g. /pɔx/ "high" + /lã̌ʃ/ "boat" = /pɔxlã̌ʃ/ "airplane". However, when combining two words with the first word having the syllable structure CV, vowel harmony is seen, e.g. /xɔ̂/ "canoe" + /tɯm/ "eye" = /xɯtɯm/ "sun". The vowel of the focus marker /-Vʔ/ is the same as the vowel of the syllable it is appended to, e.g. /jɯ̂w/ "blood" + /-Vʔ/ = /jɯ̂wɯʔ/.^[7]

Consonants

Dâw has 25 consonants:^[8]

Glottalized consonants are also laryngealized, as seen in the examples below.^[6]

/wˀac/ [w̰ˀác̚] "oar"

/ʃělˀ/ [ʃěːl̰ˀ̚] "banana"

The plosive consonants have no audible release as codas, e.g. /pɤp/ "to kick" is realized as [pɤp̚], and /kɤɟ/ "to scratch with the nail" as [kʼɤc̚]. When being onsets, /c/ and /k/ are realized as ejective consonants, i.e. [cʼ] and [kʼ], unlike the other plosive consonants, which are realized simply as plain consonants, e.g. [cʼóc̚] "without hair", [kʼɛ̃́k̚] "to hook".^[9][10]

Stress

Stress is fixed in Dâw, occurring on the last syllable of a word. A few suffixes in Dâw do not take the stress, however. The suffixes are divided into two groups, metric suffixes and extrametric suffixes. The former follows the general rule of stress on the last syllable, while the latter does not. See the examples below, where /-ɔh/ is a metric suffix, and /-ĩh/ an extrametric suffix.^[11]

[bɤ̀ˈjɤ̂ː] "to return"

[bɤ̀jɤ̂ːˈɔ́h] "return!"

[bɤ̀ˈjɤ̂ːĩ̀h] "is returning"

Tone

In Dâw there are either three or four tones, depending on analysis. There are a low tone, a high tone, a rising tone and a falling tone, marked by a grave accent, an acute accent, a caron and circumflex, respectively, but only the two latter are lexical. The low tone only occurs on syllables without stress, while the high tone only occurs on syllables with stress, and the rising and falling tones may occur on all syllables. As the low and high tones are not lexical, they are often left unmarked, as in /tɤɡ/ "tooth", which really is realized as [tɤ́ɡ̚].^[11]

Besides the lexical function of tone, tone may also function morphologically and syntactically. Consider the examples below, the first being morphological and the second being syntactical, showing how tone is used in a derivative manner and how tone is used to differentiate intransitive from transitive verbs.^[12]

[wɛ̂d̚] "to eat"

[wɛ̌d̚] "food"

[cʼɔ́ᵇm] "to bathe (oneself)"

[cʼɔ̂ːᵇm] "to bathe (someone)"

Vowel length is predictable and present in Dâw, yet not distinctive lexically. All vowels with a rising or falling tone are long, while all vowels without a tone are short.^[5]

References

Notes

General

• Martins, Silvana Andrade (2004), Fonologia e Gramática Dâw, Utrecht, Netherlands: Netherlands Graduate School of Linguistics 

• Martins, Valteir (2005), Reconstrução Fonológica do Protomaku Oriental, Utrecht, Netherlands: Netherlands Graduate School of Linguistics