Munduruku language

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Munduruku
Region Brazil
Ethnicity Munduruku
Native speakers
 7,500  (2006)[1]
Tupian
Language codes
ISO 639-3 myu

Mundurukú is a Tupi language spoken by 10,000 people in the Tapajós River basin in north central Brazil, of which most of the women and children are monolingual.

Phonology

Phoneme inventory

Consonants

  • Voiceless stops /p, t, tʃ, k, ʔ/
  • Voiced stops /b, dʒ/
  • Flap /ɾ/
  • Voiceless fricatives /s, ʃ, h/
  • Nasals /m, n, ŋ/
  • Semi-vowels /w, j/

Vowels

  • High vowels: /ɨ, ɨ̃, i, ĩ, u, ũ /
  • High-mid vowels: /e, ẽ/
  • Mid vowels /ə̃, ə/
  • Low vowels /ã, a/

Syllable structure

The syllable in Munduruku is made up of an obligatory vocalic nucleus and one of four phonemic accents (three of pitch and one of laryngealization). It may also have an onset or coda. No consonant clusters are permitted. Thus, the permissible syllables are CV, CVC, V, and VC (with V being the most rare).

Onset

The onset in this language may be any one of the 16 consonant phonemes which contrast as to the manner and point of articulation: (1) voiceless stops /p, t, k, tʃ, k, ʔ/; (2) Voiced stops /b, dʒ/; (3) Fricatives /s, ʃ, h/, (4) nasals /m, n, ŋ/, (5) Sonorants /w, y, r/

Coda

The only segment not allowed in the coda is /tʃ/. Observe that CVj and CVw are considered CVC syllables, and not CV.V ones for a variety of reasons. Most notably, perhaps, is that it would require positing a new syllable pattern limited to CVu and CVi with no other vowels occurring in coda position. There is also phonetic contrast between /i, u/ as vowel nuclei and /y, w/ as codas. The former being distinctly vocalic and the latter consonantal.[2]

Nucleus

The syllabic nucleus is limited to only one vowel.

Accent

Accent is considered a feature of the entire syllable rather than of the nucleus only. One accent occurs with each syllable. Note that the functional load of accent is light—only some 40 lexical pairs with contrastive accents have been found and few grammatical contrasts are marked by accent alone.[3]

Syntax

Munduruku is an OV language.

See also

  • Munduruku people


References

  1. ↑ Munduruku reference at Ethnologue (17th ed., 2013)
  2. ↑ Braun, Ilse; Marjorie Crofts. "Mundruku phonology". Anthropological Linguistics 7 (7): 25. JSTOR 30013071. 
  3. ↑ Braun, Ilse; Marjorie Crofts. "Mundruku phonology". Anthropological Linguistics 7 (7): 27. JSTOR 30013071. 


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