Uaçá kheuól phonology, Karipuna variety: main aspects

Abstract

The Kheuól do Uaçá is an indigenous language spoken by two peoples of different origins, the Karipuna and the Galibi-Marworno. Both share Indigenous Lands in the municipality of Oiapoque, Brazil, on the border with French Guiana. We present the main aspects of the segmental phonology of the Kheuól do Uaçá, Karipuna variety. In this work, we use the most recent data and rely on the introspection of one of the authors, who is a native speaker of Kheuól Karipuna. Through minimal pairs and analogs, we seek to establish the consonantal and vocalic phonemes, as well as their allophones. We resort to autosegmental phonology of the Features Geometry (Clements; Hume 1995) to capture phenomena of nasalization (/j/ [ɲ], /g/ [ŋ]) and vowel opening (/e/ [ɛ], /o/ [ɔ]) as instances of assimilation with the changing of the features values [nasal] and [open] (feature-changing assimilation), respectively. We explain the post-aspiration of consonant /Ch/ [Cʰ] triggered by syllabic readjustment, such as the spreading of the oral cavity (OC) node from /h/ to the secondary articulation of OC of the preceding consonant (partial assimilation). In future work, we intend to describe the segmental phonology of the Galibi-Marworno variety of Kheuól do Uaçá. This study aimed to provide an original contribution to the phonology of a underdocumented and endangered indigenous language.