The nominal system in Wapishana (Aruák), preliminary results

Guerra Vicente, Helena; Sanchez-Mendes, Luciana; Pires De Oliveira, Roberta; Lunguinho, Marcus Vinicius; Leandro, Wendy Mary

doi:10.1075/lv.00029.gue

Article published In:

A typology of the mass/count distinction in Brazil and its relevance for mass/count theories
Edited by Suzi Lima and Susan Rothstein
[Linguistic Variation 20:2] 2020
► pp. 398–408

The nominal system in Wapishana (Aruák), preliminary results

Helena Guerra Vicente | Universidade de Brasília

Luciana Sanchez-Mendes | Universidade Federal Fluminense

Roberta Pires De Oliveira | Universidade Federal do Paraná | Universidade Federal de Santa Catarina | Conselho Nacional de Desenvolvimento Científico e Tecnológico

Marcus Vinicius Lunguinho | Universidade de Brasília

Wendy Mary Leandro | University of Guyana

The aim of this paper is to provide a preliminary investigation into the nominal system of Wapishana, focusing on the count vs. mass distinction, which is grammatically encoded in this language. Evidence for this distinction can be identified in the constraints imposed by the presence of numerals, number marking, and quantifiers. Nouns such as wyn ‘water’ do not combine with numerals, whereas other words such as baydkury ‘jaguar’ do. The suffixation of the morpheme -nau/-nhau to express plurality seems to be optional and may even be blocked by the presence of numerals. The language exhibits specialized quantifiers for count, liquid, and non-liquid mass nouns.

Keywords: Wapishana, count, mass, number, quantifiers

Article outline

1.Introduction
2.Numerals and -nau/-nhau
3.Quantifiers
4.Final remarks
Acknowledgements
Notes
References

Published online: 1 October 2020

https://doi.org/10.1075/lv.00029.gue

References (10)

References

Cable, Seth. 2017. The implicatures of optional past tense in Tlingit and the implications for ‘discontinuous past’. Natural Language & Linguistic Theory 351. 635–681.

Carvalho, Rosileide. 2017. Análise morfológica da língua Kaiowá: fundamentos para uma gramática e dicionário bilíngue [“A Morphological Analysis of Kaiowa: a basis for a gramarbook and a bilingual dictionary”]. Brasília-DF: Universidade de Brasília (UnB) thesis.

Chierchia, Gennaro. 2010. Mass nouns, vagueness and semantic variation. Synthese 1741:99–149. Available at [URL]. (23 September, 2017.)

Guerra Vicente, Helena & Giovannetti, Marcelo. 2016. Number and the expression of the count/mass distinction in English, Brazilian Portuguese and Wapishana: What is universal? What is variable? In Thuy Bui & Rudmila-Rodica Ivan (eds.) Proceedings of the 9th Conference on The Semantics of Under-Represented Languages in the Americas (SULA 9), 213–222.

Lima, Suzi & Rothstein, Susan. The count/mass distinction questionnaire (this volume).

Pires de Oliveira, Roberta. & Giovannetti, Marcelo. 2016. The nominal system in Wapishana (Aruák): first thoughts. In Thuy Bui & Rudmila-Rodica Ivan (eds.) Proceedings of the 9th Conference on The Semantics of Under-represented Languages in the Americas (SULA 9), 113–126.

Rothstein, Susan. 2010. Counting and the mass-count distinction. Journal of Semantics 27(3). 343–397.

. 2017. Semantics for Counting and Measuring. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.

Sanchez-Mendes, Luciana. 2016. A distinção contável-massivo em Wapixana: aparente desafio tipológico [“The count-mass distinction in Wapishana: an apparent typological challenge”]. Revista do GEL 3(2). 138–162.

Santos, Manoel. 2006. Uma gramática do Wapixana (Aruák) – aspectos da fonologia, da morfologia e da sintaxe [“A grammar of Wapishana (Aruák) – aspects of phonology, morphology, and syntax”]. Campinas-SP: Universidade Estadual de Campinas (Unicamp) dissertation.