Warekena language
Warekena (Guarequena), or more precisely Warekena of Xié, is an Arawakan language of Brazil and of Maroa Municipality in Venezuela, spoken near the Guainia River. It is one of several languages which go by the generic name Baré and Baniwa/Baniva – in this case, distinguished as Baniva de Maroa or Baniva de Guainía. There may be 10 speakers in Brazil and 200 in Venezuela, per Aikhenvald (1999). Kaufman (1994) classified it in a Warekena group of Western Nawiki Upper Amazonian, Aikhenvald (1999) in Eastern Nawiki. Personal pronouns in Warekena are formed by adding an emphatic suffix -ya to the cross-referencing personal prefixes.[3] PhonologyConsonants
Vowels
GrammarUnmarked constituent order is AVO, VSo, SaV, or SioV.[3] AVO: wa-hã then-PAUS waʃi jaguar yutʃia-hã kill-PAUS ema tapir "Then the jaguar killed the tapir" VSo: ʃupe-hẽ many-PAUS ʃiani-pe child-PL "Children are many" SaV: peya one nu-yaɺitua 1sg-brother wiyua die "One of my brothers dies" SioV: nu-yue 1sg-for mawali hungry "I am hungry" Indirect objects tend to be placed immediately after the predicate. References
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