Language contact and change in the upper Rio Negro

• Grant number: 14/50764-0
• Support Opportunities: Regular Research Grants
• Start date: October 01, 2015
• End date: March 31, 2018
• Field of knowledge: Linguistics, Literature and Arts - Linguistics
• Agreement: University of Texas - Austin
• Principal Investigator: Luciana Raccanello Storto
• Grantee: Luciana Raccanello Storto
• Principal researcher abroad: Patience Epps
• Institution abroad: University of Texas at Austin (UT), United States
• Host Institution: Faculdade de Filosofia, Letras e Ciências Humanas (FFLCH). Universidade de São Paulo (USP). São Paulo , SP, Brazil

Abstract

The Amazon basin is one of the most linguistically diverse regions on earth, yet evidence from across the region suggests that the maintenance of this diversity overtime has been accompanied by extensive interaction among speakers of different languages. This project explores these processes of language contact and change through the lens of Upper Rio Negro region, focusing on the Nadahup language family, a small family of four languages that has experienced extensive contact with its neighbors in the Upper Rio Negro region of northwest Amazônia. We will investigate the influences that regional languages have had on the Nadahup languages over time. In the process, we will also consider the influences that Nadahup and its neighbors have had on the local colonial languages - Nheengatú (also known as Lingua Geral, a Tupi-Guarani contact language spread by Jesuit missionaries) and the regional variety of Portuguese. We will focus in particular on the relationship between particular processes of contact-driven change and the cultural, social, and historical contexts of speakers. (AU)

Scientific publications

(References retrieved automatically from Web of Science and SciELO through information on FAPESP grants and their corresponding numbers as mentioned in the publications by the authors)

STORTO, LUCIANA R.. Count and mass nouns in Daw. LINGUISTIC VARIATION, v. 20, n. 2, p. 11-pg., 2020-01-01. (14/50764-0)