Determiners and quantifiers in Wapichana

• Grant number: 15/22394-6
• Support Opportunities: Scholarships in Brazil - Scientific Initiation
• Start date: April 01, 2016
• End date: December 31, 2016
• Field of knowledge: Linguistics, Literature and Arts - Linguistics - Linguistic Theory and Analysis
• Principal Investigator: Renato Miguel Basso
• Grantee: Bruno Ferreira de Lima
• Host Institution: Centro de Educação e Ciências Humanas (CECH). Universidade Federal de São Carlos (UFSCAR). São Carlos , SP, Brazil

Abstract

Wapichana is a language from the Aruák family spoken by people whose ethnicity goes by the same name. Wapichana people live in the Brazilian state of Roraima near its capital, Boa Vista. The structure of this language has not been described in great detail, and there are virtually no analyses using formal theories. This project aims at analyze and describe Wapichana's determiners and quantifiers using Formal Semantics and Syntax. We also intend to describe phenomena closely related to these, such as quantifiers and generalized quantifiers, as well as listing the language's quantifiers themselves. We will gather linguistic data from native speakers, which will in turn be used to develop and test our hypotheses. The data collection will be conducted together with prof. Marcello Giovannetti Ferreira Luz, the co-adviser of this project. We will translate data into Wapichana and propose tests to verify whether these structures are valid. After this step is concluded, we plan to suggest negative data so that we can evaluate the hypotheses that have been proposed.