Língua Kinikinau: descrição de aspectos sociolinguísticos e fonológicos

Abstract

The aim of this dissertation is to describe sociolinguistic and phonological aspects of the Kinikinau language, an Arawakan language (AIKHENVALD, 1999) spoken in Southern pantanal of Mato Grosso do Sul. Firstly, we present an ethnography of the Kinikinau people, in order to show the current socioeconomic and political situation of these indigenous people, making possible to offer a picture as reliable as possible of the speakers of the language studied in this dissertation. Then, we make a sociolinguistic study of the Kinikinau language, using an ethnographic approach. The main questions raised are: Why is the Kinikinau language almost ceasing to be spoken? What motivated her to reach this level of critical vitality? Why do not the speakers transmit it to younger generations? Can the Kinikinau language be re-spoken in all its communicative potentiality? Finally, we performed a phonological study of the Kinikinau language, presenting a review of Souza (2008), focusing on the inventory of vocalic and consonantal phones, followed by phonological interpretation of the consonantal and vocalic segments, with emphasis on the tone and lengthening of vowels.