A grammar of Resígaro

Abstract

The thesis gives a description within the framework of tagmemic theory of Resigaro, a South American Indian language of the Huitoto group, spoken in the region between the Amazon and the Putumayo, in north-eastern Peru. The Introduction reviews critically previous work on the language, and sets out modifications in tagmemic theory which it is claimed avoid circularity and repetition and improve the description. Principal among these is a strict separation of the three modes of Contrast, Variation and Distribution, and the use of multiplication of derive structures. Part I of the thesis describes the first two levels of the Phonological Hierarchy - Phoneme level and Syllable level. Part II describes the grammatical hierarchy, in which the following levels are set up: Root Stem Word (Group) (Piece) Phrase Clause Sentence (Group and Piece are sub-levels affecting only the Verb class.) Each Level is described in a separate chapter, starting at the lowest level (Root). Each class (Verb, Noun, Pronoun, etc.) is described in turn at each level at which it has elements. At Phrase level, Phrases are described as being either Endocentric or Axis-Relator. Endocentric Phrases (Verb, Noun, and Numeral) are described first. At Clause level, the description of Clause structure is preceded by a description of Clause-level tagmemes - first the nuclear, and then the peripheral tagmemes. It is indicated that this simplifies the presentation of Clause structure. Under Clause structure, the Declarative clause is described first, and other Clause classes are derived from this, viz.: Interrogative, Imperative, Nominalized and Relativized. The description of the Contrast and Variation modes of Sentence level is followed by an analysis of the first section of a text.

Appendix I presents a lexicon of Resigaro in two parts: Part I is Resigaro-Spanish-English, and Part II is Spanish-Resigaro.

Appendix II presents a 376-word four-language comparative word list for Resigaro, Bora, Ocaina and Huitoto Muinane