Background

Language Family: Arauan

Paumarí is spoken in the Amazonas state of Brazil.

Phonology

Consonants

The Paumarí language is very interesting as it contrasts stops on three different dimensions, two of which (implosives and aspirates) are not homogeneous (Everett 2003, 23).
Chapman and Salzer (1998) and Chapman and Derbyshire (1991) (p. 346) include /ʃ/ in the phonemic inventory, whereas Everett (2003) (p. 23) doesn’t. I have chosen to include it, given that it is represented specifically in the orthography, but it seems extremely marginal (only present in 0.1% of the Crúbadán corpus).

	Place of Articulation
Manner of Articulation	Labial	Alveolar	Postalveolar	Velar	Glottal
Stops (plain)	p b	t d		k ɡ	ʔ
Stops (aspirated)		tʰ		kʰ
Stops (implosive)	ɓ	ɗ
Affricates			tʃ dʒ
Fricatives	f	s	ʃ		h
Nasals	m	n
Flaps		ɾ
Approximants		w
Note: For phonemes that share a cell, those on the left are voiceless and those on the right are voiced.

Vowels

Adjacent vowels are interpreted as separate nuclei (Chapman and Derbyshire 1991, 346).

	Front	Central	Back
High	i
Mid			o
Low		a

Alphabet

Grapheme	Phoneme
a	/a/
b	/b/
’b	/ɓ/
d	/d/
’d	/ɗ/
f	/f/
g	/ɡ/
h	/h/
i	/i/
j	/dʒ/
k	/k/
m	/m/
n	/n/
o	/o/
p	/p/
r	/ɾ/
s	/s/
t	/t/
v	/w/
x	/ʃ/
’	/ʔ/
Digraph
kh	/kʰ/
th	/tʰ/
tx	/tʃ/

Misc. Rules

Predictable stress patterns elicit phonetic lengthening of both vowels and consonants (Chapman and Derbyshire 1991, 346).

References

Chapman, Shirley, and Desmond C. Derbyshire. 1991. “Handbook Amazonian Languages.” In, edited by Geoffrey K. Pullum Desmond C. Derbyshire, 161–354. De Gruyter Mouton.

Chapman, Shirley, and Meinke Salzer. 1998. Dicionário Bilíngue Nas Línguas Paumarí E Portuguesa. Porto Velho, RO: Sociedade Internacional de Lingüística.

Everett, Daniel L. 2003. “Iambic Feet in Paumari and the Theory of Foot Structure.” Linguistic Discovery 2 (1). Dartmouth College Library Press. doi:10.1349/ps1.1537-0852.a.263.

Paumarí