Adriana Maria Huber Azevedo
Title: Developing a first grammatical description of Suruwahá
Abstract: Suruwahá is a language from the Arawá language family spoken by a small community in the Juruá-Purus interfluve of the Brazilian Amazon. After being exposed to traumatic experiences with colonial violence during the rubber boom, the community opted to remain in voluntary isolation until 1980. The language is still largely undocumented, and my MA thesis aims to provide a first outline of a grammatical description. Drawing from data that are a by-product of my collaborative fieldwork with the community between 2006 and the present - focused on supporting their struggle for land and cultural rights - I will present an overview of the most relevant morphological and syntactic aspects of this highly synthetic language, with a particular focus on verbal morphology and the complex interplay between tense, mood, and evidentiality.
Mariana Illescas Buendia
Title: A Case Study of Communicative Development in a Shipibo community
Abstract: tba
