A Grammar of Cavinena

This book is a detailed high-quality descriptive grammar of the endangered Cavinena language of the Amazonian rainforest of northern Bolivia. Cavinena is spoken in an area where the indigenous languages are virtually unknown, namely Lowland Bolivia. Cavinena also belongs to a family, Tacanan, comprising five languages (Araona, Cavinena, Ese Ejja, Reyesano and Tacana), none of which has been the subject of an adequate descriptive grammar. The language contains a number of unusual features that will be of interest to typologist linguists, such as an unusual pitch accent system, a morpho-phonological rule that deletes case markers, an intricate predicate structure, a system of verbal suffixes coding associated motion, a specific causative of involvement marker, a peculiar prefix e- that attaches to nouns coding body parts and a complex system of second position clitic pronouns.

Antoine Guillaume, CNRS & Universite Lumiere Lyon 2, France.