Criticism, Foreign Language Dictionaries & Thesauruses, Words, Language & Grammar 

Retuarã Syntax is based on a typological/functional perspective which provides an excellent framework for writing a broadly useful, descriptive grammar. Retuarã, is also know as Letuama (Tanimuca-Retuarã, Retuama, Letuhama, Ufaina, Uairã) is a member of the central Tucanoan language family and is closely related to Tanimuca. Though the Retuarã and Tanimuca peoples consider themselves as separate groups, they speak the same language with slight lexical differences. Their location is in widely distributed areas of the Amazon Basin in southeastern Colombia has brought them into contact with other Tucanoan and Arawakan languages resulting in some grammatical variations.Besides a brief phonological sketch and description of various aspects of the Retuarã language, the study presents a detailed discussion of parts of the speech, the noun phrases, case, the verb phrase, adverbs, sentence structure, imperatives, questions, negation, subordination, and various elements of discourse. Table of ContentsAbbreviationsAcknowledgments1. Introduction1.1-1.10 Word order constituents1.11-1.14 Distinguishing major syntactic functions1.1 5-1.20 Phonology sketch2. Parts of Speech2.1. Nouns and adjectives2.2-2.8 Verbs2.9. Adverbs2.10-2.12 Pronouns and other pro-forms2.13-2.15 Noun adjuncts2.16-2.22 Verb adjuncts2.23. Coordinating conjunctions2.24. Subordinating conjunctions2.25. Negators2.26-2.29 Derivational affixes3. Noun Phrase3.1. Noun classes3.2. Genitives3.3. Relative clause3.4. Quantifiers3.5. Numerals3.6. Adjectives3.7. Demonstratives3.8. Relative order of elements in noun phrase3.9. Case3.10. Classifiers and concord in the noun phrase4. Case4.1. Term4.2. General locative4.3. Specific locative4.4. Ablative4.5. Instrument4.6. Comitative4.7. Benefactive4.8. Possessive4.9. Case combinations5. Verb Phrase5.1. Order of verb affixes5.2. Agreement5.3. Auxiliary verb5.4-5.9 Tense5.10-5.15 Aspect5.16-5.19 Mood5.20-5.24. Other verbal affixes5.25. Compound verbs5.26-5.28 Causatives5.29. Reciprocals5.30. Incorporation6. Adverbs6.1. Manner6.2. Time6.3. Location6.4. Speaker attitude adverbs6.5. Mood/aspect adverbs6.6. Derived adverbs7. Sentence Structure7.1. Intransitive7.2. Transitive7.3. Ditransitive7.4. Copular sentences7.5. Existential7.6-7.8 Locationals7.9. Reflexives7.10. Subordinate clauses8. Imperatives8.1. Second-person imperatives8.2. Indirect imperative8.3. Negative imperative8.4. Hortatory8.5. Third-person imperatives8.6. Responses to imperatives9. Questions9.1. Yes/no questions9.2. Content questions9.3. Alternate questions9.4. Indirect questions9.5. Courtesy in question-asking9.6. Answers to questions10. Negation10.1. Sentential negation10.2. Negative verb11. Subordination11.1-11.2 Relative clauses11.3-11.7 Complementation11.8-11.17 Adverbial clauses formed by suffixes11.18-11.22 Adverbial clauses formed by conjunctions12. Elements of Discourse12.1-12.5 Participant reference12.6. Stative versus active12.7. Backgrounding12.8. Agentiveness reduction strategy12.9. Thematic developmentAppendixReferences - from Amzon