Verbal number in Itonama

Abstract

"Itonama or sihnipadara (1PL.EXCL-speech) is a genetically unclassified language spoken in lowland Amazonian Bolivia, in the northeast, near to the Brazilian border. Nowadays Itonama is only spoken by a few elders in the town of Magdalena on the Itonamas River, a tributary of the Iténez (or Guaporé) River in the Province of Iténez, Department of Beni. These speakers are all well over 80 years old and they used to speak the language with even older people who all died in the past decades. The few speakers that are left do not speak Itonama among themselves. Furthermore, there are a few persons who claim to understand the language fully, who are even capable of judging the correctness of certain sentences and constructions, but who are not able to utter even a single word in Itonama"