tüwü

See also: tuwu, tūwù, túwù, and tǔwù

Ye'kwana

Variant orthographies
ALIV	tüwü
Brazilian standard	töwö
New Tribes	töwö

Etymology

Possibly from t(ü)- (reflexive or coreference marker) + a singular/dual personal pronoun base *wü, by analogy with üwü / ewü and küwü. The Ye'kwana third-person pronoun series is not reconstructible to Proto-Cariban.

Pronunciation

IPA^(key): [tɨwɨ]

Pronoun

tüwü

the third-person singular pronoun; he, she, it, him, her

Inflection

Ye'kwana personal pronouns
	singular	dual	plural
first person exclusive	ewü^Y, üwü^D	nña	nña
first person inclusive	—	küwü	künwanno
second person	amödö^Y, ömödö^D	—	önwanno
third person	tüwü	—	tünwanno

^Y Caura River dialect
^D Cunucunuma River dialect

Determiner

tüwü

functions as a definite article for a following proper noun

References

Cáceres, Natalia (2011) “tüwü”, in Grammaire Fonctionnelle-Typologique du Ye’kwana‎^[1], Lyon, pages 120, 284–285
Hall, Katherine Lee (1988) The morphosyntax of discourse in De'kwana Carib, volumes I and II, Saint Louis, Missouri: PhD Thesis, Washington University, pages 216–217, 282, 400: “[tïwï] 'he/she/it' […] tüwü 'he/she/it' […] 3 singular tüwü […] tüwü - s/he, him/her”
Hall, Katherine (2007) “tɨwɨ”, in Mary Ritchie Key & Bernard Comrie, editors, The Intercontinental Dictionary Series‎^[2], Leipzig: Max Planck Institute for Evolutionary Anthropology, published 2021