A Grammar of Cavineña

This book is a detailed high-quality descriptive grammar of the endangered Cavineña language (less than 1200 speakers), spoken in the Amazonian rainforest of Lowland Bolivia, an area where the indigenous languages are virtually unknown. Cavineña belongs to the Tacanan family, comprising five languages, none of which has been the subject of an adequate descriptive grammar. The grammar is based mostly on the extensive fieldwork conducted by the author in traditional Cavineña communities. Cast in the functional-typological framework, and based on natural discourse data, the grammar presents a detailed and copiously exemplified account of most aspects of the language, building up from basic levels (phonetic and phonological) to higher levels (morphological and syntactic), and from brief descriptions of each level to a more comprehensive description of the same level in specific chapters. 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. The grammar will also be of interest to historical-comparative linguists, as for the first time one has sufficiently detailed grammatical information to make possible a reliable comparison with other languages with which Tacanan languages might be related, in particular the Panoan family, and to serve as input into hypotheses regarding the population history of this part of South America.

Autorentext

Antoine Guillaume, CNRS & Université Lumière Lyon 2, France.

Inhalt

Contents
List of plates
List of tables xvii
List of abbreviations xx
Summary xxii
Acknowledgments xxiv
Maps xxvi
1 The language and its speakers 1
1.1. Geographic location 1
1.2. Sociolinguistic situation 3
1.3. Physical environment, subsistance and culture 4
1.4. History 6
1.5. Genetic affiliation 8
1.6. Bibliographic review 9
1.7. Fieldwork 12
1.8. Corpus 15
1.9. Linguistic type 17
1.10. Writing systems 19
Appendix to chapter 1 - List of example codes 20
2 Phonology 26
2.1. Consonants 26
2.1.1. Inventory 26
2.1.2. Phonetic realisations 27
2.1.3. Minimal pairs 30
2.2. Vowels 31
2.2.1. Inventory 31
2.2.2. Phonetic realisations 31
2.3. Foreign sounds 33
2.4. Syllable structure 34
2.5. Phonotactics 35
2.6. Justifying analytic choices 36
2.6.1. Complex consonants 36
2.6.2. Vowel sequences 38
2.6.3. Glides 39
2.7. Morpho-phonology 40
2.7.1. Palatalisation 41
2.7.2. Vowel deletion 41
2.7.3. Syllable deletion 41
2.7.4. Suffix deletion 42
2.7.5. Clitic deletion 43
2.7.6. Vowel addition 43
2.8. Accentual system 44
2.9. Intonation 45
2.9.1. Utterance-final contour 45
2.9.2. Emphatic contour 47
2.9.3. Intensifier contour 47
2.10. Previous writing systems 48
3 Grammatical vs. phonological word 51
3.1. Criteria for grammatical vs. phonological word 51
3.1.1. Grammatical word 51
3.1.2. Phonological word 53
3.2. Mismatch between grammatical and phonological words 54
3.2.1. One phonological word = two (or more) grammatical words 54
3.2.2. One grammatical word = two phonological words 56
3.3. Mono-syllabic grammatical words 57
3.4. When a phonological word only consists of clitics 59
4 Grammatical overview 61
4.1. Word classes 61
4.2. Predicate and verbs 62
4.2.1. Predicate structure 63
4.2.2. Verbs 66
4.3. Predicative adjectives 67
4.4. Noun phrase - nouns and NP modifiers 69
4.4.1. NP structure 69
4.4.2. Nouns 71
4.4.3. Attributive adjectives 73
4.4.4. Number markers 73
4.4.5. Quantifiers 74
4.5. Remaining word classes 75
4.5.1. Postpositions 75
4.5.2. Pronouns 76
4.5.3. Demonstratives 80
4.5.4. Content question words 81
4.5.5. Particles 82
4.5.6. Subordinate clause markers 86
4.5.7. Interjections 87
4.5.8. Onomatopoeia 89
4.6. Main clause structure 91
4.6.1. Basic clause structure 91
4.6.2. S, A and O grammatical functions 94
4.6.3. Copula clauses 96
4.6.4. Imperative and hortative clauses 100
4.6.5. Interrogative clauses 102
4.6.6. Negative clauses 105
4.7. Dependent clauses 108
4.8. Coordination 110
4.8.1. Conjunction 110
4.8.2. Disjunction 114
5 Predicate structure - an overview 117
5.1. Structure of the predicate 118
5.1.1. Slots A/K: inflectional affixes 119
5.1.2. Slot B: preverbal modifiers 121
5.1.3. Slot C/G: valency-changing affixes 121
5.1.4. Slot D: verb root 122
5.1.5. Slot E: auxiliary 123
5.1.6. Slot F: postural and directional suffixes 124
5.1.7. Slot H: aktionsart suffixes 125
5.1.8. Slot I: mode markers 127
5.1.9. Slot J: postverbal modifiers 127
5.2. Inflecting verbs 128
5.2.1. Basic inflecting verbs 128
5.2.2. Verbalisation of nouns 131
5.2.3. Verbalisation of adjectives 133
5.2.4. Verbalisation by reduplication 140
5.2.5. Noun incorporation 143
5.2.6. Formatives 146
5.3. Non-inflecting verbs 148
5.3.1. Basic non-inflecting verbs 148
5.3.2. Borrowings 149
5.3.3. Direct conversion 151
5.3.4. Inherent reduplication 154
5.3.5. Lexicalisation 155
5.3.6. Transitivity 155
5.4. Justifying the complex predicate analysis 157
5.5. Reduplication 160
6 Predicate structure - inflectional morphology 162
6.1. TAM inflections 163
6.1.1. -kware 'REM.PAST' and -chine 'REC.PAST' 163
6.1.2. -buke 'REM.FUT' 165
6.1.3. -ya 'IMPFV' 167
6.1.4. -wa 'PERF' 172
6.1.5. e-...-u 'POT' 175
6.1.6. Verb with no inflectional marking 176
6.2. Imperative, hortative and jussive inflections 179
6.2.1. Imperative inflections 179
6.2.2. Hortative inflections 184
6.2.3. Jussive inflection 186
6.2.4. Negating verbs with hortative and jussive inflections 186
6.2.5. Non-command meanings 187
6.2.6. Markedness and historical considerations 188
7 Predicate structure - Aktionsart suffixes 190
7.1. Aktionsart suffixes of aspect/manner 191
7.1.1. -tere / -tirya 'COMP' vs. -bisha 'INCOMP' 191
7.1.2. -jaka 'STOP' vs. -tibune 'START' 194
7.1.3. -jeri/-neri 'ALMOST' 196
7.1.4. -nuka 'REITR' 198
7.1.5. -baka 'SHORT' vs. -siri 'LONG' 200
7.1.6. -wisha 'FAST' 202
7.1.7. -bare 'DISTR' 203
7.1.8. -(ne)ni 'RANDOM' 206
7.1.9. Last syllable reduplication + causative 210
7.1.10. -aje/-be/-etibe 'INCR' 213
7.2. Aktionsart suffixes of motion (S/A-oriented) 217
7.2.1. System description 218
7.2.2. Intended vs. incidental motion 224
7.2.3. Foregrounded vs. backgrounded motion 228
7.2.4. Corresponding verbs 232
7.2.5. 'Leave' and 'arrive' 233
7.2.6. S/A-orientation 234
7.3. Aktionsart suffixes of motion (O-oriented) 235
7.4. Aktionsart suffixes of time of day 239
7.5. Aktionsart suffix of emotion 243
7.6. Distribution 248
7.7. Suffixes vs. compounded/serialised verbs? 254
8 Predicate structure - valency-changing mechanisms 257
8.1. Passive derivation 258
8.2. Reflexive derivation 270
8.2.1. Reflexive and reciprocal functions 272
8.2.2. Benefactive reflexive 274
8.2.3. Patientless reflexive 277
8.2.4. Miscellaneous 279
8.3. Antipassive derivations 281
8.3.1. Full reduplication 282
8.3.2. Exchanging auxiliaries 286
8.4. Causative derivations 290
8.4.1. Causativiser of intransitive verbs -sha 291
8.4.2. Causativiser of transitive verbs -mere 297
8.4.3. Causative of involvement -kere 303
8.5. Distribution 308
9 Predicate structure - postural and directional suffixes 313
9.1. Postural suffixes 313
9.1.1. -ani 'SIT' 314
9.1.2. -neti/-nitya 'STAND' 316
9.1.3. -jara 'LIE' 318
9.1.4. -bade 'HANG' 319
9.2. Directional suffixes 320
9.2.1. -tsura 'GO UP' 321
9.2.2. -bute/-butya 'GO DOWN' 323
9.2.3. -sikwa 'GO AWAY' 325
9.2.4. S/O-orientation 327
9.3. Distributio…