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3. Parts of speech in Yawarana

TBD: Introduction

3.1 Distinguishing parts of speech

  • Koehn and Koehn 1986: 111 on Apalaí: "Particles follow words of any class other than the ideophone, and never occur as free forms or in isolation."

3.1.1 Verbs

TBD

3.1.2 Nouns

TBD

3.1.3 Adverbs

  • copredicative function
  • no person inflection
  • deriving aderbs: -ke

3.1.4 Postpositions

TBD

3.2 Shared morphology

  • third person prefixes & linker are (partially) shared between nouns and postpositions
  • -jpë on nouns, pronouns & verbs

3.3 Pronominal clitics

Transitive and verbs, nouns, and postpositions share preposed sap person markers. The occurrence of bound first person u= on members of all four parts of speech is illustrated in ; illustrates the same distribution for second person =. The 1+2 form ej= is very rare compared to the first and second person forms.

    1. irë irë 3ana.inan
      nwa nwa thus
      u =samori u =samo -ri 1=cry-ipfv
      u =yïpï u =yïpï -∅ 1=mountain-pert
      incharë in -charë see-imn
      ‘That's why I'm crying seeing my hills.’ ()
    2. aniki aniki who
      ta ta like
      u =yeremari u =-ri 1=feed-ipfv
      ‘Who was going to feed me then?’ ()
    1. nwa = nwa = thus=emp
      =tëpëtiri =-ri 2=go(PLUR)-ipfv
      tëpëti =jra -∅ =jra go(PLUR)-ipfv=neg
      sejkë be.imp
      ‘You're going to go like this? Don't go like this.’ ()
    2. wëra wëra like
      këyetari -ri grow-ipfv
      =mukuru =muku -ru 2=child-pert
      ‘Your children grow up like dogs.’ ()
    3. =tojpa =tojpa -∅ 2=hit-ipfv
      wïrë wïrë 1pro
      ‘I will beat you to death.’ ()
    4. =pana =pana 2=dat
      ma ma rst
      tataja ta- ta -ja 3p-say-neg
      wejsapë wej -sapë cop-pst
      ‘Didn't he say it directly to you?’ ()

When occurring on nouns and adpositions, these elements behave identically to a free pronoun by triggering the linker y-. An alternative analysis in which the person markers are prefixes would require the y occurring on nouns and postpositions to be part of the prefix, so e.g. më- / _C, mëy- / _V. However, no such y occurs on verbs . Such an analysis would therefore need to postulate that there are phonologically conditioned allomorphs on nouns and postpositions, but not on verbs. An analysis as cliticized pronominal forms does not face that issue, since the absence of y on verbs is expected by the absence of a linker on verbs.

    1. kwase kwase how
      ejnë ejnë 1+2pro
      waimu waimu -∅ language-pert
      yaye yaye loc
      ‘How you learned our language.’ ()
    2. =ini =ini -∅ 2=see-ipfv
      wïrë wïrë 1pro
      ya ya erg
      ‘I will see you.’ ()

Other applicable criteria point to a clitic analysis, too (Table 3.1).

Comparison of phonologically bound person markers.
Person Form Parts of speech Free counterpart y-? Stem-based allomorphy?
1 u- Vt/Vi/N/Postp wïrë + -
2 - Vt/Vi/N/Postp mërë + -
2 a- N - + +
3 ta- Vt tëwï? - -
3 i- N/Postp - - +
3 t- N/Postp - - +
3 - Postp tëwï - +

Interestingly, second person is much more frequently expressed by a bound form (Table 3.2).

Ratio of bound person markers compared to free pronouns.
1 2 1+2
Vt 5.04% (7/139) 93.10% (27/29) 0.00% (0/35)
Vi 5.60% (7/125) 97.06% (33/34) 3.33% (2/60)
N 14.61% (58/397) 95.40% (83/87) 2.35% (5/213)
Postp 9.38% (3/32) 100.00% (90/90) 0.00% (0/22)
Ratio of bound person markers compared to free pronouns, split by initial segment.
1 2 1+2
Vt / _C 7.53% (7/93) 100.00% (27/27) 0.00% (0/29)
Vt / _V 0.00% (0/46) 0.00% (0/2) 0.00% (0/6)
Vi / _C 0.00% (0/109) 97.06% (33/34) 0.00% (0/54)
Vi / _V 43.75% (7/16) 33.33% (2/6)
N / _C 2.91% (9/309) 96.51% (83/86) 0.00% (0/170)
N / _V 55.68% (49/88) 0.00% (0/1) 11.63% (5/43)
Postp / _C 0.00% (0/25) 100.00% (90/90) 0.00% (0/21)
Postp / _V 42.86% (3/7) 0.00% (0/1)

3.4 Derivation and productivity

  • productive class-changing process w/ lexically conditioned suffixes
  • semantic variation & non-compositional meanings
  • some constructions simply need a different word class, no meaning change per se