An Van linden: Bound nouns in Harakmbut

"Bound nouns in Harakmbut"

This paper focuses on the morphological distinction between potentially free and obligatorily bound nouns in Harakmbut, an endangered isolate language spoken in the Peruvian Amazon. Bound nouns require a noun prefix to obtain independent nominal status (wa- or e-) and refer to inalienably possessed entities, such as body parts, plant parts, and landscape parts, as well as kinship terms and basic shapes or qualities of entities. The same prefixes, wa- and e-, are also used in verb-based nominalization. The morphosyntactic behaviour of bound nouns is different from that of independent nouns in the areas of noun incorporation, N-N compounds and adnominal modification. However, obligatorily bound kinship terms seem to form exceptions, as they typically pattern similarly to independent nouns in these environments. Special attention will be devoted to adnominal possession, in which the presence versus omission of the noun prefix on the possessee noun makes for subtle semantic differences.

Cet atelier, organisé par Françoise Rose et Minella Duzerol dans le cadre du séminaire de l’axe "Description, Typologie, Terrain", a pour objectif de créer un espace de présentation et de discussion dans le domaine de la morphosyntaxe, dans une perspective typologique et fonctionnelle. En savoir plus...

An Van linden est chargée de cours en langue et linguistique anglaises à l’Université de Liège et chercheure affiliée à l’unité de recherche « Functional and Cognitive Linguistics » du Département de Linguistique de la KU Leuven; et un fellow 2020-2021 du Collegium de Lyon.