A Grammar of Cavineña

Antoine Guillaume

Published by De Gruyter Mouton 2008

A Grammar of Cavineña

Antoine Guillaume

Volume 44 in the series Mouton Grammar Library [MGL]

https://doi.org/10.1515/9783110211771

Overview
Contents

About this book

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.

Author information

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

Frontmatter Requires Authentication Accessible Download PDF	Si
Contents Requires Authentication Accessible Download PDF	xi
Abbreviations Requires Authentication Accessible Download PDF	xxv
Tables and figures Requires Authentication Accessible Download PDF	xxvii
Maps Requires Authentication Accessible Download PDF	xxx
Plates Requires Authentication Accessible Download PDF	xxxii
Chapter 1. The language and its speakers Requires Authentication Accessible Download PDF	1
Chapter 2. Phonology Requires Authentication Accessible Download PDF	23
Chapter 3. Grammatical vs. phonological word Requires Authentication Accessible Download PDF	51
Chapter 4. Grammatical overview Requires Authentication Accessible Download PDF	61
Chapter 5. Predicate structure — an overview Requires Authentication Accessible Download PDF	113
Chapter 6. Predicate structure — inflectional morphology Requires Authentication Accessible Download PDF	165
Chapter 7. Predicate structure — Aktionsart suffixes Requires Authentication Accessible Download PDF	191
Chapter 8. Predicate structure — valency-changing mechanisms Requires Authentication Accessible Download PDF	255
Chapter 9. Predicate structure — postural and directional suffixes Requires Authentication Accessible Download PDF	307
Chapter 10. Predicate structure — auxiliary-triggering processes Requires Authentication Accessible Download PDF	321
Chapter 11. Predicative adjectives Requires Authentication Accessible Download PDF	357
Chapter 12. Noun phrase structure — an overview Requires Authentication Accessible Download PDF	405
Chapter 13. Noun phrase structure — modifiers Requires Authentication Accessible Download PDF	453
Chapter 14. Postpositions Requires Authentication Accessible Download PDF	509
Chapter 15. Pronouns and demonstratives Requires Authentication Accessible Download PDF	565
Chapter 16. Particles — independent, first position and second position particles Requires Authentication Accessible Download PDF	625
Chapter 17. Particles — phrasal particles Requires Authentication Accessible Download PDF	659
Chapter 18. Non-finite adverbial clauses Requires Authentication Accessible Download PDF	699
Chapter 19. Finite adverbial clauses Requires Authentication Accessible Download PDF	723
Chapter 20. Relative clauses Requires Authentication Accessible Download PDF	747
Backmatter Requires Authentication Accessible Download PDF	773

(Deutsch)

Language: English
Publisher: De Gruyter Mouton
Audience: Research Libraries, Researchers and Advanced Students of Linguistics from all Backgrounds and Anthropologists interested in South American Languages; Typologists, Historical-Comparative Linguists
Pages
- Front matter: 34
- Main content: 900
Illustrations
- Tables: 2
- Other: 5 photos. 2 maps
Keywords: Bolivia; Latin America (language)

eBook

Published: October 31, 2008
ISBN: 9783110211771

Hardcover

Published: July 15, 2008
ISBN: 9783110188424