Abstract
Tariana, an endangered Arawak language of north-western Amazonia (Brazil), has a number of strategies for nominalizing verbs. These include noun classifiers as word-class changing derivational markers, in addition a number of nominalizing suffixes. Nominalizations are a subclass of nouns, with their own set of special properties. As a consequence of areal diffusion from the neighboring and unrelated East-Tucanoan languages, Tariana nominalizations come to be used as complementation and relativization strategies. This is especially so for innovative speakers of Tariana who use Tucano on a daily basis, and whose language bears a strong imprint of Tucano, the main language of the region.
Abbreviations
- 1, 2, 3
first, second, third person
- arg.man
argument manipulating derivation
- art
article
- art.nf
article non-feminine
- aug
augmentative
- caus
causative
- cl
classifier
- cl:anim
classifier animate
- coll
collective
- compl
complementizer
- decl
declarative
- dem.anim
demonstrative animate
- dem.inan
demonstrative inanimate
- dim
diminutive
- exist
existential
- fut
future
- fut.cert
future certain
- fut.part
future participle
- imp
impersonal
- inan
inanimate
- indef
indefinite
- loc
locative
- nom
nominalization
- nom.act
action nominalization
- nom.fut
future nominalization
- nom.gen.loc
general locative nominalization
- nom.loc
locative nominalization
- nom.past
nominal past
- nom.process
process nominalization
- nom.res
result nominalization
- nonpast
non-past
- non.vis.pres
nonvisual present
- nonthird
nonthird person
- obj
object
- past
past
- perf
perfective
- pl
plural
- pl:anim
animate plural
- poss
possessive marker
- pres.nonvis
present nonvisual
- pres.vis
present visual
- rec
reciprocal
- rel
relativizing prefix
- rem.p.rep
remote past reported
- rem.p.vis
remote past visual
- sg
singular
- sgnf
singular non-feminine
- top.non.a/s
topical non-subject
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