Two types of incorporation in Ese Ejja (Takanan)
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Marine Vuillermet
Abstract
Ese Ejja is an Amazonian language that displays two types of noun incorporation. The first type is typical of the Amazonian area: it occurs within verb predicates, is restricted to inalienable nouns and has no influence on the valency of the verbal predicate. The second type is unusual in that it involves adjectival predicates and results in adjectives, semantically comparable to the English derived adjectives ‘blue-eyed’ or ‘red-haired’. However, the phenomenon is far more productive in Ese Ejja: adjectives do not only incorporate body-part terms but also possessed nouns, and even NPs and verbal roots. Their modifying function compensates for the quasi absence of attributive adjectives in the language. The analyses presented here are based on first-hand data collected in a Bolivian community. Keywords Ese Ejja; incorporation; adjectives; adjectival predicates; verbal compounding
Abstract
Ese Ejja is an Amazonian language that displays two types of noun incorporation. The first type is typical of the Amazonian area: it occurs within verb predicates, is restricted to inalienable nouns and has no influence on the valency of the verbal predicate. The second type is unusual in that it involves adjectival predicates and results in adjectives, semantically comparable to the English derived adjectives ‘blue-eyed’ or ‘red-haired’. However, the phenomenon is far more productive in Ese Ejja: adjectives do not only incorporate body-part terms but also possessed nouns, and even NPs and verbal roots. Their modifying function compensates for the quasi absence of attributive adjectives in the language. The analyses presented here are based on first-hand data collected in a Bolivian community. Keywords Ese Ejja; incorporation; adjectives; adjectival predicates; verbal compounding
Chapters in this book
- Prelim pages i
- Table of contents v
- Introduction and acknowledgments 1
- Nominal compounds in Mapudungun 11
- Towards a characterization of compounding in Maká 33
- Augmentative in Toba (Guaycuruan) 51
- Productive compounding in Baure (Arawakan) 79
- Two types of incorporation in Ese Ejja (Takanan) 113
- Reduplication in Yurakaré 143
- Reduplication strategies in Kallawaya 163
- Compounding in Kalapalo, a Southern Cariban language 181
- Nominalization in Cholón 207
- Index 225
Chapters in this book
- Prelim pages i
- Table of contents v
- Introduction and acknowledgments 1
- Nominal compounds in Mapudungun 11
- Towards a characterization of compounding in Maká 33
- Augmentative in Toba (Guaycuruan) 51
- Productive compounding in Baure (Arawakan) 79
- Two types of incorporation in Ese Ejja (Takanan) 113
- Reduplication in Yurakaré 143
- Reduplication strategies in Kallawaya 163
- Compounding in Kalapalo, a Southern Cariban language 181
- Nominalization in Cholón 207
- Index 225
