A cline between nouns and verbs: Nominalizations in Shiwiar (Chicham)
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Martin Kohlberger
Abstract
Deverbal nominalizations are often said to occupy an intermediate position between nouns and verbs. Here I describe the morphological, syntactic, and semantic properties of three deverbal nominalization strategies in Shiwiar, a Chicham language of Ecuador and Peru. Although nouns and verbs in Shiwiar are clearly distinguished in the grammar, deverbal nominalizations display a combination of both nominal and verbal traits. Furthermore, the three nominalizations types discussed here each have different proportions of noun-like and verb-like characteristics, thereby forming a gradient cline between the two major word classes.
Acknowledgments
I am grateful to Simon Overall and Kasia Wojtylak for inviting me to the workshop where the first version of this paper was presented, as well as to Marianne Mithun, Bernard Comrie, Willem Adelaar and Sasha Aikhenvald for their insightful and helpful comments. I also benefitted from the feedback I received at the 11th HDLS, the 48th SLE and the 9th TWIST conferences. Finally, I am thankful to an anonymous reviewer. All errors are mine.
Abbreviations
- 1, 2, 3
first, second, third person
- acc
accusative
- add
additive
- ag.nmlz
agentive nominalization
- as.nmlz
action/state nominalization
- appl
applicative
- conc
concessive
- cond
conditional
- cop
copula
- d.pst
distant past
- decl
declarative
- dim
diminutive
- ds
different subject
- fut
future
- gen
genitive
- ifut
immediate future
- imp
imperative
- indf.obj
indefinite human object
- ins
instrumental
- ipfv
imperfective
- loc
locative
- neg
negative
- nmlz
nominalization
- ns.nmlz
non-subject nominalization
- obj
object
- pfv
perfective
- pl
plural
- poss
possessive
- prox
proximal
- pst
past
- refl
reflexive
- restr
restrictive
- sap
speech act participant
- sbd
subordinator
- sg
singular
- sim
simultaneous
- ss
same subject
- top
topic
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© 2018 Walter de Gruyter GmbH, Berlin/Boston
Articles in the same Issue
- Frontmatter
- Nominalization in Northwest Amazonia: Introduction
- Nominalizations in Murui (Witotoan)
- Nominalization in Kakua and the Vaupés influence
- How to copy your neighbors’ ways: A cross-generational perspective on nominalizations in Tariana
- Nominalization patterns in Alto Perené, a Kampa Arawak language of Peru
- From verb to noun and back again: Non-referential uses of nominalizations in Aguaruna (Chicham)
- A cline between nouns and verbs: Nominalizations in Shiwiar (Chicham)
Articles in the same Issue
- Frontmatter
- Nominalization in Northwest Amazonia: Introduction
- Nominalizations in Murui (Witotoan)
- Nominalization in Kakua and the Vaupés influence
- How to copy your neighbors’ ways: A cross-generational perspective on nominalizations in Tariana
- Nominalization patterns in Alto Perené, a Kampa Arawak language of Peru
- From verb to noun and back again: Non-referential uses of nominalizations in Aguaruna (Chicham)
- A cline between nouns and verbs: Nominalizations in Shiwiar (Chicham)
