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Complex predicates and space in Dâw (Naduhup language, AM)

  • Karolin Obert EMAIL logo
Published/Copyright: March 31, 2020

Abstract

Complex predication is understood to be a highly productive process in Northwestern Amazonian languages in which complex predicates may be realized as compounds, verb-auxiliary constructions or serial verb constructions depending on language-internal criteria. These constructions play an important role in the organization of discourse and information packaging and can also carry out grammatical functions such as increasing or decreasing valency. In Dâw, a language from the Naduhup family, complex predicates are used to express spatial notions such as directionality and manner in complex motion events or to provide detailed of how complex predicates in Dâw function as semantic and syntactic resources used to express space in discourse in comparison to their expression in simple predicates. I provide a typology of the most frequent patterns and their respective ordering principles found in our corpus in order to understand how fine-grained spatial notions are expressed in Dâw.

Acknowledgments

I am very grateful for the collaboration and friendship of the Dâw, and other peoples of the Upper Rio Negro. I gratefully acknowledge funding from the University of São Paulo, the Museu do Indio (Rio de Janeiro) and the Firebird Foundation. Finally, thanks to Luciana R. Storto and Patience Epps for their valuable suggestions and the comments from colleagues at the 8th CILLA on the preliminary version of this paper.

Abbreviations

1, 2, 3

first, second, third person

anaph

anaphoric pronoun

ap

associated posture

asp

aspect

assert

assertion

aug

augmentative

caus

causative

cls

classifier

cop:loc

locative copula

decl

declarative

dem:prox

proximate demonstrative

disc.conj

discursive conjunction

dur

durative

emph

emphatic

evid

evidential

exi

existential

fem

feminine

i

indicative

imm.fut

immediate future

imper

imperative

inch

inchoative

incl

inclusive

inf.evid

inferred evidential

instr

instrumental

intens

intensifier

loc

locative

m/masc/msc

masculine

neg

negation

nf

non-feminine

ni

non-indicative

nom

nominalizer

np

noun phrase

obj

object

pfv

perfective

pl

plural

poss

possessive

pst

past

rep

reportative

sg

singular

sub

subordinator

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Published Online: 2020-03-31
Published in Print: 2020-04-28

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