Locative, existential and possessive predication in the Chaco

ALEJANDRA VIDAL; MANUEL OTERO; DORIS PAYNE

Nonverbal Predication in Amazonian Languages

John Benjamins

Lugar: Amsterdam ; Año: 2017; p. 263 - 294

Nivaĉle (Mataguayan) and Pilagá (Guaykuruan) languages, which geographically overlap in the Argentinian Chaco región of South America, present evidence challenging the the oft repeated claim that locative predications universally underlie possession predications. In both languages copular elements can link two Determined Phrases (DPs) to predicate location, possession or existence, i.e. the primary predicative element in such constructions is not a lexical verb. However, Nivaĉle and Pilagá each use a single copular form for both their non-verbal existential and possessive predication constructions, and a different copular form for their non-verbal locative predication constructions. Subtypes of the various constructions, including negative constructional forms, are also described and related to Heine?s various cognitive possession schemas.  In Pilagá, all three negative constructions share the same copular elements, but there are arguably still more similarities between the negative possessive and negative existential predications compared to the negative locative predication construction. The paper concludes with a brief discussion as to whether these shared features across the two languages might be due to areal contact, concluding that if the constructional similarities are due to contact , the influence would have had to have happened at the Proto-Mataguayan language stage.