Nonverbal Locative, Existential and Possessive Predication in Pilagá and Nivaĉle.?

ALEJANDRA VIDAL; DORIS PAYNE

Albuquerque

Congreso; IX Conference of the Association for Linguistic Typology.; 2015

Association for Linguistic Typology

In many languages, nonverbal clauses (lacking lexicalverbs) express locational, existential, possessive, permanent vs. transitory attributiveand equational/identificational predications. Often, a single construction isused for several of these functions (Clark 1978, Dryer 2007, Roy 2013). Pilagá (Guaykuruan)and Nivaĉle (Mataguayan) are apparently genetically unrelated endangeredlanguages. However, they are geographically contiguous, spoken in the ArgentineChaco. Based on original data, this paper concentrates on Locational,Existential and Possessive clauses. First, Existential structures are not metaphoricallyor diachronically based on Locative predication structures in either Pilagá or Nivaĉle,contra supposed cross-linguistic tendencies (cf. Dryer 2007: 240, Clark 1978:87-89, Heine 1997ː 41). Second, there is formal convergence of Existential and Possessivepredication structures in both languages (cf. Clark 1978ː 118).