Grammatical nominalization and complementation in Tapiete (Tupí-Guaraní)

CICCONE, FLORENCIA

Lima

Workshop; International Workshop Nominalization in the Languages of the Americas; 2014

Pontificia Universidad Católica del Perú

Clausal nominalization is an extended phenomenon in the complex syntax of Tapiete, a Tupí-Guaraní language spoken in the Chaco region of Argentina, Bolivia, and Paraguay. In this language, nominalizers ?wa and -wërä create nominal clauses which can assume different functions: modifier of a noun (relative clause), argument of the matrix clause referring to an entity characterized in terms of the event denoted by the clause (so called ?headless relative clauses? or nominalized argument; Shibatani, 2009), argument of the matrix clause referring to an event or a proposition (complementation), adverbial construction with purpose meaning. Suffix -wa also participates in lexical grammaticalization. We have already studied the relation between nominalization and relativization in Tapiete (González and Ciccone, 2009/10). The aim of this article is to deepen the morphosyntactic study of grammatical nominalization (Shibatani, 2009) in this Tupí-Guaraní language, and its relation with complementation.