A grammar of Cavinena / by Antoine Guillaume.

Format:

Book

Author/Creator:

Guillaume, Antoine, 1969-

Series:

Mouton grammar library ; 44.

Mouton grammar library, 0933-7636 ; 44

Language:

English

Subjects (All):

Cavineño language--Grammar.

Cavineño language.

Physical Description:

1 online resource (936 p.)

Place of Publication:

Berlin ; New York : Mouton de Gruyter, c2008.

Language Note:

English

Summary:

This book is a detailed high-quality descriptive grammar of the endangered Cavineña language (less than 1200 speakers), spoken in the Amazonian rainforest of Lowland Bolivia, an area where the indigenous languages are virtually unknown. Cavineña belongs to the Tacanan family, comprising five languages, none of which has been the subject of an adequate descriptive grammar. The grammar is based mostly on the extensive fieldwork conducted by the author in traditional Cavineña communities. Cast in the functional-typological framework, and based on natural discourse data, the grammar presents a detailed and copiously exemplified account of most aspects of the language, building up from basic levels (phonetic and phonological) to higher levels (morphological and syntactic), and from brief descriptions of each level to a more comprehensive description of the same level in specific chapters. The language contains a number of unusual features that will be of interest to typologist linguists, such as an unusual pitch accent system, a morpho-phonological rule that deletes case markers, an intricate predicate structure, a system of verbal suffixes coding associated motion, a specific causative of involvement marker, a peculiar prefix e- that attaches to nouns coding body parts and a complex system of second position clitic pronouns. The grammar will also be of interest to historical-comparative linguists, as for the first time one has sufficiently detailed grammatical information to make possible a reliable comparison with other languages with which Tacanan languages might be related, in particular the Panoan family, and to serve as input into hypotheses regarding the population history of this part of South America.

Contents:

Frontmatter

Contents

Abbreviations

Tables and figures

Maps

Plates

Chapter 1. The language and its speakers

Chapter 2. Phonology

Chapter 3. Grammatical vs. phonological word

Chapter 4. Grammatical overview

Chapter 5. Predicate structure - an overview

Chapter 6. Predicate structure - inflectional morphology

Chapter 7. Predicate structure - Aktionsart suffixes

Chapter 8. Predicate structure - valency-changing mechanisms

Chapter 9. Predicate structure - postural and directional suffixes

Chapter 10. Predicate structure - auxiliary-triggering processes

Chapter 11. Predicative adjectives

Chapter 12. Noun phrase structure - an overview

Chapter 13. Noun phrase structure - modifiers

Chapter 14. Postpositions

Chapter 15. Pronouns and demonstratives

Chapter 16. Particles - independent, first position and second position particles

Chapter 17. Particles - phrasal particles

Chapter 18. Non-finite adverbial clauses

Chapter 19. Finite adverbial clauses

Chapter 20. Relative clauses

Backmatter

Notes:

Description based upon print version of record.

Description based on online resource; title from PDF title page (publisher's Web site, viewed 08. Jul 2019)

Includes bibliographical references (p. [875]-883) and index.

ISBN:

9786613398253

9781283398251

1283398257

9783110211771

3110211777

OCLC:

476206315