Word Formation in South American Languages

235 Pages·2014·2.046 MB·

by  Swintha Danielsen, Katja Hannss, Fernando Zúñiga

Word Formation in South American Languages
Studies in Language Companion Series (SLCS)
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Studies in Language.
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Editors
Werner Abraham Elly van Gelderen
University of Vienna / Arizona State University
University of Munich
Editorial Board
Bernard Comrie Christian Lehmann
Max Planck Institute, Leipzig University of Erfurt
and University of California, Santa Barbara
Marianne Mithun
William Croft University of California, Santa Barbara
University of New Mexico
Heiko Narrog
Östen Dahl Tohuku University
University of Stockholm
Johanna L. Wood
Gerrit J. Dimmendaal University of Aarhus
University of Cologne
Debra Ziegeler
Ekkehard König University of Paris III
Free University of Berlin
Volume 163
Word Formation in South American Languages
Edited by Swintha Danielsen, Katja Hannss and Fernando Zúñiga
Word Formation
in South American Languages
Edited by
Swintha Danielsen
University of Leipzig
Katja Hannss
University of Regensburg
Fernando Zúñiga
University of Bern
John Benjamins Publishing Company
Amsterdam / Philadelphia
TM The paper used in this publication meets the minimum requirements of
8
the American National Standard for Information Sciences – Permanence
of Paper for Printed Library Materials, ansi z39.48-1984.
Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data
Word Formation in South American Languages / Edited by Swintha Danielsen, Katja
Hannss and Fernando Zúñiga.
p. cm. (Studies in Language Companion Series, issn 0165-7763 ; v. 163)
Includes bibliographical references and index.
1. Indians of South America--Languages. 2. South America--Languages. 3. Grammar,
Comparative and general--Word formation. 4. Language and languages--
Variation. 5. Languages in contact--South America. I. Danielsen, Swintha,
1972- editor. II. Hannss, Katja, 1977- editor. III. Zúñiga, Fernando. editor.
PM5008.W67 2014
498--dc23 2014023416
isbn 978 90 272 5928 8 (Hb ; alk. paper)
isbn 978 90 272 6966 9 (Eb)
© 2014 – John Benjamins B.V.
No part of this book may be reproduced in any form, by print, photoprint, microfilm, or any
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John Benjamins Publishing Co. · P.O. Box 36224 · 1020 me Amsterdam · The Netherlands
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Table of contents
Introduction and acknowledgments 1
Swintha Danielsen, Katja Hannß, & Fernando Zúñiga
Nominal compounds in Mapudungun 11
Fernando Zúñiga
Towards a characterization of compounding in Maká 33
Temis L. Tacconi
Augmentative in Toba (Guaycuruan): Form and function 51
Paola Cúneo
Productive compounding in Baure (Arawakan) 79
Femmy Admiraal & Swintha Danielsen
Two types of incorporation in Ese Ejja (Takanan) 113
Marine Vuillermet
Reduplication in Yurakaré 143
Rik van Gijn
Reduplication strategies in Kallawaya 163
Katja Hannß
Compounding in Kalapalo, a Southern Cariban language 181
Ellen B. Basso
Nominalization in Cholón 207
Astrid Alexander-Bakkerus
Index 225

Introduction and acknowledgments
Swintha Danielsen, Katja Hannß, & Fernando Zúñiga
University of Leipzig / University of Cologne / University of Bern
Word formation is not a well-defined area of linguistics but encompasses a variety of
processes as different as e.g. back formation and noun incorporation. Accordingly,
Laurie Bauer notes:
The term ‘word formation’ is ambiguous in modern linguistics. In one usage of
the term, it is equivalent to ‘morphology’ and refers to matters such as affixation
and reduplication as used in the creation of words. In the more widely accepted
sense of the term, word formation refers to the creation of new lexemes in a given
language. Thus it specifically excludes inflectional morphology, such as that which
makes manages and managed from the base manage. At the same time, it may
include things that are only marginally considered to be morphology, or that may
be excluded from morphology. (L. Bauer 2006: 632, emphasis in the original)
For the present volume, we understand word formation in the wider sense as
mentioned by Bauer. Although the word formation processes in South American
languages described in this volume are basically all of a morphological nature,
this wider approach allows us to include what may be called ‘borderline’ cases
of morphology, such as e.g. clitic compounding in Kalapalo (see Basso, this vol-
ume), adjectival incorporation in Ese Ejja, resulting in attributive predicate clauses
(see Vuillermet, this volume), or nominal compounding in Mapudungun, where
semantics can influence the headedness of compounds (see Zúñiga, this volume).
That is, although morphology is certainly one pivot of word formation, it is not
the only one and we find it important to stress that words can be created in so
many different ways. In other approaches to the topic, the term word formation
is used synonymously to derivational morphology (see e.g. Štekauer et al. 2012: 1,
footnote 1), in particular for the traditional contrast to inflectional morphol-
ogy. Since we follow the broader definition by Bauer quoted above, inflectional
processes are not in the focus of our approach to word formation. Furthermore,
South American languages tend to be less inflectional than derivational (see e.g.
Adelaar with Muysken 2004: 467, on Cholón nominalizations; see also Alexander-
Bakkerus, this volume). However, while this distinction may not be so relevant for
2 Swintha Danielsen, Katja Hannß, & Fernando Zúñiga
the languages of this volume, contributions show that it is still worthwhile a closer
look (see Admiraal & Danielsen; see also Tacconi both this volume).
The definition of what is a word, which is also necessary when considering
word formation, is likewise not uncontroversial (see e.g. Dixon & Aikhenvald
2002; Haspelmath 2011; Schiering et al. 2010). A word is defined by phonological,
morphological and syntactic criteria. It is expected to be a phonological unit and
subject to morphological processes as one unit as well. Syntactically, we can note
its independent distribution throughout clauses. In the following, we want to give
a few examples in order to demonstrate that the definition is not as straightfor-
ward as it may be wished for.
Possibly one of the best known phenomena that illustrate the problematic
nature of the concept ‘word’ are clitics. They are usually considered a challenge
to an integrated approach to wordhood that considers phonological, morphologi-
cal as well as syntactic criteria, because, as Marantz (1988: 253) puts it, they are
“[…] an independent syntactic constituent which shows up phonologically as
part of a derived word”. This ambivalent status of clitics is clearly illustrated in the
paper by Basso on clitic compounding in Kalapalo (this volume). Usually, com-
pounding is defined as the joining of two independent lexemes (see e.g. L. Bauer
2003: 40). However, Basso illustrates that compounding is by no means restricted
to lexemes, but can occur with clitics, too. These compounded clitics take over
important functions in clause chaining and interclausal reference marking. It is
in particular these functions that place Kalapalo clitic compounds closer to words
than to affixes. However, while the compounded clitics are rather word-like in
their syntactic behaviour, phonologically they are dependent on a host. Moreover,
most of the Kalapalo clitics cannot occur in unbound form and have to follow a
template like affixes. The paper by Basso thus demonstrates that the boundaries of
wordhood are not always clearly defined.
Another example is provided by Tacconi in her paper on compounding in
Maká (this volume). There, the author mentions the form as ‘child’, which is used
to express diminutive notions. What is remarkable about the form as is that it can
occur as a free form, forming one of the components of a compound, which then
often denotes animal offspring, while in other cases it is a diminutive suffix. This
then can be analyzed as a borderline case between compounding and derivation.
This ambivalent use of as ‘child’ shows that wordhood is at times an unstable con-
cept, particularly in grammaticalization processes.
A final example concerns the paper by Zúñiga on nominal compounds in
Mapudungun (this volume). Referring to recent literature on Mapudungun
multi-stem nominal constructions, Zúñiga critically discusses the different
approaches to this topic, which analyze these constructions as either different
types of compounds or as complex noun phrases. Although the traditional
Introduction and acknowledgments 3
parameters for defining wordhood (see above), in particular phonological cri-
teria, are applied to these multi-stem nominal constructions, the ongoing dis-
cussion and the critical re-evaluation by Zúñiga demonstrate that what is one
complex word and what are two words in a syntactic relationship is not so read-
ily answered and can be analyzed from quite different angles.
It is beyond the scope of this volume to solve all the problems encountered
when dealing with wordhood or to discuss the grammaticalization paths of free
forms into bound forms, some of which may then become inflectional. How-
ever, the above quoted examples show that ‘word’ and ‘wordhood’ are not firmly
defined categories, but rather that we are dealing with a continuum of bound and
free forms, with frequent overlaps in between. This also entails that the defini-
tion of word and word formation process, including also the meanings that are
expressed through the creation of new lexemes, is idiosyncratic for every language.
It is in particular these idiosyncrasies that justify, from our point of view, a broad
approach to the topic of word formation.
It may be related to exactly this fuzziness of word formation, but so far, only
a handful of studies have addressed the issue of word formation as a whole, i.e.
without focusing on a particular language, language family, or a specific process of
word formation. If we leave aside classical works, such as e.g. Sapir (1921) and turn
our attention to more recent studies, Aronoff (1976) is certainly among the earlier
attempts to tackle the field of word formation, applying a generative approach.
In another publication, Fisiak (1985) is concerned with historical word forma-
tion processes, but also stresses the central role played by the distinction between
inflection and derivation, which is also outlined by Bybee (1985). The latter topic
has repeatedly been picked up in subsequent works, e.g. by ten Hacken (1994),
among many others. The various threads of word formation were brought together
in a descriptive and, as far as that is possible, ‘theory-free’ overview by the work
of Anderson (1985) on Typological distinctions in word formation. In the second
edition of this work, Aikhenvald (2007) contributed the chapter on this topic. That
word formation remains a field of interest within linguistics is evidenced by the
recent work of Olsen (2010), which brings together papers that approach word
formation mainly from a theory-driven perspective, concentrating on compound-
ing, but also dealing with nominalizations.
However, the last-mentioned literature on word formation demonstrates a
certain tendency in the research, namely a bias to focus on a particular type of
word formation. The topic of compounding has probably attracted the greatest
attention, as can be seen by numerous publications, often focusing on a particular
(and mostly major Indo-European) language. Examples abound: Štekauer (2000)
on English word formation as well as L. Bauer (2004) and Plag (2003) on similar
topics, Donalies (2005) on German, Mengel (2002) on word formation in Slavic