Amerindia
Journal Data
| Type | JOURNAL |
|---|---|
| Publisher | Structure et Dynamique des Langues |
| ISSN | 0221-8852 |
| OpenAlex | S4387283302 |
| MAG | 4387283302 |
| Total publications | 41 |
| Coverage period | 2018 - 2023 |
| Language | EN |
| Cited by | 2 |
| Impact factor | 0.195 |
| h-index | 1 |
Amerindia is dedicated to the study of indigenous languages of the Americas. This directly aligns with linguistic anthropology and indigenous studies, both of which are closely cognate areas that frequently publish work read by social anthropologists
Advanced Algebra and Logic · Aging, Elder Care, and Social Issues · Agriculture and Rural Development Research · Archaeology and Cultural Heritage · Caribbean and African Literature and Culture · Categorization, perception, and language · Economic Theory and Policy · Environmental and Cultural Studies in Latin America and Beyond · Historical Linguistics and Language Studies · Historical Studies in Central America
Morfología de finitud y estrategias de subordinación en chiquitano migueleño
The paper describes the finiteness morphology and the syntactic subordination strategies of Migueleo Chiquitano.The verbs in that variety are shown to formally distinguish between finite and nonfinite forms.Finite forms take suffixed indices ("finiteness suffixes") that encode the absolutive participant (-(')o in the third person, -ka otherwise) or the accusative participant (-ta in the third person singular in the inverse voice).The nonfinite fo…
Definitude e a genericidade em Rikbaktsa (Macro-Jê)
The paper investigates the expression of definiteness and genericity in Rikbaktsa (Macro-J).The data was selected from the literature (SIL, 2007;Silva, 2011, Dellai et al., 2021) and collected through interviews with two native speakers, following Dayal's questionnaire (in press).The analysis shows: (i) Rikbaktsa has no articles; the demonstrative carries an anti-uniqueness presupposition, thus, it is not a definite article, and tuba 'one' is the…
Sujeito não-canônico em Mẽbêngôkre
Dative and locative postpositional phrases, when occurring with certain predicates in constructions that express mental or physical states, are treated as a noncanonical subjects.In these constructions, the dative subject, in clauses with one or two arguments, is marked by the postposition m and the locative subject, in clauses with one argument, is marked by the postpositions km, j and b.In this paper, I describe how the non-canonical subjects a…
Noms et verbes en wayãpi
The decline of Jê ergativity
In this paper I discuss the diachrony of case marking alignment in J languages (Brazil).J languages conform a medium-sized family with a rich pattern of case marking: an accusative-ergative alignment split, which is a by-product of nominalization strategies, and a split-S pattern in the accusative portion of the case marking split.The one exception is Panar, a polysynthetic language where case marking is uniformly ergative.In this paper I lay out…
Sybille de Pury-Toumi (1945-2022)
C'tait une rencontre improbable s'il n'y avait pas eu le cadre qui l'a permise.Le professeur Bernard Pottier avait rouvert le volet linguistique de la tradition amricaniste franaise, quelque peu dlaiss depuis Paul Rivet.Ses sminaires de
Notes sur le logogramme T0042/1G8 de l’écriture maya
Sign n 42 in 1962 J. Eric S. Thompson's "Catalog of Maya Hieroglyphs" (classified as grapheme 1G8 in 2003/2009 Martha J. Macri's "New Catalog of Maya Hieroglyphs") was identified since more than one century ago as the distinctive sign of the glyph that designates what epigraphers call a pictun (a time unit of 8000 tun or counting years of 360 days, thus 2.880.000 days). Since a few decades, it is also known to be -in other cases than in this cont…
Guahiboan negation
The Guahiboan languages show interesting variation in the expression of standard, ascriptive, existential and prohibitive negation. We aim to account for some of the variation with reference to the general typology of negation and to familyinternal evidence. It focusses on three unusual features and thus enriches the general understanding of negation: (i) Existential negators can join standard negators, adding emphasis and eventually replace the …
Plural coding of individua inanimate nouns in Meseño Cora
Meseo Cora, a linguistic variant of Cora, a Southern Uto-Aztecan language of the Corachol branch spoken in Mexico, shows a conspicuous bound morpheme with peculiar morphosyntactic patterns for conveying plural coding. The present work proposes that the tprefix in this Cora variant functions as a plural marker of individuated inanimate nouns when attached to non-agentive intransitive, monotransitive and ditransitive verbs, acting on the nominal ar…
From classifiers to subordination
Grammaticalization patterns of nominal classification devices suggest that class terms tend to evolve into classifier systems, which may develop into gender and noun class systems. Additionally, classifiers are involved in the grammaticalization of other morphosyntactic categories, including applicatives, benefactives, and tense. This paper provides evidence for noun classifiers as the source of relative pronouns and subordinators in T'un na uu S…
Argument realization and discourse status in Yucatec, a purely head-marking language
We examine the impact of givenness on argument realization in a small text corpus of Yucatec folk narratives (660 clause-like units). We find that the default devices for the extension of topic chains are bare cross-reference markers. Weightier expressionsfree pronouns, demonstrative pro-forms, clause-mate co-nominals, and left-dislocated pro-forms or nominalsare used for disambiguation among competing referents, resuming previous topic chains, a…
Structure de l’information dans les langues OV
In this paper I present the strategies that Rama (Chibcha, Nicaragua) uses to encode information structure. Rama does not use morphological markers to mark topics and foci, the language uses word order as a preferred strategy to express information structure. Rama allows three of the six possible orders: AOV, OAV and AVO. The orders OVA, VAO and VOA are not observed. By analyzing the frequencies of appearance of the different orders and their syn…
Tackling the mysteries of South American languages
Las clases verbales de la lengua sáliba
Based on new first-hand fieldwork data and on prior descriptions of the language, this article proposes an in-depth analysis of inflectional verb classes in Sliba, a Sliban language spoken in Colombia and Venezuela. In particular, we evaluate the phonological motivation behind the two verb classes already proposed in the literature and further identify a third class that is characterized by the absence of subject marking morphology based on parti…
Tikuna, a ten-toneme language in Amazonia
Tikuna (isolate, western Amazonia) has been known since the 1950s to be one of Amazonia's richest tone languages.However, no agreement has been reached yet as to how many underlying tonemes are needed to account for the large number of tones it displays on the surface.Based on first-hand data collected from 2015 to 2018, I show that the variety of Tikuna spoken in the community of San Martín de Amacayacu (Colombia) features an inventory of ten (l…
Unexpected distribution of ergative alignment
Ye'kwana (mch, Cariban) is a language of Venezuela and Brazil spoken by about 9,000 people.An imperfective construction, cognate to a nominal construction, has introduced an ergative alignment in main clauses where all the other inflections, including past-perfectives, are non-ergative.This construction presents the same argument structure as the action nominalization: the absolutive (S/O) is prefixed as a verbal index and unmarked for case when …
Inflectional Tone In Hñähñu (Mezquital Otomi)
This paper is the first thorough description of inflectional tone changes in the verb stem in Hhu. Verbs in Hhu (Otomanguean > Otopamean > Otomi) can be classified into four conjugations according to the distribution of consonant stem alternations in their paradigm, and into two classes according to the distribution of tonal stem alternations. This paper describes the formation and distribution of tonal stem alternations in this language. Hhu is …
Notas Sobre Las Inscripciones De La Estela 1 De El Chorro Petén (Guatemala), Maya Clásico, Mediados Del Siglo VIII
This article aims to give a reading and the interpretation of the inscriptions engraved on a Maya stela of the Late Classic period, now in a private collection but which originally becomes from El Chorro, an archaeological site in the Peten. This "Stela 1 of El Chorro" presents the mother of the local k'uhul ahau (king) Precious Monkey, as an aj k'uhuun who carries the ceremonial bar. The Lady is adorned sumptuously with quetzal feathers and jade…
A Maya Stela From The Ethnographical Museum Of Geneva
This article aims to present new elements connected to a Maya stela kept in the Ethnographical Museum of Geneva. We show more clearly which glyphs are readable from this inscription and then present elements which could correlate this information and that of other Maya inscriptions and which hopefully will help later to identify the ruler depicted on this stela. We also propose a short analysis of the different contexts of scattering ritual, as w…
Yaqui Possessive Constructions
This paper revisits possessive constructions in Yaqui (Uto-Aztecan; Mexico). Previous studies have described Yaqui internal and verbal possessive constructions. The former makes use of juxtaposition, pronominal possession, and genitive phrases, and the latter shows possessive verbs taking the possessor as nominative subject and the possessee as accusative object. This study complements previous works with observations based on corpus data, and in…
De Las Partes Del Cuerpo A La Pertenencia.¿Por Qué La Distinción Alienable-Inalienable No Es Suficiente En Zapoteco
San Pablo Güilá Zapotec has four coding strategies for nominal possession: juxtaposition, suppletion, prefixation, and use of a preposition.These strategies are problematic for theoretical approaches that only distinguish between alienable and inalienable possession and explain the varying amount of formal resources employed to encode alienable vs. inalienable possession with the Iconicity Principle.In this work, a broad semantic set of possessio…
Person Marking In Ja’a Kumiai (Yuman)
Kumiai language varieties (Yuman; Mexico/USA) have been documented to possess complex person marking systems, with portmanteau markers for transitive verbs and a high degree of optionality and variability in terms of their morphophonological realization. This variation in person marking realization has been attributed to various factors, including patterns of language attrition and contact. Based on original field research data, this paper provid…
Language Of Poqomchi' (Mayan) Offering Ceremonies
Some Poqomchi' Mayan communities in Guatemala actually practice traditional offering ceremonies.Through the mediation of a ritual specialist, they provide humans with an opportunity to submit requests to divine authorities for something they wish to obtain.The language used during this ritual communication differs from everyday Poqomchi' in certain lexical, grammatical and discursive respects.Based on primary fieldwork data, this paper discusses …
Southern Zapotec Verb Classes
This paper provides a detailed description of inflectional classes of verbs based on TAM-marking morphology in Coatec Zapotec. This description is then used as a standard for comparison with other Zapotec languages spoken in the Southern Sierra region of Oaxaca, Mexico, which is considered by the author to be a diffusion zone. A comparison of 14 varieties belonging to five languages finds that the most diverse TAMmarking systems are found in the …
From ‘Complexity’ To ‘Simplexity’
Strikingly, we find that little children seem to have no remarkable difficulty in acquiring languages like Georgian, or Mohawk, or Icelandic along more or less the same time course as children learning English or Mandarin. Of course, it might be that little children are just remarkable geniuses at solving problems that seem impenetrable to scientists. But it seems more likely that morphology, despite the fact that a priori it seems like nothing b…
Tikuna, a ten-toneme language in Amazonia
Tikuna (isolate, western Amazonia) has been known since the 1950s to be one of Amazonia's richest tone languages.However, no agreement has been reached yet as to how many underlying tonemes are needed to account for the large number of tones it displays on the surface.Based on first-hand data collected from 2015 to 2018, I show that the variety of Tikuna spoken in the community of San Martín de Amacayacu (Colombia) features an inventory of ten (l…
Language Of Poqomchi' (Mayan) Offering Ceremonies
Some Poqomchi' Mayan communities in Guatemala actually practice traditional offering ceremonies.Through the mediation of a ritual specialist, they provide humans with an opportunity to submit requests to divine authorities for something they wish to obtain.The language used during this ritual communication differs from everyday Poqomchi' in certain lexical, grammatical and discursive respects.Based on primary fieldwork data, this paper discusses …
Southern Zapotec Verb Classes
This paper provides a detailed description of inflectional classes of verbs based on TAM-marking morphology in Coatec Zapotec. This description is then used as a standard for comparison with other Zapotec languages spoken in the Southern Sierra region of Oaxaca, Mexico, which is considered by the author to be a diffusion zone. A comparison of 14 varieties belonging to five languages finds that the most diverse TAMmarking systems are found in the …
From ‘Complexity’ To ‘Simplexity’
Strikingly, we find that little children seem to have no remarkable difficulty in acquiring languages like Georgian, or Mohawk, or Icelandic along more or less the same time course as children learning English or Mandarin. Of course, it might be that little children are just remarkable geniuses at solving problems that seem impenetrable to scientists. But it seems more likely that morphology, despite the fact that a priori it seems like nothing b…
Inflectional Tone In Hñähñu (Mezquital Otomi)
This paper is the first thorough description of inflectional tone changes in the verb stem in Hhu. Verbs in Hhu (Otomanguean > Otopamean > Otomi) can be classified into four conjugations according to the distribution of consonant stem alternations in their paradigm, and into two classes according to the distribution of tonal stem alternations. This paper describes the formation and distribution of tonal stem alternations in this language. Hhu is …
Notas Sobre Las Inscripciones De La Estela 1 De El Chorro Petén (Guatemala), Maya Clásico, Mediados Del Siglo VIII
This article aims to give a reading and the interpretation of the inscriptions engraved on a Maya stela of the Late Classic period, now in a private collection but which originally becomes from El Chorro, an archaeological site in the Peten. This "Stela 1 of El Chorro" presents the mother of the local k'uhul ahau (king) Precious Monkey, as an aj k'uhuun who carries the ceremonial bar. The Lady is adorned sumptuously with quetzal feathers and jade…
A Maya Stela From The Ethnographical Museum Of Geneva
This article aims to present new elements connected to a Maya stela kept in the Ethnographical Museum of Geneva. We show more clearly which glyphs are readable from this inscription and then present elements which could correlate this information and that of other Maya inscriptions and which hopefully will help later to identify the ruler depicted on this stela. We also propose a short analysis of the different contexts of scattering ritual, as w…
Yaqui Possessive Constructions
This paper revisits possessive constructions in Yaqui (Uto-Aztecan; Mexico). Previous studies have described Yaqui internal and verbal possessive constructions. The former makes use of juxtaposition, pronominal possession, and genitive phrases, and the latter shows possessive verbs taking the possessor as nominative subject and the possessee as accusative object. This study complements previous works with observations based on corpus data, and in…
De Las Partes Del Cuerpo A La Pertenencia.¿Por Qué La Distinción Alienable-Inalienable No Es Suficiente En Zapoteco
San Pablo Güilá Zapotec has four coding strategies for nominal possession: juxtaposition, suppletion, prefixation, and use of a preposition.These strategies are problematic for theoretical approaches that only distinguish between alienable and inalienable possession and explain the varying amount of formal resources employed to encode alienable vs. inalienable possession with the Iconicity Principle.In this work, a broad semantic set of possessio…
Person Marking In Ja’a Kumiai (Yuman)
Kumiai language varieties (Yuman; Mexico/USA) have been documented to possess complex person marking systems, with portmanteau markers for transitive verbs and a high degree of optionality and variability in terms of their morphophonological realization. This variation in person marking realization has been attributed to various factors, including patterns of language attrition and contact. Based on original field research data, this paper provid…
Language Of Poqomchi' (Mayan) Offering Ceremonies
Some Poqomchi' Mayan communities in Guatemala actually practice traditional offering ceremonies.Through the mediation of a ritual specialist, they provide humans with an opportunity to submit requests to divine authorities for something they wish to obtain.The language used during this ritual communication differs from everyday Poqomchi' in certain lexical, grammatical and discursive respects.Based on primary fieldwork data, this paper discusses …
Notes sur le logogramme T0042/1G8 de l’écriture maya
Sign n 42 in 1962 J. Eric S. Thompson's "Catalog of Maya Hieroglyphs" (classified as grapheme 1G8 in 2003/2009 Martha J. Macri's "New Catalog of Maya Hieroglyphs") was identified since more than one century ago as the distinctive sign of the glyph that designates what epigraphers call a pictun (a time unit of 8000 tun or counting years of 360 days, thus 2.880.000 days). Since a few decades, it is also known to be -in other cases than in this cont…
Guahiboan negation
The Guahiboan languages show interesting variation in the expression of standard, ascriptive, existential and prohibitive negation. We aim to account for some of the variation with reference to the general typology of negation and to familyinternal evidence. It focusses on three unusual features and thus enriches the general understanding of negation: (i) Existential negators can join standard negators, adding emphasis and eventually replace the …
Plural coding of individua inanimate nouns in Meseño Cora
Meseo Cora, a linguistic variant of Cora, a Southern Uto-Aztecan language of the Corachol branch spoken in Mexico, shows a conspicuous bound morpheme with peculiar morphosyntactic patterns for conveying plural coding. The present work proposes that the tprefix in this Cora variant functions as a plural marker of individuated inanimate nouns when attached to non-agentive intransitive, monotransitive and ditransitive verbs, acting on the nominal ar…
From classifiers to subordination
Grammaticalization patterns of nominal classification devices suggest that class terms tend to evolve into classifier systems, which may develop into gender and noun class systems. Additionally, classifiers are involved in the grammaticalization of other morphosyntactic categories, including applicatives, benefactives, and tense. This paper provides evidence for noun classifiers as the source of relative pronouns and subordinators in T'un na uu S…
Argument realization and discourse status in Yucatec, a purely head-marking language
We examine the impact of givenness on argument realization in a small text corpus of Yucatec folk narratives (660 clause-like units). We find that the default devices for the extension of topic chains are bare cross-reference markers. Weightier expressionsfree pronouns, demonstrative pro-forms, clause-mate co-nominals, and left-dislocated pro-forms or nominalsare used for disambiguation among competing referents, resuming previous topic chains, a…
Structure de l’information dans les langues OV
In this paper I present the strategies that Rama (Chibcha, Nicaragua) uses to encode information structure. Rama does not use morphological markers to mark topics and foci, the language uses word order as a preferred strategy to express information structure. Rama allows three of the six possible orders: AOV, OAV and AVO. The orders OVA, VAO and VOA are not observed. By analyzing the frequencies of appearance of the different orders and their syn…
Tackling the mysteries of South American languages
Las clases verbales de la lengua sáliba
Based on new first-hand fieldwork data and on prior descriptions of the language, this article proposes an in-depth analysis of inflectional verb classes in Sliba, a Sliban language spoken in Colombia and Venezuela. In particular, we evaluate the phonological motivation behind the two verb classes already proposed in the literature and further identify a third class that is characterized by the absence of subject marking morphology based on parti…
Tikuna, a ten-toneme language in Amazonia
Tikuna (isolate, western Amazonia) has been known since the 1950s to be one of Amazonia's richest tone languages.However, no agreement has been reached yet as to how many underlying tonemes are needed to account for the large number of tones it displays on the surface.Based on first-hand data collected from 2015 to 2018, I show that the variety of Tikuna spoken in the community of San Martín de Amacayacu (Colombia) features an inventory of ten (l…
Unexpected distribution of ergative alignment
Ye'kwana (mch, Cariban) is a language of Venezuela and Brazil spoken by about 9,000 people.An imperfective construction, cognate to a nominal construction, has introduced an ergative alignment in main clauses where all the other inflections, including past-perfectives, are non-ergative.This construction presents the same argument structure as the action nominalization: the absolutive (S/O) is prefixed as a verbal index and unmarked for case when …
Morfología de finitud y estrategias de subordinación en chiquitano migueleño
The paper describes the finiteness morphology and the syntactic subordination strategies of Migueleo Chiquitano.The verbs in that variety are shown to formally distinguish between finite and nonfinite forms.Finite forms take suffixed indices ("finiteness suffixes") that encode the absolutive participant (-(')o in the third person, -ka otherwise) or the accusative participant (-ta in the third person singular in the inverse voice).The nonfinite fo…
Definitude e a genericidade em Rikbaktsa (Macro-Jê)
The paper investigates the expression of definiteness and genericity in Rikbaktsa (Macro-J).The data was selected from the literature (SIL, 2007;Silva, 2011, Dellai et al., 2021) and collected through interviews with two native speakers, following Dayal's questionnaire (in press).The analysis shows: (i) Rikbaktsa has no articles; the demonstrative carries an anti-uniqueness presupposition, thus, it is not a definite article, and tuba 'one' is the…
Sujeito não-canônico em Mẽbêngôkre
Dative and locative postpositional phrases, when occurring with certain predicates in constructions that express mental or physical states, are treated as a noncanonical subjects.In these constructions, the dative subject, in clauses with one or two arguments, is marked by the postposition m and the locative subject, in clauses with one argument, is marked by the postpositions km, j and b.In this paper, I describe how the non-canonical subjects a…
Noms et verbes en wayãpi
The decline of Jê ergativity
In this paper I discuss the diachrony of case marking alignment in J languages (Brazil).J languages conform a medium-sized family with a rich pattern of case marking: an accusative-ergative alignment split, which is a by-product of nominalization strategies, and a split-S pattern in the accusative portion of the case marking split.The one exception is Panar, a polysynthetic language where case marking is uniformly ergative.In this paper I lay out…
Sybille de Pury-Toumi (1945-2022)
C'tait une rencontre improbable s'il n'y avait pas eu le cadre qui l'a permise.Le professeur Bernard Pottier avait rouvert le volet linguistique de la tradition amricaniste franaise, quelque peu dlaiss depuis Paul Rivet.Ses sminaires de