The morphological expression of non-verbal predication is a
geographically widespread, although not very frequent, typological feature. This
paper highlights the existence of two radically contrasting types of non-verbal
predicative inflection. Construction A has already been described in the
literature. It consists of attaching person-sensitive inflection markers to
non-verbal predicates, possibly extending this treatment to adverbs and
adverbial phrases (locational and temporal), pronouns and quantifiers. This type
is well attested in Uralic, Turkic, and Paleosiberian, as well as in some
Amazonian language families (most notably Chicham), but it has also been pointed
out for some sparse languages of Oceania and Africa. Such non-verbal person
inflections diachronically stem from incorporation of conjugated copula
elements. Construction B, by contrast, is much rarer and is described here for
the first time. It also consists of a dedicated morphological form of the
non-verbal predicate (limited, however, to nouns and adjectives), but such form
stands out as morphologically lighter than any other form to be found in nouns
or adjectives in argument or attribute position. While the latter forms carry
some kind of case marker, the noun/adjective predicate merely consists (or
historically did) of the word’s root. This type of construction can be found in
the small Zamucoan family and still survives in some Tupí-Guaraní languages.
Diachronic inspection of Semitic indicates, however, that this predicative
strategy was possibly adopted in some ancient varieties, although at later
stages it intertwined with the expression of referential specificity. The paper
compares the two construction types, highlighting similarities and
differences.
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Ciucci, Luca
2021. How Historical Data Complement Fieldwork: New Diachronic Perspectives on Zamucoan Verb Inflection*. Studia Linguistica 75:2 ► pp. 289 ff.
Ciucci, Luca
2021. How to restructure a grammatical category: the innovative person system of Chamacoco (Zamucoan, northern Paraguay). Folia Linguistica 55:s42-s1 ► pp. 111 ff.
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