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Nonverbal Predication in Amazonian Languages
Edited by Simon E. Overall, Rosa Vallejos and Spike Gildea
[Typological Studies in Language 122] 2018
► pp. 135–162

Chapter 5
Nonverbal predicates and copula constructions in Aguaruna (Chicham)

| University of Otago | James Cook University

This chapter focuses primarily on the formal expression of equative, proper inclusion and attributive relations in Aguaruna, all three of which are encoded as copula clauses. The copula clause involves two arguments that both take nominative case; the copula element may be a full verb, it may be an enclitic to the copula complement argument, or the clause may be truly verbless, formed by simple juxtaposition of the arguments. The copula verb itself is homophonous with an existential verb that forms a simple intransitive clause, and a few other intransitive verbs may also function as copulas. Finally, I show that the formal structures associated with copula clauses also feature in auxiliary constructions and as a means of marking finite verbal categories in clauses with nominalized verbs.

Keywords: copula, verbless clause, nominalization, auxiliation
Article outline
  • 1.Introduction
  • 2.Clause types in Aguaruna
    • 2.1Transitivity and grammatical relations
      • Subject
      • Object
      • Copula complement
    • 2.2Finiteness
  • 3.Copula clauses
  • 4.The enclitic copula construction
    • 4.1Person and number of subject
    • 4.2Tense and aspect
    • 4.3Mood
    • 4.4Polarity
    • 4.5Non finite clause types
    • 4.6Summary of the enclitic copula construction
  • 5.The verbless clause construction
  • 6.The verbal copula
    • 6.1Copula and existential
    • 6.2Other copula verbs
  • 7.Copula constructions beyond copula clauses
  • 8.Concluding comments
  • Notes
  • Abbreviations and conventions
  • References
Published online: 21 August 2018
DOI logo
https://doi.org/10.1075/tsl.122.05ove
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