Movima (isolate, lowland Bolivia) is a language with predicate-initial constituent order in the core clause. There is no copula in affirmative clauses. Unpossessed common nouns can function as main-clause predicates just as well as verbs. The difference between verbal and nonverbal predicates only becomes apparent in embedded (i.e. adverbial and complement) clauses: the predicate of an embedded clause is overtly morphologically marked, and the type of marking distinguishes verbal from nonverbal predicates. The same pattern occurs in negated clauses, which consist of embedded predicates preceded by a negative copula. The morphological marking of embedded predicates shows that not only verbs and nouns, but also demonstratives, locative adverbs, and even personal pronouns can function as predicates. Therefore, it is argued that there is no “preverbal” or “topic position” to express the syntactically privileged argument: in principle, any word that has the potential to function as a predicate has predicate status when forming the first constituent of the clause.
2006A Grammar of Movima. PhD dissertation, Radboud University Nijmegen. [URL]
Haude, Katharina
2009aHierarchical alignment in Movima. International Journal of American Linguistics 75(4): 513–532.
Haude, Katharina
2009bReference and predication in Movima. In New Challenges in Typology: Transcending the Borders and Refining the Distinctions [Trends in Linguistics. Studies and Monographs 217], Patience Epps & Alexandre Arkhipov (eds), 323–342. Berlin: Mouton de Gruyter.
2011Referring to states and events: Subordination in Movima. In Subordination in South American Languages [Typological Studies in Language 97], Rik van Gijn, Katharina Haude & Pieter Muysken (eds), 141–168. Amsterdam: John Benjamins.
Haude, Katharina
2012Saillance inhérente et saillance discursive en movima. Faits de Langues 39: 169–180.
Haude, Katharina
2014aReduplication in Movima: A prosodic morphology approach. In Reduplication in South American Languages, Hein van der Voort & Gale Goodwin Gomez (eds), 343–373. Leiden: Brill.
Haude, Katharina
2014bAnimacy and inverse voice in Movima: A corpus study. Anthropological Linguistics 56(3–4): 294–314.
Haude, Katharina
To appear a. Grammatical relations in Movima: Alignment beyond semantic roles. In Handbook of Grammatical Relations (working title), Alena Witzlack-Makarevich & Balthasar Bickel eds Amsterdam John Benjamins
Haude, Katharina
To appear b. Clefting for topicalization? Analyzing clause-initial pronouns in Movima. In Information Structure in Lesser-described Languages: Studies in Prosody and Syntax, Evangelia Adamou, Katharina Haude & Martine Vanhove eds Amsterdam John Benjamins
Haude, Katharina
To appear c. From predication to reference in Movima. In Individuation et référence nominale à travers les langues, Christine Bonnot, Outi Duvallon & Hélène de Penanros eds Paris Presses de l’INaLCO
Payne, Thomas E.
1997Describing Morphosyntax. A Guide for Field Linguistics. Cambridge: CUP.
Shank, Scott
2003A preliminary semantics for pronominal predicates. Working Papers for the 38th International Conference on Salish and Neighbouring Languages, 215–236.
2021. Clefting and nominal predication: Two focus-marking constructions in Movima. Faits de Langues 52:1 ► pp. 117 ff.
Krasnoukhova, Olga, Johan van der Auwera & Sietze Norder
2022. Standard negation: the curious case of South America. Linguistic Typology 0:0
This list is based on CrossRef data as of 9 may 2023. Please note that it may not be complete. Sources presented here have been supplied by the respective publishers.
Any errors therein should be reported to them.