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Nominalization in Languages of the Americas
Edited by Roberto Zariquiey, Masayoshi Shibatani and David W. Fleck
[Typological Studies in Language 124] 2019
► pp. 197–248

Chapter 4
Case markers as subordinators in South American indigenous languages

| University of Zurich

Nominalization (in different forms and guises) is one of the most common subordination strategies in South American indigenous languages. A frequently used nominalization strategy is to use case markers to indicate the semantic or structural relationship of the nominalized clause to the proposition expressed in the main clause. This paper aims to establish the extent to which these extensions of case markers to subordinate clauses are non-random, and to separate the role of language contact, genealogical retention, and universal preferences in explaining the distribution of case markers as subordinators in South American indigenous languages.

Article outline
  • 1.Introduction
  • 2.Preliminaries
  • 3.Case systems in South American languages and their extensions to subordinate clauses
    • 3.1Presence of case
    • 3.2Core case
    • 3.3Dative cases
    • 3.4Comitatives and instruments
    • 3.5Spatial cases
    • 3.6Oblique cases
    • 3.7Other cases
  • 4.Discussion
  • 5.Conclusion
  • Acknowledgement
  • Abbreviations
  • Notes
  • References
Published online: 8 August 2019
DOI logo
https://doi.org/10.1075/tsl.124.04gij
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