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Diverse Scenarios of Syntactic Complexity
Edited by Albert Álvarez González, Zarina Estrada-Fernández and Claudine Chamoreau
[Typological Studies in Language 126] 2019
► pp. 167–189

Syntactic nominalizations in Pima Bajo

Diachronic diversity

| University of Sonora

Pima Bajo is a Uto-Aztecan language from northwestern Mexico, traditionally spoken in the central part of the states of Chihuahua and Sonora. It is the most endangered language in the Uto-Aztecan family, a situation partially responsible for the loss of some remarkable features observed in complex clauses, in particular, syntactic nominalizations. This paper focuses on syntactic nominalization constructions in Pima Bajo involving three nominalizing suffixes, -dam, -kɨg, and -ka. These nominalization strategies are consonant with Comrie (2011) and Malchukov (2004), especially in that they have a mixed status, combining nominal as well as verbal properties. Additionally, these constructions should not be considered discrete, but gradual along a continuum. Moreover, the relevant properties that are observed within the different types of nominalizations mixed or not, follow a hierarchical organization, since not all of them are relevant within the different instantiations of this kind of constructions.

Keywords: clausal nominalizations, mixed status, subordination, Pima Bajo
Article outline
  • 1.Introduction
  • 2.Sociolinguistic information and grammatical properties of Pima Bajo
  • 3.Clausal nominalization
  • 4.Syntactic nominalizations in Pima Bajo
    • 4.1The suffix -dam
    • 4.2The nominalizing suffix -kig
    • 4.3The nominalizing suffix -ka
  • 5.Final remarks
  • Acknowledgements
  • Abbreviations
  • Notes
  • References
Published online: 4 July 2019
DOI logo
https://doi.org/10.1075/tsl.126.07est
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