Cover not available
Part of
Antipassive: Typology, diachrony, and related constructions
Edited by Katarzyna Janic and Alena Witzlack-Makarevich
[Typological Studies in Language 130] 2021
► pp. 349–382

Chapter 11
Polyfunctional vanka- in Nivaĉle and the antipassive category

| University of Formosa | CONICET
| University of Oregon | SIL International
Nivaĉle (Mataguayan) is a non-ergative language of Argentina and Paraguay. It has a voice/valency mechanism that resembles an antipassive. Stell (1989: 310) refers to vanka- as an intransitive marker. Fabre (2015, 2016) glosses vanka- as ‘antipassive’ but does not provide an in-depth analysis. We examine vanka- as an antipassive marker, but also its connection to other functional domains and its use with certain intransitive stems. On intransitive stems, its semantic effects range from strongly agentive to middle meaning. It implies that there is an extra but unexpressible ‘non-specific participant’ in the context. The extra participant implication suggests that vanka- may originate in a third-person marker va- plus a ‘cislocative’ or ‘middle’ n-, plus a ka- which may correspond to an ‘indirect possessive’ formative.
Keywords: middle, impersonal, non-ergative, split-S, Mataguayan
Article outline
  • 1.Introduction
  • 2.Basic facts of Nivaĉle grammar
  • 3.The antipassive construction
    • 3.1 vanka- with transitive bases
    • 3.2 vanka- with ditransitive bases
    • 3.3The semantics of vanka- constructions
  • 4.Beyond the antipassive function: vanka- on intransitive stems
  • 5.Source of the vanka- antipassive construction
    • 5.1The ka portion
    • 5.2The van portion
  • 6.Conclusions
  • Acknowledgements
  • Notes
  • Abbreviations
  • References
Published online: 23 March 2021
DOI logo
https://doi.org/10.1075/tsl.130.11vid
References (32)
References
Arkadiev, Peter & Letuchiy, Alexander. 2021. Indirect antipassive in Circassian. In Antipassive: Typology, Diachrony, and Related Constructions [Typological Studies in Language 130], Katarzyna Janic & Alena Witzlack-Makarevich (eds). Amsterdam: John Benjamins. (This volume.) DOI logoGoogle Scholar
Campbell, Lyle & Grondona, Verónica. 2010. Who speaks what to whom? Multilingualism and language choice in Misión La Paz. Language in Society 39(5): 617–646. DOI logoGoogle Scholar
Comrie, Bernard, Forker, Diana, Khalilova, Zaira & van den Berg, Helma. 2021. Antipassives in Nakh-Daghestanian languages: Exploring the margins of a construction. In Antipassive: Typology, Diachrony, and Related Constructions [Typological Studies in Language 130], Katarzyna Janic & Alena Witzlack-Makarevich (eds). Amsterdam: John Benjamins. (This volume.). DOI logoGoogle Scholar
Cooreman, Ann. 1994. A functional typology of antipassive. In Voice: Form and Function [Typological Studies in Language 27], Barbara A. Fox & Paul Hopper (eds), 49–88. Amsterdam: John Benjamins. DOI logoGoogle Scholar
DGEEC (Dirección General de Estadística Encuestas y Censos). 2012. Censo Nacional de Población y Viviendas para Pueblos Indígenas. Censo 2012. Gobierno de la Republica de Paraguay. <[URL]> (9 August 2020).
Dixon, R. M. W. 1994. Ergativity. Cambridge: CUP. DOI logoGoogle Scholar
Fabre, Alain. 2005. Los mataguayo. Suplemento Antropológico 40(2): 313–435.Google Scholar
. 2012. Interacción entre alineamiento inverso (jerárquico) y orientación verbal hacia P/T o R en los verbos transitivos del nivacle (Chaco paraguayo). LIAMES: Línguas Indígenas Americanas 12(1): 87–101.Google Scholar
. 2015. Predicative possession in Nivacle. LIAMES: Línguas Indígenas Americanas 15(2): 17–41.Google Scholar
. 2016. Gramática de la lengua nivacle (familia mataguayo, chaco paraguayo). Munich: Lincom.Google Scholar
. 2017. Morphosyntax of the Nivacle verb and some comparisons with other languages of the Gran Chaco region and elsewhere. <[URL]> (9 August 2020).
Gerzenstein, Ana. 1994. Lengua maká: Estudio descriptivo. Buenos Aires: Universidad de Buenos Aires.Google Scholar
Gutiérrez, Analía. 2015. Segmental and Prosodic Complexity in Nivaĉle: Laryngeals, Laterals, and Metathesis. PhD dissertation, University of British Columbia.Google Scholar
. 2016a. The variable prosodic parsings of Nivaĉle glottal stop. LIAMES: Línguas Indígenas Americanas 16(2): 323–347.Google Scholar
. 2016b. Patterns of (de)glottalization in Nivaĉle. In Proceedings of the 33rd West Coast Conference on Formal Linguistics, Kyeong-min Kim, Pocholo Umbal, Trevor Block, Queenie Chan, Tanie Cheng, Kelli Finney, Mara Katz, Sophie Nickel-Thompson & Lisa Shorten (eds), 176–185. Sommerville, MA: Cascadilla Proceedings Project.Google Scholar
Hopper, Paul & Thompson, Sandra A. 1980. Transitivity in grammar and discourse. Language 56(1): 251–299. DOI logoGoogle Scholar
INDEC (Instituto Nacional de Estadística y Censos). 2004–2005. Encuesta Complementaria de Pueblos Indígenas. Argentina. <[URL]> (9 August 2020)
Jacques, Guillaume. 2014. Denominal affixes as sources of antipassive markers in Japhug Rgyalrong. Lingua 138: 1–22. DOI logoGoogle Scholar
Janic, Katarzyna. 2016. On the reflexive-antipassive polysemy: Typological convergence from unrelated languages. In Proceedings of the 36th Berkeley Linguistics Society, Nicholas Rolle, Jeremy Steffman & John Sylak-Glassman (eds), 158–173. Berkeley CA: BLS.Google Scholar
Janic, Katarzyna & Witzlack-Makarevich, Alena. 2015. The crosslinguistic diversity of antipassives: Function, meaning and structure. Call for papers, 49th SLE, 2016.Google Scholar
Lyons, John. 1969 [1968]. Introduction to Theoretical Linguistics. Cambridge: CUP.Google Scholar
Nouguier-Voisin, Sylvie. 2002. Relations entre fonctions syntaxiques et fonctions sémantiques en wolof. PhD dissertation, Lumière University Lyon 2.Google Scholar
Pacchiarotti, Sara. 2017. Bantu Applicative Construction Types Involving *-ɪd: Form, Functions and Diachrony. PhD dissertation, University of Oregon.Google Scholar
Payne, Doris L., Otero, Manuel A. & Vidal, Alejandra. 2016. Deictic determiners and “nominalization” in Nivaĉle: What does nominalization look like if a language has no nouns? Paper presented at the Syntax of the World’s Languages 7, Workshop on Nominalization, Mexico City, 20 August.
Payne, Doris L., Vidal, Alejandra & Otero, Manuel A. 2018. Locative, existential and possessive predication in the Chaco: Nivaĉle (Mataguayan) and Pilagá (Guaykuruan). In Nonverbal Predication in Amazonia [Typological Studies in Language 122], Simon Overall, Rosa Vallejos & Spike Gildea (eds), 263–294. Amsterdam: John Benjamins. DOI logoGoogle Scholar
Seelwische, José. 1975. La Lhasinônash napi Nivacle: Gramática Nivacle. Asunción: El Gráfico S.R.L.Google Scholar
Silverstein, Michael. 1972a. Chinook Jargon: Language contact and the problem of multi-level generative systems, I. Language 48(2): 378–406. DOI logoGoogle Scholar
. 1972b. Chinook Jargon: Language contact and the problem of multi-level generative systems, II. Language 48(3): 596–625. DOI logoGoogle Scholar
Smith, Rebecca. 2007. The Noun Class System of Ut-Ma’in, a West Kainji Language of Nigeria. MA thesis, University of North Dakota.Google Scholar
Stell, Nelida Noemi. 1987. Gramatica descriptiva de la lengua Niwakle (Chulupí). PhD dissertation, Universidad de Buenos Aires.Google Scholar
Tovar, Antonio. 1964. El grupo mataco y su relación con otras lenguas de América del Sur. Actas del 35o Congreso Internacional de Americanistas, Tomo II. 439–452.Google Scholar
Vidal, Alejandra. 2001. Pilagá grammar (Guaykuruan family, Argentina). PhD dissertation, University of Oregon.Google Scholar
Cited by (1)

Cited by one other publication

Janic, Katarzyna & Alena Witzlack-Makarevich
2021. Chapter 1. The multifaceted nature of the antipassive construction. In Antipassive [Typological Studies in Language, 130], ► pp. 1 ff. DOI logo

This list is based on CrossRef data as of 19 july 2024. 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.