Chapter 11
Polyfunctional vanka- in Nivaĉle and the
antipassive category
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.
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
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