There will be cake, coffee and the as always. All are welcome.

It will be in 1485-123 from 1 - 3 PM. Organized by Vigør (linguistics students' organization)

ABSTRACT

Is Harakmbut a classifier language? Answers from noun modification, noun incorporation and word formation.

An Van Linden, University of Liège / University of Leuven

This paper focuses on Harakmbut, an unclassified language form the Peruvian Amazon, and addresses of the question of whether it is a classifier language. While it has been claimed that it shows verbal classifiers, which also function as “a nongender concordial system”

(Derbyshire & Payne 1990: 260), and that it has large sets of numeral classifiers (Aikhenvald 2000: 123), primary data show that these claims are at least partly untenable. I will show that these claims go back to Hart’s (1963:1) description of “shape morphemes” in the language, and especially Payne’s (1987) analysis of these in terms of classifiers. In my analysis, however, they merely form a morphologically defined subclass of common nouns, i.e. obligatorily bound nouns, which show semantic homogeneity in that they refer to parts of entities, such as (human or animal) body parts, plant parts, and landscape parts, as well as basic shapes or qualities of entities.

Crucially, it is only a subset of these bound nouns that function as verbal classifiers. I will substantiate my proposal by looking at patterns of noun modification, noun incorporation and word formation, concentrating on the distinction between morphologically bound nouns and potentially free ones.

References

Aikhenvald, A.Y. 2000. Classifiers. A Typology of Noun Categorization Devices. Oxford: Oxford University Press.

Derbyshire, D. C. and D. L. Payne. 1990. Noun classification systems of Amazonian languages. In D. L. Payne (ed.), Amazonian linguistics.

Studies in Lowland South American languages. Austin: University of Texas Press. 243-71.

Hart, R. 1963. Semantic components of shape in Amarakaeri Grammar.

Anthropological Linguistics 5 (9): 1-7.

Payne, Doris L.1987. Noun Classification in the Western Amazon.

Language Sciences 9 (1): 21-44.

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