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Work Papers of the Summer Institute of Linguistics, University of North Dakota Session

DOI

https://doi.org/10.31356/silwp.vol35.05

Abstract

From the introduction: "In this paper, the Mbyá V1-V2 construction is examined from various points of view: lexico-semantic (Sect. 2), phonological (in relation to stress) (Sect. 3), morphological (Sect. 4) and syntactic (Sect. 5). It is seen to be a phrase in which V2 functions syntactically as a modifier of V1. This construction is then compared and contrasted with others in Mbyá, namely subordinate clauses (Sect. 6) and coordinate clauses (Sect. 7). At this point (Sect. 8), it is compared with SVCs as documented in languages of West Africa, the Caribbean, Southeast Asia, East Asia, Papua New Guinea and in other Austronesian languages, as well as possibly in Yuman languages of North America (Redden). To my knowledge, however, SVCs have not been described in languages of South America. The Mbyá V1-V2 construction turns out to behave like SVCs in its semantics and in some syntactic aspects. However, in four respects is it grammatically tighter than stock SVCs: (i) the V2 has an identifying suffix; (ii) it has a distinctive, reduced agreement pattern; (iii) it is requir3ed to have the same subject and, if transitive, the same object as V1; (iv) the construction is virtually impervious to the occurrence of arguments between V1 and V2."

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