My hammock = I have a hammock. - HAL-SHS - Sciences de l'Homme et de la Société Accéder directement au contenu
Chapitre D'ouvrage Année : 2002

My hammock = I have a hammock.

Françoise Rose

Résumé

This paper examines an unusual type of nominal predication in Emerillon, a Tupi-Guarani language spoken in French Guiana. This construction, exactly parallel to that of a possessed noun, is made of a person marker plus a noun. However, it is used as a predicate with a possessive meaning. Thus the form "my hammock" by itself can mean "I have a hammock". We hypothesize that this type of nominal predicates is in fact an existential construction. This is confirmed by the optional presence of the existential copula. However, in absence of the copula, the nominal predicate takes on all the predicative morphology (negation, TAM...), just like a verb does. This makes it more difficult to think in terms of a zero existential copula.
Fichier principal
Vignette du fichier
Rose_2002_hammock.pdf (96.78 Ko) Télécharger le fichier
Origine : Fichiers produits par l'(les) auteur(s)
Loading...

Dates et versions

halshs-00453554 , version 1 (05-02-2010)

Identifiants

  • HAL Id : halshs-00453554 , version 1

Citer

Françoise Rose. My hammock = I have a hammock.. Ana Suelly Cabral; Aryon Rodrigues. Línguas Indígenas Brasileiras. Fonologia, Gramática e História. Atas do I Encontro Internacional do GTLI da ANPOLL, CNPQ & Universidade federal do Para, pp.325-332, 2002. ⟨halshs-00453554⟩
134 Consultations
200 Téléchargements

Partager

Gmail Facebook X LinkedIn More