Open AccessPredicative possession in Nivacle
Author(s) -
Alain Fabre
Publication year - 2015
Publication title -
liames
Language(s) - English
Resource type - Journals
eISSN - 2177-7160
pISSN - 1678-0531
DOI - 10.20396/liames.v15i2.8642304
Subject(s) - predicative expression , possession (linguistics) , possessive , linguistics , computer science , philosophy
In this paper, I identify and analyse fourteen predicative possession strategies employed by speakers of Nivacle, a Mataguayo language from the Paraguayan Chaco. It is intriguing that all of these strategies but three are in common use among the speakers. Because quantifiers and numbers surface as verbs in Nivacle, these can be used as possessive predicates, which appears to be another typological rarity. The paper also includes a brief overview of predicative possession in the other three languages of the Mataguayo family.