Papers by Antoine Guillaume
Studies in Language, 2024
This paper is the first detailed description of the exceptionally rich subsystem of verbal inflec... more This paper is the first detailed description of the exceptionally rich subsystem of verbal inflections that express imperfective aspect in Tacana, an endangered and underdescribed language from the Takanan family. The unusually high degree of elaboration of this system, which includes nine members in paradigmatic opposition, is achieved by co-expressing imperfective aspect with spatial meanings taken from two distinct categories: associated motion (with five values: ‘going’, ‘coming’, ‘going back’, ‘coming back’, ‘wandering’) and what I will call “associated posture” (with three values: ‘standing’, ‘lying/bending’, ‘hanging’). The ninth member is a default imperfective marker that does not carry any spatial meaning. The paper challenges linguistic theories that consider grammatical(izable) concepts as belonging to a strictly limited range of notional domains from which motion and posture are excluded. Additionally, the paper provides strong support for a new comparative concept of “associated posture” in linguistics.
De Gruyter, 2021
This volume is the first book-length presentation of the relatively newly established grammatical... more This volume is the first book-length presentation of the relatively newly established grammatical category of Associated Motion. It provides a framework for understanding a grammatical phenomenon which, though present in many languages, has gone unrecognised until recently. Previously known mainly from languages of Australia and South America, grammatical AM marking has now been identified in languages from most parts of the world (except Europe) and is becoming an important topic of linguistic typology. The 22 chapters provide a thorough introduction to the subject, discussion of the relation between AM and related grammatical concepts, detailed descriptions of AM in a wide range of the world’s languages, and surveys of AM in particular language families and areas. All of the studies are richly illustrated by means of approximately 2000) example sentences.
Forthcoming, 2019
This chapter provides the first extensive survey of the linguistic characteristics of the languag... more This chapter provides the first extensive survey of the linguistic characteristics of the languages of the small Takanan family, composed of five languages, Araona, Cavineña, Ese Ejja, Reyesano and Tacana, spoken in the Amazonian lowlands of northern Bolivia and southeastern Peru. To date, there have been very few general comparative works on these languages, apart from old studies based on scanty materials collected around the turn of the 20 th century (Rivet & Créqui-Montfort 1921; Schuller 1933), more recent studies restricted to the phonological domain (Key 1968; Girard 1971) and very small sketches listing a few noteworthy typological properties (Aikhenvald & Dixon 1999: 364-367; Adelaar 2004: 418-422). Drawing on data from the most recent fieldwork-based studies, which have appeared since the past two decades, the chapter offers a typologically and (when possible) historically informed presentation of their main linguistic features and of their most interesting characteristics. All the major levels of linguistic structure are presented, including phonetics and phonology, the word classes and their morphology, noun phrases, verbal and non-verbal predicates, main and dependent clauses and discourse.
Language Science Press, 2022
The goal of this paper is to provide, for the first time, a synchronic description and diachronic... more The goal of this paper is to provide, for the first time, a synchronic description and diachronic reconstruction of negation in Tacana, a critically endangered language of the small Takanan family in the Amazonian lowlands of Bolivia and Peru. One significant contribution of the paper is the reconstruction, for a standard negation marker, of an etymology (stand-alone negation word ‘no’) and type of Jespersen Cycle (from the right of the verb to the left of the verb) that are not commonly reported in general studies on negation. The proposed reconstruction also contributes to current studies on the interactions between standard negation and the Negative Existential Cycle (the general theme of the volume) in arguing that the Tacana stand-alone negation word ‘no’ originated in a negative existential predicate. In so doing, the paper adds to the diachronic literature on languages where a negative existential breaks into the verbal domain through a stand-alone negation stage.
International Journal of American Linguistics, 2018
This special issue of JHL reconstructs the diachrony of a number of innovations in the coding of ... more This special issue of JHL reconstructs the diachrony of a number of innovations in the coding of argument structure, particularly in the domain of verbal indexation, in four Amazonian language families (Chapacuran, Sáliban, Tukanoan and Tupi). It is one result of an international workshop on " Diachronic Morphosyntax in South American Languages " held in Lyon (France) in 2015, with financial support from the Collegium de Lyon (Institute for Advanced Study) and the LabEx ASLAN of the Université de Lyon. The goal was to encourage methodologically innovative (and more rigorous) historical studies of morphosyntactic patterns in languages or language families of South America. The five papers that compose this collection all demonstrate the viability of syntactic reconstruction, even in languages with little or no written history.
John Benjamins, 2018
This paper reconstructs the history of a set of innovated 1st and 2nd person verbal prefixes in R... more This paper reconstructs the history of a set of innovated 1st and 2nd person verbal prefixes in Reyesano which manifest the phenomenon of 'hierarchical agreement' in transitive clauses, according to a 2>1>3 hierarchy. I argue that these prefixes come from independent ergative-absolutive pronouns which first became case-neutral enclitics in 2nd position in main clauses and then verb prefixes. And I show that the hierarchical effects that the prefixes manifest in synchrony have nothing to do with the working of a hierarchy during the grammaticalization process. In doing so, the paper contributes to the growing body of diachronic evidence against the idea that the person hierarchy is a universal of human language reflecting a more general principal of human cognition.
Studies in Language, 2018
This paper studies four grammatical markers of emotions in Tacana, an Amazonian language from the... more This paper studies four grammatical markers of emotions in Tacana, an Amazonian language from the Takanan family spoken in Northern Bolivia. Two markers express positive emotions, chidi ‘affection’ and ichenu ‘compassion’. The other two express negative emotions: base ‘depreciation 1’ and madha ‘depreciation 2’. The paper also provides a historical-comparative study of similar morphemes in the other Takanan languages (Araona, Cavineña, Ese Ejja and Reyesano). The Tacana affection morpheme is probably reconstructible to a diminutive marker in proto-Takanan. The compassion and two depreciation morphemes are not reconstructible but recent grammaticalizations of lexical items still used in the different Takanan languages. Interestingly, these lexemes do not display any synchronic or diachronic link with the expression of “diminutivization” or “augmentativization”. Therefore, this paper suggests that the morphological expression of emotions should be studied in its own right, and not necessarily as a subtype of the evaluative field of research.
Amerindia, 2017
Escrito por una especialista en lenguas Pano y un especialista en lenguas Takana, este artículo i... more Escrito por una especialista en lenguas Pano y un especialista en lenguas Takana, este artículo introductorio inaugura la primera publicación dedicada al análisis conjunto de aspectos fono-lógicos y gramaticales en estas familias lingüísticas sudamericanas. La familia Pano comprende una treintena de lenguas, vigentes y extintas, de las zonas fronterizas del Perú, Brasil y Bolivia, mientras que la familia Takana está compuesta hoy en día por cinco lenguas habladas en el norte de Bolivia, extendiéndose una de ellas al sureste del territorio peruano. Tras pre-sentar un panorama actual de las lenguas Pano y Takana, este artículo registra en orden crono-lógico las principales obras descriptivas sobre estas lenguas, organizándolas en tres etapas según las características de la mayoría de autores: (a) estudios por misioneros y viajeros ex-ploradores, (b) estudios por misioneros-lingüistas afiliados al Instituto Lingüístico de Verano y (c) tesis doctorales con descripciones sincrónicas sustanciales de lenguas particulares. En el caso de las lenguas Pano destaca en la tercera etapa el protagonismo de lingüistas brasileños y peruanos formados, al menos parcialmente, en universidades de sus respectivos países. Segui-damente, se da cuenta de los intentos de clasificación interna de las familias Pano y Takana, los esfuerzos por reconstruir las respectivas proto-lenguas y las propuestas de relaciones ex-ternas de estas familias, incluyendo la discusión acerca de la probable relación de parentesco entre Pano y Takana. A continuación, se proporciona una lista de rasgos lingüísticos compar-tidos por ambas familias, así como otros específicos a cada una de ellas. Finalmente, se resume el contenido de los doce artículos restantes que conforman la presente colección, agrupándolos en cuatro bloques temáticos: fonología y prosodia, morfología verbal, marcación de los argumentos y concordancia.
Amerindia, 2017
Una característica notable, recientemente identificada, de la morfología verbal de los idiomas Ta... more Una característica notable, recientemente identificada, de la morfología verbal de los idiomas Takana se encuentra en sus sistemas complejos de sufijos de “movimiento asociado” (Guillaume 2013a). Esta categoría, inicialmente reconocida en el marco de la descripción de las lenguas australianas (Koch 1984; Wilkins 1991; Dixon 2002), tiene que ver con morfemas gramaticales usa-dos principalmente con verbos que no son de movimiento para expresar que la acción del verbo está asociada a un desplazamiento de segundo plano. Este último se caracteriza, entre otros, por la relación temporal que tiene con la acción del verbo, sea de anterioridad (ej. ‘ir y hacer’), de simultaneidad (ej. ‘hacer yendo’) o de posterioridad (ej. ‘hacer e ir’), y por su trayectoria (ej. ‘ir y hacer’, ‘venir y hacer’, ‘hacer yendo’, ‘hacer viniendo’, ‘hacer e ir’, ‘hacer y venir’). En este artículo, demostramos que sistemas complejos de movimiento asociado también se encuentran en las lenguas Pano, aunque han sido identificados mediante otros nombres en los trabajos des-criptivos, y hacemos una comparación entre los sistemas de movimiento asociado de las dos fa-milias. Este artículo contribuye a un mejor entendimiento de la morfología verbal de ambas fa-milias y a la elaboración de una tipología del movimiento asociado. También sienta las bases para un futuro estudio histórico-comparativo que podrá contribuir a la discusión sobre la posible relación entre las dos familias de lenguas, Takana y Pano, sea de parentesco genético o de con-tacto areal.
Linguistic Typology, Aug 2, 2016
This article investigates the recently recognized concept of ASSOCIATED MOTION in 66 South Americ... more This article investigates the recently recognized concept of ASSOCIATED MOTION in 66 South American languages located on the western fringes of the Amazonian basin. In that region, associated motion is a widespread and particularly complex phenomenon. It is instantiated by verbal affixes in 44 languages, of which 22 display complex systems of multiple affixes. Correlations are noticed between the degree of complexity of the systems and the semantic content of the markers. Two implicational scales are proposed: (i) motion of the subject > motion of the object and (ii) prior motion > concurrent motion > subsequent motion. Correlations are also observed between the types of systems and their geographical distribution. These are taken as evidence that diffusion must have played an important role in spreading associated motion in this region and shaping its particular semantic make-up in the different languages.
Brill, 2014
This paper discusses the reduplication processes that are at work in Cavineña, a Tacanan language... more This paper discusses the reduplication processes that are at work in Cavineña, a Tacanan language from Amazonian Bolivia. This language presents a wide range of different reduplication processes which have the following main characteristics: they can be simple or automatic, full or partial; they apply mostly to verbs, nouns and adjectives; they have different degrees of productivity; they are phonologically rather easy to describe. In addition to being pervasive, the morphological processes of reduplication in Cavineña are noteworthy for having several syntactic effects, an aspect of reduplication rarely discussed in general typological works on reduplication; these tend to focus on phonological and semantic characteristics. A particularly interesting syntactic function of reduplication in Cavineña is valence reduction with antipassive effect, which occurs when reduplication applies to transitive verbal roots.
Instituto Caro y Cuervo & Universidad Nacional de Colombia, 2013
In recent years, studies have been published which mention serial verb constructions (SVC) in sev... more In recent years, studies have been published which mention serial verb constructions (SVC) in several Amazonian languages, a feature that until then would be considered virtually absent from these languages. Interestingly enough, in many cases constructions analyzed as such correspond to what was traditionally analyzed as compound verb constructions (CVC) and is currently included in SVC typology with the terminology of “contiguous and incorporating” SVCs. Cavineña, a language from the Takanan family spoken in Bolivian Amazonia, has a paradigm of motion morphemes that attach to verbal roots and express meanings such as ‘go and do’, ‘come and do’, ‘do going’, ‘do coming back’, ‘do several times going’, ‘do several times coming back’, ‘do and go’, etc. In certain cases, these morphemes—which I classified as suffixes in previous publications —correspond formally and semantically to independent motion verbs— a fact that would allow us to characterize such a construction as “contiguous and incorporating” SVCs. This paper discusses the appropriateness of this characterization from a theoretical standpoint (Is it suitable to speak of SVCs when the items form a single phonological word?) and an analytical standpoint (Is it suitable to speak of verbs when the equivalence between the morphemes and autonomous verbs is imperfect?). The conclusion is that our initial characterization of Cavineña associate motion morphemes is definitely more suitable than any SVC or CVC analysis.
John Benjamins, 2013
This paper deals with the diachrony of the associated motion (AM) category in the Tacanan languag... more This paper deals with the diachrony of the associated motion (AM) category in the Tacanan languages of the Amazonian lowlands of Bolivia and Peru. The category of AM consists of grammatical markers that attach to non-motion verbs and specify that the verb action (V) occurs against the background of a motion event (e.g., ‘go and V’, ‘V while going’, etc.). The AM systems of Tacanan languages are noteworthy for their remarkably high degree of complexity, reaching levels rarely found in languages of other parts of the word. This raises several questions, one of which is how they evolved historically. In this paper, I gather for the first time the information available on the AM systems of the five Tacanan languages (Araona, Cavineña, Ese Ejja, Reyesano and Tacana) and attempt to reconstruct their past. I first argue that between one and four AM markers can be reconstructed in Proto-Tacanan. Secondly, I argue that several AM markers that are not reconstructible have developed recently out of independent verbs of motion and I make the hypothesis that these have been directly copied into already well established AM paradigms.
De Gruyter, 2012
This paper consists of a detailed analysis of two verbal suffixes with passive meanings in Cavine... more This paper consists of a detailed analysis of two verbal suffixes with passive meanings in Cavineña, an ergative language from the Tacanan family spoken in Amazonian Lowland Bolivia. The distinction between the two markers, -ta and -tana, is a very slim one. In earlier work (Guillaume 2004, 2008), I treated them as two free variants of the same morpheme. This paper is a major revision of this initial analysis. By looking more closely at their respective semantics, distribution and use, I show that they differ in terms of productivity and ability to express or not anticausative semantics, and I claim that -ta and -tana are distinct morphemes. The observations I make lead me to propose several historical scenarios for the evolution of the two markers.
John Benjamins, 2011
Tail-head linkage is a discourse pattern which consists in repeating, at the beginning of a new s... more Tail-head linkage is a discourse pattern which consists in repeating, at the beginning of a new sentence, the main verb of the preceding sentence for discourse cohesion. This pattern, which is rarely discussed in general typological work, is widespread in certain areas of the globe, in particular Papua New Guinea. In this paper, I report a case of tail-head linkage in Cavineña, an Amazonian language spoken in the northern lowlands of Bolivia, in which it is manifested by way of three subordinate clause types: two temporal adverbial clauses and a relative clause used adverbially. I also show how the switch-reference system that is associated with certain of these clauses participates in the tail-head linkage system for participant coherence between sentences.
International Journal of American Linguistics, 2011
This paper is an introduction to a special issue of IJAL on argument-encoding systems of the litt... more This paper is an introduction to a special issue of IJAL on argument-encoding systems of the little-known languages of Bolivian Amazonia, a region extremely rich linguistically. After providing some information on the sociolinguistic settings and the history of linguistic research in this area, we focus on the domain of argument-encoding systems in those languages and show how very diverse types of systems are found in languages spoken in very close proximity, including hierarchical/inverse cross-referencing systems, ergative systems, and split-intransitive systems. We also point to a number of typologically and theoretically interesting phenomena found in these languages, such as fluid transitivity, double-object ditransitive constructions, and rare valency-changing derivations such as multiple applicatives and sociative causatives.
International Journal of American Linguistics, 2011
The five Tacanan languages (Amazonian Bolivia and Peru), Araona, Cavineña, Ese Ejja, Reyesano and... more The five Tacanan languages (Amazonian Bolivia and Peru), Araona, Cavineña, Ese Ejja, Reyesano and Tacana, have a conspicuously similar verbal suffix -ta (or -ka in one dialect of Ese Ejja). Depending on the language and the transitivity of the verb stem it attaches to, this suffix is alternatively used to refer to a third person plural S argument or a third person singular or plural A argument, or to mark a passive derivation. In this paper, I argue that the suffixes are all historically related, and that they all come from a single source, a third person plural suffix * -ta. I also suggest that this marker could have originated in a third person plural independent pronoun that I reconstruct as **tuna.
John Benjamins, 2010
This paper is an investigation of morphological and syntactic ergativity in Cavineña (Tacanan, Bo... more This paper is an investigation of morphological and syntactic ergativity in Cavineña (Tacanan, Bolivia). Cavineña has a straightforward and consistent ergative/absolutive case-marking system, but unlike other Tacanan languages, Cavineña also has a system of pronominal enclitics in second position in the clause. This system displays a number of intricacies which led previous studies to analyze Cavineña as a person-based split-ergative language. However, it is shown here that the so-called “ergative split” has a morphophonological basis rather than a morphosyntactic one. The second part of the paper searches for ergativity at the level of complex sentences by looking at coreference restrictions between a main clause and a number of dependent clause types. However, none of the coreference constraints investigated work ergatively, but rather according to an S/A pivot or without being sensitive to the grammatical function of the arguments.
ENS Editions, 2010
Sociative causation is a particular type of causation, where the causer not only makes the causee... more Sociative causation is a particular type of causation, where the causer not only makes the causee do an action, but also participates in it. In the typological literature, sociative causation is typically presented as a possible reading of a regular causative construction and rarely as a specific type. In the present paper, based on a preliminary survey of this category in the languages of the world, we first show that specific sociative causative markers are very frequent in South American languages. This leads us to put forward the hypothesis that a specific marker for sociative causation could be an areal feature of this part of the world. A second major finding of our study is that, in addition to being expressed by specific sociative or regular causative markers, the semantics of sociative causation is frequently manifested by applicative morphemes. This suggests an alternative historical origin for the development of the well-known phenomenon of causative / applicative syncretism: while the evolution from causative to applicative is usually postulated in the literature, our data seem to indicate that the evolution path could just as well be from applicative to causative.
Faits de Langues, 2010
Language documentation is a complex task that implies several phases, from the collection of the ... more Language documentation is a complex task that implies several phases, from the collection of the data in the field to their archiving, through the different stages of transcription, annotation and formatting. The data collection phase, in particular when it is done with speakers of endangered languages, can be one of the most complicated and unpredictable part of a documentation project, due to the fact that in these situations, typically, there is a very small number of speakers, that these speakers are old and fragile, they have unexpected and ambivalent attitudes toward their language, and that their mastery of the language is imperfect. In this article, I relate my field experience with the last speakers of Reyesano, a moribund language from Amazonian Bolivia, in a documentation project funded by the Hans Rausing Endangered Languages Documentation Programme from SOAS at the University of London. I present the Reyesano community through its last speakers and I show that the taking into account of the great variability that exists among them is a crucial factor in the success of the project.
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Papers by Antoine Guillaume