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Event nominals in Mëbengokre and the theory of nominalizations

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  27 June 2016

Andrés Pablo Salanova
Andrés Pablo Salanova*
Affiliation:
University of Ottawa
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Abstract

This article explores event nominals in Mēbengokre, a Jê language spoken in the eastern Amazon region in Brazil. On the basis of data from this language, the article argues that event nouns are more basic than the verbs to which they are related, and develops an account of event nominals where a process of nominalization does not play a part. Though it is conceded that derivation from fully-fledged verbs to nouns and from non-eventive nouns to verbs generally exists in language, it is claimed that embedding of categories under other categories is a marked option that is only analytically justified when there is syntactic evidence of grammatical category mixing.

Résumé

Résumé

Ce travail examine les substantifs événementiels en Mēbengokre, une langue de la famille gé parlée dans l’est de la région amazonienne, au Brésil. Sur la base des données de cette langue, l’article soutient la proposition que les substantifs événementiels sont plus élémentaires que les verbes dont ils seraient des «nominalisations», et propose une théorie des substantifs événementiels où la nominalisation ne joue aucun rôle. Tout en acceptant, de façon générale, que la nominalisation (c’est-à-dire, la dérivation de substantifs à partir de verbes pleins) et la verbalisation (c’est-à-dire, la dérivation de verbes à partir de substantifs non-événementiels) existent dans le langage humain, je propose que l’enchâssement de catégories lexicales qui aurait lieu dans ces deux processus est une option marquée, qui ne se justifie du point de vue analytique qu’en présence d’évidences syntaxiques pour des catégories mixtes.

Keywords

Mēbengokre languagedeverbal nounsnominalizationslexical categorieslangue mêbengokre (gé, Amazonie brésilienne)noms déverbauxnominalisationsparties du discours
Type
Articles
Information
Canadian Journal of Linguistics/Revue canadienne de linguistique , Volume 58 , Issue 2: The syntax of relative clauses La syntaxe des propositions relatives , July 2013 , pp. 267 - 292
Copyright
Copyright © Canadian Linguistic Association 2013

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