Edited by Roberto Zariquiey, Masayoshi Shibatani and David W. Fleck
Recent scholarship has confirmed earlier observations that nominalization plays a crucial role in the formation of complex constructions in the world’s languages. Grammatical nominalizations are one of the most salient and widespread features of languages of the Americas, yet they have not been… read more
Nominalization is ubiquitous in the Matses language. Many functions that are performed by relative and adverbial clauses in other languages are accomplished by nominalization in Matses. Verbs are nominalized by attaching one of 27 different suffixes to the verb stem in place of inflectional… read more
The present paper describes the ergative alignment patterns in the extant languages of the Mayoruna branch: Matses, Matis, Kulina, Dëmushbo, and Chankuëshbo/Korubo. The patterns that emerge from the present comparative study suggest that the Mayoruna languages, particularly Matses, are in the… read more
In this paper I analyze ergative patterns and the antipassive construction in Matses, a Panoan language spoken in western Amazonia. The Matses antipassive appears initially to be fairly typical, but is unique in that, in addition to the cross-linguistically typical indefinite Patient reading, it… read more
