Chapter 11

Possessive semantic relations and construction types in Kukama-Kukamiria

This study examines the correlations between possessive semantic relations and construction types in Kukama-Kukamiria (Amazon of Peru). The language does not have lexical verbs such as ‘have’, ‘belong,’ or a copula to predicate ownership. Yet possession can be inferred from other constructions, including: a predicate nominal construction with two juxtaposed NPs in which the possessor is encoded in the first NP, and the possessed in the second NP; an existential construction in which the possessor and possessed elements are expressed within an NP; and a combination of the existential and locative construction in which the possessor is expressed in the locative phrase, and the possessed in the NP. Heine (1997) predicts that the equative schema will encode physical possession; the existence schema, permanent and inalienable possession; whereas the location schema, physical and temporary possession. An examination of a text corpus reveals that Heine’s predictions are partially confirmed. Importantly, the equative construction encodes permanent ownership, which suggests that this is the most conventionalized linguistic expression of possession in Kukama-Kukamiria.