David W. Fleck

Reported Speech in Matses: Perspective Persistence and Evidential Narratives

In Matses reported speech, the personal, spatial, and temporal indexicals of the reported speech act must be maintained from the point of view of the original speaker, thus resembling a strict form of direct speech. However, substantial paraphrasing, extraction, reconfiguration, and de re construals are permitted, which are features more typically associated with indirect speech. We give a detailed account of this unique reported speech system, its relationship to the evidential system, and the broader implications for theories of reported discourse. In relation to the evidential system, all past events learned through inference or speech must encode the point of view of an event’s detection, and in turn the context of the reporting of that event, the only exception being that community elders may make direct indexical reference to unobserved past events within a “Narrative Past” construction used exclusively for recounting oral history.

Body-part prefixes in Matses : derivation or noun incorporation?

Matses, a Panoan language spoken in Amazonian Peru and Brazil, has a set of 28 monosyllabic forms, representing mostly body parts, which are phonologically attached to the front of verbs, adjectives, and nouns. All Panoan languages seem to have a similar set of morphemes, and there is some controversy about whether these are prefixes or incorporated nouns. Here, this phenomenon is exemplified in detail for Matses, and I argue that while this process might have evolved from noun incorporation, synchronically it should be considered prefixation. This distinction is important for the synchronic interpretation of Matses prefixation as product of grammaticalization and for a comparative‐historical perspective of these Panoan forms. Among the characteristics of Matses prefixation that are not consistent with noun incorporation is an applicative‐like function, where the prefix allows into the clause an extra constituent that is in a Figure–Ground relation with absolutive arguments.

Coreferential Fourth‐Person Pronouns in Matses

Matses, a Panoan language spoken in Amazonian Peru and Brazil, has two fourth‐person (= “interclausal third‐person coreferential”) pronouns, an ergative one (ambi ) and an absolutive one (abi ), that are used in subordinate clauses to indicate coreference with an argument in a higher clause. These fourth‐person pronouns are typologically exceptional in that they do not also code possession or intraclausal coreference, do not play a role in indirect speech, and coreference is not restricted to matrix subjects. The interaction of argument structure and intra- and interclausal morphosyntax creates a complex but systematic set of rules governing the fourth person as opposed to the simple third person. The functions of the fourth person in Matses are explored in depth, particularly with respect to how they have motivated and shaped the evident diachronic development of the fourth‐person forms from simple third‐person pronouns that have been replaced by zero‐anaphora.

Body-Part Prefixation in Kashibo-Kakataibo: Synchronic or Diachronic Derivation?1

Most Panoan languages have closed sets of about 30 monosyllabic forms that attach phonologically to the front of nouns, adjectives, and verbs. These forms, mainly designating body-part notions and semantic extensions of these, appear at first glance to be synchronically derived from polysyllabic body-part noun roots. This paper offers the first detailed study of the phonological, morphological, syntactic, and semantic properties of prefixation in Kashibo-Kakataibo. In contrast to other authors’ analyses of Panoan prefixes, we present evidence to show that prefixes in Kashibo-Kakataibo are synchronically independent morphemes, rather than allomorphs of body-part nouns. Subsequently, we present the diachronic scenarios that can account for the perplexing formal and semantic similarities between body-part prefixes and body-part nouns in Kashibo-Kakataibo

Productivity and Lexicalization in Shipibo Body-Part Prefixation

Shipibo, a Panoan language spoken in Amazonian Peru, has a set of 31 monosyllabic forms, representing mostly body parts, which are phonologically attached to the front of verbs, adjectives and nouns. For most of these morphemes, noun roots designating body parts exist which are semantically similar and whose initial segments are the same. Consequently, previous scholars have analyzed these prefixed forms as allomorphs of or otherwise synchronically derived from the noun roots. The present paper will present evidence demonstrating that Shipibo-Konibo body-part morphemes are independent prefixes and best analyzed as not being synchronically derived from body-part nouns. Furthermore, although body-part prefixation is quite productive in Shipibo, many lexicalized prefixed stems exist, which have undergone semantic and/or phonological changes. Therefore, a second goal of this paper is to provide a more accurate description of the grammar of Shipibo prefixation by identifying lexicalized stems and treating them separately.