Nominal possession in Apurinã (Arawak): some considerations

Abstract

Nouns in the Apurinã language (Arawak), which is spoken in southeastern Amazonas, Brazil, have been studied by multiple authors, and different classifications have been proposed (Facundes, 1995, 2000; Brandão, 2006; Facundes; Freitas, 2013). In this paper, we will revisit the different classifications for nouns in Apurinã, and present a new proposal by Freitas (2017), which classifies the nouns in the language as: (i) alienable, (ii) inalienable, and (iii) non-possessible nouns. Inalienability is defined not only in terms of morphological marking patterns, but also considering the ‘frequency of occurrence’ in possessive constructions and ‘economic motivation,’ as defined by Haspelmath (2008), following a typological approach. Inalienable nouns thus more frequently appear as possessed, being unmarked in possessive constructions, and therefore more economical, while alienable nouns more frequently occur as unpossessed, marked in possessive constructions by a set of suffixes, and therefore less economical.

Keywords
(In)alienability; Frequency of occurrence; Economic motivation; Apurinã; Arawak