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Argument Selectors: A new perspective on grammatical relations
Edited by Alena Witzlack-Makarevich and Balthasar Bickel
[Typological Studies in Language 123] 2019
► pp. 1–34

Grammatical relations in Kubeo

| University of Brasilia
| University of California, Santa Barbara

This paper describes a number of argument selectors for grammatical relations in Kubeo, an Eastern Tukanoan language spoken in the Vaupes River area in Northwestern Amazonia. The main selectors discussed in this paper are: verbal agreement, case marking, constituent ordering, causative, applicative, non-finite clauses, passive, noun incorporation and anaphoric constructions. The overwhelming grammatical pattern selects S, A, and Aditr for similar treatment in contrast to the remaining argument types; some constructions suggest a distinction between two types of S arguments, which we analyze as Sa versus Sp. The language presents the phenomenon of differential object marking, as well as analytical challenges related to non-canonical passivization and the way that animacy, referentiality and argument hierarchies correlate in the organization of grammatical relations.

Article outline
  • 1.Introduction
  • 2.Verb agreement
    • 2.1Finite verb agreement
      • 2.1.1Non-agreeing constructions
    • 2.2Imperatives and exhortatives
    • 2.3Agreement in nominalized clauses
  • 3.Case marking
    • 3.1Aditr, As and Sa
    • 3.2G, T and P
      • 3.2.1Non-canonical bivalent constructions and Sp case marking
    • 3.3Adjuncts with -re
    • 3.4Case-marking and non-finite clauses
  • 4.Constituent order
  • 5.Valence increasing operations
    • 5.1Causative constructions
    • 5.2Applicative constructions
  • 6.Valence-decreasing operations
    • 6.1Noun Incorporation
    • 6.2Passivization
      • 6.2.1Non-canonical passive constructions
  • 7.Resolution of anaphora
  • 8.Conclusion
  • Abbreviations
  • Notes
  • References
Published online: 5 March 2019
DOI logo
https://doi.org/10.1075/tsl.123.11cha
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2023. Lexically driven patterns of contact in alignment systems of languages of the northern Upper Amazon. Open Linguistics 9:1 DOI logo

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