From part terms to class terms: Grammaticalization of meronyms in noun classifiers in Yanomama
DOI:
https://doi.org/10.26512/rbla.v6i1.21061Keywords:
Noun classifiers. Body part terms. Whole-part constructions. Metaphor. Grammaticalization.Abstract
Terms for body parts are an important source of grammaticalization of noun classifiers
in Yanomama. This work will describe one of the paths that part terms have followed in
becoming a classifier. This path begins with a lexicogenic mechanism found in the language
that makes use of a whole-part construction, in a metaphorical sense, to name not parts of
entities, but whole entities. This construction is not formally distinguishable from a noun
with a classifier. In particular, the body part terms in these constructions occupy the same
morphosyntatic position reserved for noun classifier. This circumstance gave room for later
ressemantization processes of the meronyms that eventually allowed some of them to gain,
not only the morphosyntatic properties of a classifier, but also the semantic features of a
typical one.
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