From classifiers to applicatives in Mojeño Trinitario: A new source for applicative markers

Abstract

Abstract Well attested diachronic sources for applicative markers are adpositions and verbs. Nominal sources are regarded as dubious, although nouns have been argued to have developed into applicatives in some languages (such as Murrinhpatha, in Nordlinger (this issue). In this paper, I argue for a previously unreported source for applicatives, by presenting the possible applicative function of the classifiers of Mojeño Trinitario (Arawak, Bolivia), based on a large corpus of texts collected in the field. While classifiers within verbs derive prototypical applicative constructions, they show unusual properties as applicatives, namely in their semantics. The applicative markers are selected according to the physical properties of the referent of the applied object, rather than its semantic role within the sentence. And although most of the classifiers show no similarity to free nominal lexemes in the present state of the language, the classifiers found in Mojeño Trinitario verbs are very likely derived historically from nominal incorporation, a typical path of development. Mojeño Trinitario data offer new evidence for the possibility of elements derived from nouns to be reanalyzed as morphological applicative markers.