Aymara Inflection
Jan 19, 2016·
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1 min read
Matt Coler
Abstract
This contribution describes nominal and verbal inflection in Aymara, an isolate SOV language with a modifier-head word order spoken mainly in Peru and Bolivia. Given its highly agglutinative nature and rich morphology, Aymara provides an interesting perspective from which to study inflection. In this language inflection is suffixal (with the exception of accusative declension, which is typically subtractive). Nominal inflection involves the possessive paradigm, the plural, and suffixes which mark location and case declension. Verbal inflection involves four person/tense paradigms (simple, future, proximal past, and distal past), the plural and mood and modality. This last category includes two counterfactual paradigms, an imperative paradigm, and two evidential suffixes. This chapter provides a concise overview of those suffixes, their interaction, and some remarks on relevant inter-variant differences.
Type
Publication
The Oxford Handbook of Inflection
This chapter, published in the prestigious Oxford Handbook of Inflection, provides a comprehensive overview of the inflectional system of Aymara, drawing on my extensive fieldwork with speakers of this indigenous language in Peru and Bolivia.
The chapter details how Aymara’s highly agglutinative nature and rich morphology create a complex inflectional system. I analyze both nominal inflection (including possessive paradigms, plural marking, and case declension) and verbal inflection (covering tense, person, mood, and evidentiality).
This contribution represents a significant addition to the documentation of Aymara linguistics and serves as a reference for typologists and morphologists studying inflectional systems cross-linguistically.
