Meronymy and (in)alienability in Apurinã

Abstract

This paper discusses the phenomenon of meronymy in the Apurinã This paper discusses the phenomenon of meronymy in the Apurinã indigenous language (Arawak family), which corresponds to the processes involved in the expression of part/whole relationships (CRUSE, 2011). There are few descriptive linguistic works that address this issue in indigenous languages (KLEIN, 2000). In Apurinã, meronyms show specific morphosyntactic behavior, depending on the class of nouns to which they belong. Most meronyms in Apurinã are encoded in the form of inalienable nouns, which have different morphological marking patterns from those of alienable nouns, although there are cases of meronyms encoded as alienable, for example, certain parts of plants such as kawy-ry (pupunha- N.POSSD) ‘pupunha’ / ny-kawy-re (1SG-pupunha (fruit)-POSSD) ‘my pupunha’. Among the inalienable nouns, we have, on one hand, the meronyms related to parts of the body (including concepts metaphorically related to the body, and some abstract concepts), such as kanuke-txi (arm.of-N.POSSD) ‘arm (of somebody)’/ py-kanuke (2SG-arm.of) ‘your arm’, which receives the suffix -txi; and, on the other hand, we have the kinship terms, which do not receive this suffix, due to the impossibility of occurring non-possessed, as in nh-ithary (1SG-brother.of) ‘my brother’ / * ithary-txi (brother). Thus, the macro semantic domain of meronyms in Apurinã is organized in a complex (but systematic) way, and is a subject marked by a lack of studies in the context of indigenous languages.