Términos de parentesco diádicos en cholón (noreste de los Andes peruanos)

Abstract

In this contribution the derivational morpheme -pulleŋ in Cholón, a nearly extinct language of the northeastern Peruvian Andes, is analyzed as creating what is called dyadic kin terms in the typological literature. Such morphemes derive kinship terms which denote the dyadic union of consanguineal or affinal kin—for instance, father and son, or husband and wife. This type of morpheme is common in Australia, but it is not frequently reported from the Americas, and there is little clear evidence so far for it in South America. This renders its attestation in Cholón not only of anthropological interest, as such terms normally reflect the social and reproductive life of the speakers of the respective languages, but also for areal linguistic typology. The article discusses the morphosyntactic properties and the semantic functions of the morpheme in question from descriptive, comparative and etymological points of view, taking into account elements with similar function in varieties of the neighboring Quechuan family and the typological situation. This shows that in all respects, the behavior of the morpheme -pulleŋ seems to display some unusual traits, in particular an obligatory third person possessor.

Keywords

• dyadic kinship terms
• Cholón
• colonial linguistics
• philology
• lexical typology