Predicative possession in Nivacle

Abstract

In this paper, I identify and analyse fourteen predicative possession strategies employed by speakers of Nivacle, a Mataguayo language from the Paraguayan Chaco. It is intriguing that all of these strategies but three are in common use among the speakers. Because quantifiers and numbers surface as verbs in Nivacle, these can be used as possessive predicates, which appears to be another typological rarity. The paper also includes a brief overview of predicative possession in the other three languages of the Mataguayo family.

Keywords

• Línguas da América do Sul. Nivacle. Tipologia lingüística