A mixed system of agreement in the suffix classes of Lealao Chinantec

Enrique L. Palancar (1)

1 SeDyL - Structure et Dynamique des Langues

In Lealao Chinantec, an Oto-Manguean language of Mexico, verbs receive a set of suffixes which index person and number of the subject. There are various sets of such affixes producing the sort of allomorphy that is typical of inflectional classes. In this paper, I study the distribution of such suffixes in a large sample of verbs from Rupp and Rupp's (1996) dictionary and show that the allomorphy is largely morphosyntactically motivated for a group of verbs that have two paradigms, animate and inanimate. For many other verbs this morphosyntactic mapping fails and the allomorphy we observe is essentially morphological in nature. This allomorphy reflects the interaction of what I treat as two competing systems of agreement. One such system is a more canonical agreement system based on subject (S/A), the other is based on animacy agreement with the absolutive argument (S/O) (also found in other Chinantecan languages). These two systems and the way they talk to each other has important consequences for the morphology-syntax interface of Lealao Chinantec.

Mots clés: Chinantec; Oto-Manguean; inflectional classes; animacy; agreement

Domaines: Linguistique

Enrique L. Palancar. A mixed system of agreement in the suffix classes of Lealao Chinantec. Geomorphology, 2014, pp.01. ⟨10.1007/s11525-014-9252-x⟩. ⟨hal-01099325⟩