What do body part terms tell us in Baure and Paunaka,
two Arawakan languages of Bolivia
Lena Terhart & Swintha Danielsen
University of Leipzig
Body parts in Baure and Paunaka
• Comparison and contrast of body parts in two related languages of
the Southern Arawakan branch, if possible also with ProtoArawakan
• Grammatical behaviour (possession, compounding)
• Inventory: simplex vs. complex lexemes
• Semantics and semantic extensions (briefly)
• Conclusions
2
Languages: Baure and Paunaka - Arawakan
3
• Baure (grammatical description Danielsen
2007, documentation project 2008-2014),
seriously endangered with 10 speakers and a
few semi-speakers
• Paunaka (grammar sketch Danielsen & Terhart
2014, documentation project 2011-2014),
seriously endangered with 10 speakers
• Both languages: Southern Arawakan branch (cf.
Aikhenvald 1999)
• Proto-Arawakan Payne 1991
4
graphemes:
Baure v =
Paunaka b;
ch [t], ÿ [ɨ]
Baure vs. Paunaka in general
• Baure official language status in Bolivia, Paunaka not.
• Paunaka has a general verbal distinction between realis and
irrealis (also nominal irrealis); Baure has lost this distinction from
first documentation (18th century) until today (partly preserved in
Joaquiniano dialect of Baure)
• Person markers for subject and possessor marking are similar for
SAPs, but different in 3rd person
Baure
Baure SG
Baure PL
Paunaka
Paunaka SG
Paunaka PL
1
ni=
vi=
1
nÿ-
bi-
2
pi=
yi=
2
pi-
e-
3M
ro=
no=
3>3, poss.
chÿ-
chÿ- -nube/-jane (non-human)
3F
ri=
3
ti-
ti- -nube/-jane (non-human)
Table 1
Baure and Paunaka body parts
• Vocabulary for body part terms were collected for posters
during and after documentation projects (our current
analysis is updated with data from 2015/2016)
5
Baure and Paunaka body parts
• In our collection of body parts we never attempted to do lexical
typology nor semantic analysis, nor part-whole relationships
(similar to Enfield et al. 2006); so any conclusions on this are
rather tentative and can, due to the state of the languages, also
not be improved much supposedly
• So, in our presentation here, we focus on form and function
• We compare the body part terms we have collected, are they
cognates? Do we find similar naming patterns? (derivation,
compounding)
• We take a look at the (extended) use of body parts: compounding,
incorporation, metonymy/metaphor
6
Body parts in grammar: possession
7
• Arawakan languages usually encode all body parts as inalienably
possessed, i.e. with an obligatory prefix* position to be filled with
reference to possessor; this also includes the word for body
Baure
(1) ri=noki
Paunaka
(2) ni=’a’
(3) chi-nÿkÿ
(4) ni-pÿi
3SG.F=mouth
1SG=body
3-mouth
1SG-body
‘her mouth’
‘my body’
‘his/her mouth’
‘my body’
*in Baure, they were analyzed as clitics
Body parts in grammar: possession
• Free forms of inalienably possessed nouns are usually derived:
• Baure e- or –ko for forms apart from possessor (generally with
metonyimical/metaphorical extension)
(5)
Baure ekis ‘eyes’, wojisok ‘painted hand’
• This derivation is more common for either animal body parts
(after having been slaughtered) or plant parts.
• Paunaka has remnants of both e- (only lexicalized) and –ti for
deriving free forms, but not common for body parts (very few
examples)
• Plant parts in Paunaka are formed with 3rd person possessor as
default.
8
9
Body parts in grammar: possession
• Some body-related terms are free forms, i.e. in their simple
underived form they are unpossessed, like
(6)
Baure/Paunaka iti ‘blood’, Baure nop ‘bone’, Baure nesh ‘meat’
• To mark possession on generally unpossessed nouns, a possessive
suffix is attached: Baure –no*, Paunaka –ne
(7)
Baure nitin / Paunaka nitine ‘my blood’
• In Paunaka, there are a number of body parts with lexicalized –ne
‘POSS’ and no related free form, such as -chapakane ‘cheek’.
*Baure
final –o is
regularly
deleted
Body parts in grammar: possession
• Possession can also be expressed in phrases, like English “the X of the Y”, not
common among body parts
• In Baure it shows double person marking, each referring to the person as the
possessor:
(8) to
ri=wojis
to
ri=poiy
ART 3SG.F=hand ART 3SG.F=foot
‘her toe(s) (lit. her hand/finger of her foot)’
• In Paunaka, the first noun is 3rd person possessor by default (thus referring to
the body part as the possessor):
(9) chi-jepene n-ibu
3-breast 1SG-foot
‘the ball of my foot? (lit. the breast of my foot)’
10
Body parts in grammar: possession, summary
11
• Baure and Paunaka make use of the same strategies largely for marking
possession and deriving free or possessed forms; in Paunaka, the derivation of
free forms for body parts is not common
• The two languages are possibly similar in which forms are possessed (most)
and unpossessed as a basic form (few); however, we do not have words for all
parts due to state of the language
• In Baure, possession is generally related to a person (or animal), but not
found with the body - like ‘the body possesses an arm’ (cf. Enfield et al.
2006), in Paunaka, this occurs marginally in phrases of parts of body parts
• In Baure, a number of inner organs (lungs, heart, liver, intestines) seem to
have been unpossessed as their basic form – speakers mostly know these body
parts from slaughtered animals (cf. Enfield et al. 2006: 142); in Paunaka, e.g.
the word (-)kuepia ‘kidney’ can be possessed or unpossessed
12
graphemes:
j [h]; ÿ [ɨ]
Baure v =
Paunaka b;
ch [t]
Baure vs. Paunaka lexicon
• Baure and Paunaka are lexically similar; this also holds for body parts:
English
Baure
Paunaka
Notes
Proto-Arawakan
mouth
-noki
-nÿkÿ
poss. both with CLF -ki/-kÿ ‘bounded *numa
object, container, inside’
blood
iti
iti
both generally unposs.
nail
-tip
-sipu
neck
-pij
-piÿnÿ
bosom
-shon
-chene (chest)
*tenɨ
ear
-chokon
-chuka
*kenphi[da],
*[da]keni[aku]
foot
-poiy
-(pe)ibu
*kɨhti[ba]
*[m]itha[na]
*huba, *seuta
both also have CLF –pi ‘long&thin’
*phi
Table 2
13
Baure vs. Paunaka lexicon
graphemes:
j [h]; ÿ [ɨ]
’ []
• Other basic body part terms differ substantially
English
Baure
Paunaka
Proto-Arawakan
body
-’a’
-pÿi
*kakin[thɨ] (‘person’)
head
-po’e
-chÿti
*kiwɨ, *du[thi] (‘forehead’)
face
-imir
-bÿke
*[l]ukɨ/e (face)
eyes
-kis
-kebÿke
*[l]ukɨ/e
arm
-powoki
-sika
*dana(pha), *wahku (‘arm, hand, shoulder’)
leg
-pes
-jabu
*kawa
belly
-jeki
-emua
*tiku (‘chest, abdomen’)
Table 3
Baure vs. Paunaka lexicon, summary
• Comparing simplex and complex forms in the lexicon of body
parts, we see different results
• Baure shows tentatively 52 simplex forms of 89 entries
(tentatively because complex forms are also lexicalized)
• Paunaka seems to have less originally simplex forms – 38 out of 81
• However, both Baure and Paunaka make use of compounding
14
Body parts and compounding
• Compounding can be viewed from the internal aspect of
compositionality: which of the body part terms are compounds?
• Perspectives: productive N1 and N2.
• Compounding is common in Baure (Admiraal & Danielsen 2014),
most commonly with generic N2 in compounds (either N or CLF) –
very productive for plant parts, animal body parts, plant and
animal types.
• In Paunaka, compounding is only very productive with body part
terms, N+CLF, but N+N in general is uncommon
15
Baure & Paunaka compounds 1: N1
16
• Same patterns to derive bones or hair of body parts, with different
lexical material:
category
Baure
Paunaka
translation
hair of body part
-sha(-)won
-jiyu-mama,
-jiyu-nÿkÿ,
-jiyu-bÿke
beard - chin
- mouth
- face
-sha-soki
-jiyu-taka
armpit hair
bone of body part
lips
-so-pakori
shin bone
-so-pes
thigh bone
-chomo-noki
-chupu-tÿi
hip bone
-chupu-siÿ
shoulder blade
-chupu-piÿnÿ
neck bone
-chupu(-)kekÿ
spine
-chupea-bÿke
bone of eyebrow/eye area
-musu-nÿkÿ
both: skin-mouth
Table 4
Baure & Paunaka compounds 1: N2
• Some body parts also occur in N2 position more than once, see
Paunaka:
(10) -tÿi ‘anus’ > -chuputÿi ‘hips’,
-chubatÿi ‘bottom’,
-keyutÿi/-kesenetÿi ‘coccyx’
• In spite of being the most common compounding type in Baure,
this is not found much for name giving of body parts, except for
maybe (lexicalized) classifiers
17
Baure & Paunaka compounds 1: N2 = CLF
• Baure and Paunaka have a similar use of classifiers in N2 position:
Baure
Paunaka
(11)
-soro-pi
throat-CLF:long&thin
(12) -jikupu-pi
swollow-CLF:long&thin
‘esophagus’
(compare Proto-Arawakan *phi ‘throat’)
18
Body parts in grammar: Compounds 2
• Compounding can be viewed from the external aspect of
productivity: the body part itself enters into new compounds
• N2 head (body part) - for the derivation of e.g. animal body parts
• Only simplex N2 can enter into these compound constructions, like
e.g. Baure:
(13)
tiporek-esh
tiporek-po’e
tiporek-poiy
tiporek-pasiri
‘chicken meat (lit. chicken-flesh)’
‘chicken head’
‘chicken foot’
‘chicken beak (lit. chicken-nose)’
• In Paunaka, these types of compounds are not used productively
for animal body parts
19
Body parts in grammar: Compounds 2
• This compound type is also exactly where we find semantic (and
functional) extensión of body parts, like e.g. the use of body parts
for spatial reference (very common in Baure, cf. Admriaal 2016),
in Paunaka, this is not a productive and wide-spread compound
type, and semantic extension and reference to space is very
restricted, as in –bÿke ‘face’ in cardinal directions:
Paunaka
(14)
mane-bÿke,
morning-face
‘east’
kupei-bÿke
afternoon-face
‘west’
20
Baure & Paunaka compounds: Summary
• similar compounding and derivation patterns with partly different
lexical material (slightly more used in Paunaka, while Baure has
more simplex forms)
• external productivity of compounding only in Baure (compounding
of N+N outside body part terminology generally not very
productive in Paunaka)
21
Body parts in grammar: Incorporation
• Incorporation of body parts is particularly common in Baure and
Paunaka; however also classifiers and locative noun stems can be
incorporated productively.
• In incorporation, the bound noun builds a compound with the
verbal root, and it is in fact the case that only the same simplex
forms enter in incorporation.
Baure
(15)
Paunaka
ni=sipa-wjis-a-po
(16)
ti-kipu-kebe-bu
1SG=wash-hand-LK-RFLX
3-wash-tooth-RFLX
‘I wash my hands’
‘he washes his teeth’
22
Baure vs. Paunaka semantics – inner organs
• Discussion in Paunaka about the term ‘lungs’ whether it only
referred to animals/meat; remind Baure basic unpossessed forms
among vocabulary for inner organs, we suspect:
• Inner organs were not perceived as "belonging", but as parts of
edible game (cf. Enfield et al. 2006:142): "non-visual modes of
perception of many internal organs do not provide a sufficient
degree of precision in determining how many or what organs there
are. Most people only see illustrations of human internal organs or
see their analogues among the organs of butchered animals.“
• only later with modern medicine, these were included in the
knowledge of the human body
23
Baure vs. Paunaka semantics – inner organs
24
• Baure, the term –chokoki is used for ‘stomach, heart, feelings’
• The core meaning of Paunaka -kÿna is ‘heart’; it is also used to refer to the
human stomach and inside of the chest in general; the other words for
‘stomach’ are reserved for animal stomachs
• Compare in Punjabi kDDi, an inner organ that is "not perceptually accessible
in any way ([...] ‘organ in chest cavity deemed to be responsible for sickness’"
(Enfield et al. 2006:142)
• This means a semantic vagueness when comparing cognate forms of ProtoArawakan.
• And it can mean that even language-internally the words may occur with
different functions and meanings.
Baure vs. Paunaka semantics – hands & arms
• In lexical typology, the limits of body parts and the differentiation
of body parts are of interest
• Baure term –wojis refers to ‘hand’ or ‘finger(s)’, and can be
extended for ‘toe(s)’; in addition, there is a word for the palm of
a hand in Baure, which is also used for measuring (-waki, poss.,
more directly related to Proto-Arawakan)
• Paunaka derives the word for –kebuÿ ‘finger’ from –buÿ ‘hand’,
similarly –kebÿke ‘eyes’ from –bÿke ‘face’, -keibu ‘toe’ from -ibu
‘foot’
25
Baure vs. Paunaka semantics – hands & arms
English
Turkish
Rumanian Estonian
Japanese
Khalkha
Baure
Mongolian
Paunaka
Guarayu
arm
kol
brat
käsi(vars)
ude
gar
-powok
-sika
yɨva
hand
el
mina
käsi
te
-wojis
-buÿ
po
finger
parmak
deget
sõrm
yubi
-kebuÿ
kwä
-keibu
pɨ̈ sä
-jabu (upper leg,
u (upper leg)
varvas
toe
leg
huruu
bacak
picior
jalg
ashi
höl
-pes
26
leg in general)
foot
ayak
-poiy
-ukÿ
rëtɨma (lower leg,
(lower leg)
leg in general)
-ibu
pɨ
Table 5
Baure vs. Paunaka semantics - Summary
• lesser comparability of words and semantics for inner organs
• naming system for limbs complex with separate words for upper
and lower leg; while it seems to be common cross-linguistically to
have one term subsuming the English words for hand/arm;
foot/leg, one term for hand/finger as in Baure has not been
recorded as frequently
27
Baure vs. Paunaka: Semantic extensions
28
• Baure use of many body parts in metaphor/mytonymy/locative (Admriaal 2016) – transfield semantic shifts (KoptjevskajaTamm 2015), examples:
(17)
face:
-mir 'mask'; -imir 'in front of'
back:
-chipi 'roof, top, CLF:roof-like'
palm (not hand!):
-waki 'handful (for measuring)'; ewaki 'tree crutch'
leg:
-pes 'legs of furniture'
foot:
-poiy 'root of a tree‘
• Paunaka shows an interesting use of -bÿke in verbs (→ makes active verbs stative?) and ?adjectives, sometimes seems to
signify ‘eye’ and not ‘face’
(18)
-imubÿke ‘see well, have the capacity of seeing’ (stative, mostly negated, then means ‘be blind’)
-mumubÿkeu ‘face each other, be opposite’ (?)
-yÿsebÿkeu ‘ask’ (?)
-jichubibiabÿke ‘feel dizzy’ (stative)
-jabÿke ‘open eyes, look well’ (stative)
Conclusions
• In spite of the fact that Baure and Paunaka are structurally very
similar, this does not mean that the body part systems are too
similar:
• Some parts of the lexicon seem to be cognate forms, and these
are then also often cognates with Proto-Arawakan, but many other
terms are different (and unrelated to Proto-Arawakan).
• Possessive marking in general is similar, even though derivation fo
free forms may exist only in a lexicalized way (Paunaka).
• Striking difference: possessive phrase construction (body part as a
possessor or person?)
• Simplex forms can be incorporated, in Baure there are also many
semantic extensions and more grammaticalized uses of body parts.
29
Conclusions
• Compounding is similar in structure, but lexical material may
differ in form (often not in meaning).
• Compounding in detail is different:
• Baure productive N2 compounding externally, but rather few examples of N1
compounds in lexicon of body parts
• Paunaka does not make productive use of compounding apart from body
parts
• Semantics: different semantic distinctions are made in the two
related languages – so not only formally, but also semantically, the
body part system does not seem to be a stable conceptual system,
which makes it more a challenge to do diachronic analysis, e.g.
30
Thank you very much!
Asoropaiy! Chapie!
Lena Terhart & Swintha Danielsen
University of Leipzig
For
references
please see
handout.