Speaker: Bernat Bardagil-Mas (CLCG University of Groningen)
Title: Panará and the Case of Doubled Clitics
Venue: Huizinga – 7
Time: 15:15 – 16:30
Abstract
This talk aims to present some ideas on some seemingly polysynthetic properties of Panará, a Jê language spoken in the Brazilian Amazon. I will address the hypothesis that Panará is a configurational language that makes extensive use of clitic doubling, which can also account for the ergative marking of argument NPs. An adpositional approach to ergativity seems to make the right predictions regarding the structure of ergative subjects, and we will try to push this hypothesis to test its limits as far as we can with the available data. We will also explore the role that mood plays in the licensing of Panará nominals, and how it can be linked with the ergative-accusative alignment split of the weak pronominal clitics. Finally, I will sketch the challenges that my working hypothesis present, and future directions for fieldwork on the language.