On the relations between possession, location and existence in Apurinã (Arawak)

• Main Author: Freitas, Marília Fernanda Pereira de
• Publication Date: 2019
• Other Authors: Facundes, Sidney da Silva
• Format: Article
• Language: por
• Source: Moara (Online)
• Download full: https://periodicos.ufpa.br/index.php/moara/article/view/6803

In the Apurinã language (Arawak), spoken along several tributaries of the Purus river, southeastern Amazonas State, Brazil, notions of possession, location and existence can be expressed by the same verbal form. In certain varieties of the language, the locative suffix may also express ownership in nominal constructions. This characteristic of the Apurinã language,however, is not an isolated case, since, in different languages, the linguistic codification of possession is related to location and existence (see HEINE, 1997, 2001; BARON and HERSLUND, 2001; STASSEN, 2009, among others). In this paper, we will try to show the conceptual and grammatical relationships between these three concepts in Apurinã, focusing onthe verbal form awa, by means of which it is possible to determine synchronically that the possession had as source domain its existence in verbal constructions, given the occurrence of Event Schemas (Heine, 1997 and 2001) that reveal grammaticalization processes operating inthe language.