Morphological syncretisms in anticausative and reflexive constructions in KadiweuABSTRACT
The present paper investigates the status of the d:- and n- morphemes in the Brazilian Indigenous Language Kadiwéu. While these morphemes are associated with different phenomena and have independent occurrences (Sandalo 1997, 2015), they do co-occur in reflexive and anticausative constructions. Current literature characterizes the n- morpheme as an antipassive marking whereas the d:- morpheme is shown whenever internal arguments occur in preverbal position. Basing the analysis in the theoretical framework of Distributed Morphology and in the transitive analysis of reflexives proposed in Alboiu, Barrie and Frigeni (2004), I approach each context of occurrence of the markings, with special emphasis to their co-occurrence in anticausative and reflexive constructions. Morpheme n- is then analyzed as comparable to Baker, Johnson and Roberts’ (1989) passive marking whereas the occurrence of morpheme d:- is shown to be the result of fission in the agreement node, triggered by the agreement with an absolutive case argument.
Key-words: Morphossyntax; Reflexivity; Transitivy; Kadiweu
