1. Suppletive kin term paradigms in the languages of New Guinea.
- Author
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Baerman, Matthew
- Subjects
- *
KINSHIP , *PARADIGMS (Social sciences) , *MODERN languages -- Inflection , *COMPARATIVE linguistics - Abstract
Kin terms in some languages have suppletive roots according to the person of the possessor, as in Kaluli na:la: 'my daughter', ga:la: 'your daughter' versus ida: 'her/his daughter'. Suppletion is generally seen as a language-specific morphological peculiarity, but in this context there are a number of lexical and morphological similarities across languages, suggesting the motivation may also lie in the nature of kin terms themselves. We offer a typological assessment of suppletive kin terms through a case study of the languages of New Guinea, where the phenomenon appears to be particularly common. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]
- Published
- 2014
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