Verbal art as heuristic for semantic analyses:How non-prosodic poetic structure in the verbal art of Muylaq’ Aymara (Muylaque, Peru)

International audienceAymara is an Amerindian language spoken mainly in Peru and Bolivia. To date, relatively little is documented about Aymara verbal art. Accordingly, we analyze a traditional song recorded in the Peruvian highlands. We provide a musical and linguistic analysis of the non-prosodic poetic song structure. We detail the octosyllabic, homeoteleutonic (that is, the final words in a line have the same endings) strategies for line formation, the melodic and rhythmic characteristics, and outline the syntactic, morphological, and semantic strategies used in forming semantic couplets. This reveals semantic categories which would not be apparent in a traditional linguistic analysis. Furthermore, the musical analysis confirms previous works on the misperception of a musical anacrusis. We conclude that rigorous, scientific analyses of verbal art require consideration of the construction of meaning through practice and dialogO Aimará é uma língua que é falada principalmente no Peru e na Bolívia. Até o momento, relativamente pouco foi documentado sobre a arte verbal aimará. Nesse sentido, analisamos uma canção tradicional gravada no altiplano peruano. Oferecemos uma análise musical e linguística da estrutura poética não prosódica da canção. Fornecemos detalhes sobre as figuras retóricas / literárias utilizadas para a produção / formação dos versos: a) o verso octossilábico, b) o homeoteleuton (este último é uma figura retórica que consiste na semelhança no final das palavras finais dos versos) e c) as características melódicas e rítmicas. Também delineamos as estratégias sintáticas, morfológicas e semânticas utilizadas/usadas/presentes na formação dos pares semânticos. Isto revela categorias semânticas que não seriam evidentes / não se manifestariam em uma análise linguística tradicional. Além disso, a análise musical confirma as observações de trabalhos anteriores sobre a percepção equivocada de uma anacruse musical. Concluímos que análises rigorosas e científicas da arte verbal requerem considerar a construção de significados por meio da prática e do diálogo

Vowel deletion in two Aymara varieties

Aymara vowels delete under predictable phonotactic, syntactic, and morphophonemic conditions. We provide a detailed description of each of these processes, with special attention to morphophonemic vowel deletion. In this process, specific suffixes trigger the deletion of the preceding vowel, with no obvious phonological or semantic conditioning. This is both the most common type of vowel deletion in Aymara, and the most unusual one in cross-linguistic terms. We compare vowel deletion in Contemporary Aymara (Coler 2014) and Historical Aymara as attested in the 17th century (e.g. Bertonio 1612a) and reveal that both varieties delete vowels as a result of processes arising from phonotactic and morphophonemic motivation, though some processes of syntactic vowel deletion were not widespread in the historical variety. Notably, while morphophonemic vowel deletion was attested in both Contemporary and Historical Aymara, the suffixes which are lexically pre-specified to delete the preceding vowel are often different in the two varieties. Further, Historical Aymara lacks accusative inflection marking with subtractive disfixation, which is an important and typologically unusual aspect of Contemporary Aymara nominal morphology. In light of the typological rarity of morphophonemic vowel deletion (and disfixation in particular), we expect this description to be of interest to typologists

Contemporary research in minoritized and diaspora languages of Europe

This volume provides a collection of research reports on multilingualism and language contact ranging from Romance, to Germanic, Greco and Slavic languages in situations of contact and diaspora. Most of the contributions are empirically-oriented studies presenting first-hand data based on original fieldwork, and a few focus directly on the methodological issues in such research. Owing to the multifaceted nature of contact and diaspora phenomena (e.g. the intrinsic transnational essence of contact and diaspora, and the associated interplay between majority and minoritized languages and multilingual practices in different contact settings, contact-induced language change, and issues relating to convergence) the disciplinary scope is broad, and includes ethnography, qualitative and quantitative sociolinguistics, formal linguistics, descriptive linguistics, contact linguistics, historical linguistics, and language acquisition. Case studies are drawn from Italo-Romance varieties in the Americas, Spanish-Nahuatl contact, Castellano Andino, Greko/Griko in Southern Italy, Yiddish in Anglophone communities, Frisian in the Netherlands, Wymysiöryś in Poland, Sorbian in Germany, and Pomeranian and Zeelandic Flemish in Brazil

Contemporary research in minoritized and diaspora languages of Europe

This volume provides a collection of research reports on multilingualism and language contact ranging from Romance, to Germanic, Greco and Slavic languages in situations of contact and diaspora. Most of the contributions are empirically-oriented studies presenting first-hand data based on original fieldwork, and a few focus directly on the methodological issues in such research. Owing to the multifaceted nature of contact and diaspora phenomena (e.g. the intrinsic transnational essence of contact and diaspora, and the associated interplay between majority and minoritized languages and multilingual practices in different contact settings, contact-induced language change, and issues relating to convergence) the disciplinary scope is broad, and includes ethnography, qualitative and quantitative sociolinguistics, formal linguistics, descriptive linguistics, contact linguistics, historical linguistics, and language acquisition. Case studies are drawn from Italo-Romance varieties in the Americas, Spanish-Nahuatl contact, Castellano Andino, Greko/Griko in Southern Italy, Yiddish in Anglophone communities, Frisian in the Netherlands, Wymysiöryś in Poland, Sorbian in Germany, and Pomeranian and Zeelandic Flemish in Brazil

Contemporary research in minoritized and diaspora languages of Europe

This volume provides a collection of research reports on multilingualism and language contact ranging from Romance, to Germanic, Greco and Slavic languages in situations of contact and diaspora. Most of the contributions are empirically-oriented studies presenting first-hand data based on original fieldwork, and a few focus directly on the methodological issues in such research. Owing to the multifaceted nature of contact and diaspora phenomena (e.g. the intrinsic transnational essence of contact and diaspora, and the associated interplay between majority and minoritized languages and multilingual practices in different contact settings, contact-induced language change, and issues relating to convergence) the disciplinary scope is broad, and includes ethnography, qualitative and quantitative sociolinguistics, formal linguistics, descriptive linguistics, contact linguistics, historical linguistics, and language acquisition. Case studies are drawn from Italo-Romance varieties in the Americas, Spanish-Nahuatl contact, Castellano Andino, Greko/Griko in Southern Italy, Yiddish in Anglophone communities, Frisian in the Netherlands, Wymysiöryś in Poland, Sorbian in Germany, and Pomeranian and Zeelandic Flemish in Brazil