Clauses as noun modifiers in Toba (Guaycuruan)

Abstract

This paper aims to identify, describe and explain the different coding devices of noun modifying clauses in a corpus of narrative texts in Toba. We expose noun complements and relative clauses together because, in some instances, they share the same subordinator morpheme. The subordinators found in the corpus are related to the demonstrative class and to a component morpheme of the third person free pronouns. They are of three types 1) maye; 2) ra [da], so, na, ye, ñi, ka; 3) ram, som, nam, yem, kam. The first is specific to relative clauses, but some members of the other two types may introduce relative clauses, noun and verbal complements. Despite the fact that the latter also introduce verbal complements, we will not treat them deeply in this morphosyntactic context.The three types of subordinators mark the boundary of the RelCl but they do not help distinguish the syntactic function of the head noun within the dependent clause. The syntactic function of the head noun within the RelCl is inferred by subtraction of the ?missing? argument in that clause.Pragmatic factors condition the use of the different subordinators to introduce RelCls. The relativizer maye introduces RelCls whose propositional content refers to an inherent property of the head noun referent or to information anaphorically retrievable. The DEM type subordinators introduces RelCls that provides new information relevant to the continuity or further development of the discourse, and the DEM-TOP type subordinators are used when the head noun is topicalized by a pronominal demonstrative, a non-promotional passive or is recurrent through the text.DEM type and DEM-TOP subordinators also introduce noun complements, i.e. clauses that modify a head noun non co-referent with an argument within the dependent clause. DEM type subordinators occur, in our corpus, in the following morphosyntactic contexts: ra introduce RelCls and noun and verbal complements, na and ʒe introduce RelCls and verbal complements; so only introduces RelCls, ka introduces verbal complements, and ñi only introduces noun and verbal complements. The DEM-TOP type subordinators are distributed as follows: ram, nam, yem and kam introduce RelCls, and som introduce RelCls and noun complements. All these DEM-TOP subordinators also introduce verbal complements, which are not described in this paper.