Body parts in Toba: from the biological to the emotional domain

Abstract

This chapter examines different patterns of lexicalization of body-part terms and their use in the linguistic expression of emotions in Toba/Qom¹ (Guaycuruan), a language of the Gran Chaco region in South America. Terms referring to both external (visible) and internal (not visible) body parts in Toba/Qom occur in idiomatic expressions which denote attributes, states, and human behavior related to emotions and cognition. These expressions, which belong to the lexical inventory of the language, show rather fixed and regular syntactic patterns, including transitive, intransitive, descriptive, and existential predicates. All cases consist of figurative expressions in which the condition or the literal behavior of the body part suggests a condition or figurative behavior of the person. Some of these expressions coexist in their extended version with their reduced internal structure, so that both are available at the same time for speakers. This kind of word formation is a dynamic process that allows the enriching of the available resources for a particular semantic field, such as emotions.