The Interaction of Reduplication with Word Classes and Transitivity in Cavineña

Résumé En

This paper discusses the reduplication processes that are at work in Cavineña, a Tacanan language from Amazonian Bolivia. This language presents a wide range of different reduplication processes which have the following main characteristics: they can be simple or automatic, full or partial; they apply mostly to verbs, nouns and adjectives; they have different degrees of productivity; they are phonologically rather easy to describe. In addition to being pervasive, the morphological processes of reduplication in Cavineña are noteworthy for having several syntactic effects, an aspect of reduplication rarely discussed in general typological works on reduplication; these tend to focus on phonological and semantic characteristics. A particularly interesting syntactic function of reduplication in Cavineña is valence reduction with antipassive effect, which occurs when reduplication applies to transitive verbal roots.