How historical data complement fieldwork: new diachronic perspectives on Zamucoan verb inflection

Ciucci, Luca

Abstract

This article shows how the unearthing of new historical data on a language can contribute to diachronic studies and language reconstruction. †Old Zamuco is an extinct Zamucoan language, for which the only extant dictionary was recently rediscovered. This dictionary is the main source on the language and is very rich in morphological information. In particular, it contains many new verb paradigms with previously undescribed or only conjectured characteristics. These features were analyzed in order to compare them with the present-day Zamucoan languages, Ayoreo and Chamacoco. This gave us the opportunity to formulate hypotheses on the historical development of Zamucoan verb morphology and to improve the already available reconstruction of Proto-Zamucoan verb inflection.

Journal

Studia linguistica

Publication Name

Studia Linguistica

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ISBN/ISSN

1467-9582

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Wiley

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DOI

10.1111/stul.12157