Noun phrase and person marking in Chichimeco (Oto-manguean)

Abstract

The purpose of this paper is to present the grammatical properties of the noun phrase in Chichimec. In this language, nominal heads inflect for grammatical person and number; the inflection of person is encoded in the noun, and it indicates a relation between an object and a person in the discourse. The same inflection encodes possession. Five noun classes are proposed according to the different morpho-
phonological processes that occur in inflectional paradigms. Based on this, we propose that the language encodes noun phrases that are defined by default and that indefinite noun phrases are formed using different grammatical resources. With respect to modifiers, a reduced classifier system, an abundant number of quantifiers, and the deictic function of demonstratives are present. The language does not display any specific marker that encodes possession, which is expressed as part of the nominal inflection. Heads of noun phrases that function as grammatical relations or adjuncts may be modified by relative clauses. Finally, we also propose that property concepts are expressed by relative clauses.