The Grammar of Body-Part Expressions: A View from the Americas

This volume explores the grammatical properties of body-part expressions across a range of languages and language families in the Americas, including Arawakan, Eastern Tukano, Mataguayan, Panoan, and Takanan. Expressions denoting parts of the body often exhibit specific grammatical properties that are intrinsically related to their semantics, and frequently appear in dedicated constructions, many of which are found exclusively in association with these expressions.

Following a detailed introduction and discussion of the foundations of body-part grammar, the chapters in the first part of the book investigate categorialization, lexicalization, and the semantic processes associated with body-part expressions. In the second part of the book, contributors investigate specific grammatical properties of body-part expressions, such as inalienability, incorporation, possessive constructions, prefixation, topicality, and word-formation strategies. The volume draws on data from lesser-known languages that are often under-represented in comparative work, and makes a significant contribution not only to the linguistics of the Americas and the typology of body-part expressions, but also to typological studies more broadly, and to historical, comparative, and anthropological linguistics.

Roberto Zariquiey, Associate Professor, Pontificia Universidad Católica del Perú, Pilar M. Valenzuela, Professor, Chapman University

Roberto Zariquiey is Associate Professor at the Pontificia Universidad Católica del Perú. He also holds affiliated positions at the University of Zurich, the Max Planck Institute for the Science of Human History, and the National Geographic Society. His PhD thesis, a reference grammar of Kakataibo,
was published by De Gruyter in 2018, and his work has been published in multiple journals and edited volumes in Spanish and English. He is currently coordinating a language revitalization program for the Iskonawa people.

Pilar M. Valenzuela is Professor at Chapman University in Southern California, having previously held a fellowship at the Max Planck Institute for Evolutionary Anthropology in Leipzig. Her dissertation on transitivity in Shipibo-Konibo grammar received the Mary R. Haas book award in 2003. Alongside
her academic research, she maintains close collaboration with Indigenous communities and has produced works for the Intercultural Bilingual Education model.