On The Realization Of Nominal Possession In Mehinaku: A Diachronic Account1

The aim of this paper is to furnish a diachronic account of selected aspects of the morphophonology of nominal possession in Mehinaku, an Arawak language spoken in central Brazil. The phenomena explained here include the systematic occurrence of word-final main stress in Absolute and Genitive forms of nouns, the nasalization of stem-final vowels in a subclass of the Genitive forms, and some vowel quality changes in the paradigms of Inalienable nouns that have defied coherent treatment in comparative and historical Arawak studies. The particular developments postulated in this account are supported both by a consideration of the synchronic regularities holding in Mehinaku phonology and by comparative evidence on the development of the Central Branch of the Arawak family to which this language belongs.