Local referentiality in explanatory speech in quechua as spoken in Jujuy

Abstract

In 2017, ten oral Quechua discourses spoken in Jujuy, Argentina, were collected in Lagunillas del Farallón. Four explanatory texts were selected for the study of the local referential system. The objectives are: (a) to identify the expressions used for referential anchoring; (b) to analyze the degrees of individuation of these expressions; and (c) to describe the mechanisms of referential tracking. The theoretical and methodological framework draws on the works on referentiality by Lehmann (2018) and Comrie (1994, 1998).

Among the results, it was found that, for referential anchoring, the most frequently used expressions are common nouns without determiners, such as atuq ‘fox’, allqus ‘dogs’, etc. Nominal phrases with a head and possessive determiner are also used, for example, llamainiyki ‘your llamas’, qallunchik ‘our language’, mamay ‘my mother’, among others. According to the degree of individuation, Quechua speakers tend to operate with concrete referents—specific and unique ones. For referential tracking, at the level of the simple clause, the reflexive suffix -ku is used. At the interclausal level, dependent clauses with the suffix -paq and the nominalizer -na, as well as those with the suffix -spa, are identified; these operate in relation to a control clause.