Origen y desarrollo del sistema evidencial del mapudungun

Abstract

In Mapudungun, evidentiality is expressed by two elements: the reportative marker piam and the morpheme -rke. The latter has three meanings: inferential, reportative and mirative. Thus, reportativity can be expressed by both mechanisms, constituting a system with two forms to cover the same functional-communicative domain. Considering the above, the present work proposes a reconstruction of the evolution of Mapudungun evidential system, taking into account both typological and diachronic evidences as of the Mapudungun currently spoken with the purpose of accounting for the grammaticalization trajectory that the system has followed. From a review of the main grammars of the Mapudungun since the colonial period and various elicitation sessions with speakers of current Mapudungun, the development of the language's evidential system is reconstructed. Our hypothesis claims that the marker piam arises from the form pi-am, where pi- is
the verbal root ‘to say’ and -am corresponds to an impersonal suffix registered in use until the grammar of Havestadt [1777] (1883). Along with the above, it is proposed that the evidential suffix -rke arises from reké that can function as an adverb with the meaning of ‘really/truly’ and as anecuative/similative postposition. From reké, the original meaning of -rke would have been inferential and, from there, it would have expanded to the expression of reportative evidentiality and mirativity, generating, then, the semantic-functional overlap with the marker piam. Among the main conclusions we note, on the one hand, that this study is useful for areal and contact analysis, and on the other, that the use of diachronic and typological evidence and the currently spoken Mapudungun allows us to reliably account for the processes of grammaticalization.