root affix asymmetries

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Root/Affix asymmetries in contact and transfer:

Case studies from the Andes*

Pieter Muysken

Centre for Language Studies, Radboud University Nijmegen

Abstract

In this paper I want to explore the psycholinguistic processing issues, in terms of the type of

transfer that they exemplify, that we need to postulate to be hypothetically involved in the

emergence of two mixed languages and a mixed register with a Quechua structure: Media Lengua

(Ecuador) and Kallawaya (Bolivia), both relexified varieties within the Quechua language family,

and bilingual mixed songs in Peru, waynos. The two issues that require most attention are (a) the

mental status of roots versus affixes in the transfer process; (b) the possibility of manipulating

lexical access in transfer. The languages and the register share a number of structural features, but

are sociolinguistically totally different. In Media Lengua the lexicon comes from a new

language (Spanish), and in Kallawaya from an old language (Puquina). Media Lengua is an

informal community language, while Kallawaya a ritual healing language only used by male

adults. Waynosare a very popular musical genre in large parts of the southern Andes in Peru. The

root/suffix asymmetries in the mixed languages are confronted with the mirror phenomenon of

Spanish suffixes that occur in Quechua, to help us further understand the processing issues

involved.

Key words: Quechua, Spanish, Puquina, language mixing, Media Lengua, Kallawaya

*I am grateful for the detailed comments from a reviewer for the journal and from the editors.


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1. Introduction

In the large area in the South American Andes where members of the Quechua language family

are spoken, several interesting contact varieties have emerged. In the north, these comprise

varieties of Media Lengua in Ecuador, where Spanish roots are inserted into Quechua morpho-

syntactic and lexical frames. In the center, particularly in southern Peru, intense mixing is

apparent in a specific register, the bilingual songs named waynos. In an area in the south, we find

Kallawaya, a ritual healing language only used by male adults, in which lexical roots mostly from

an ancestral language (Puquina) are introduced. Throughout the area, Spanish lexical elements,

but also suffixes, have been transferred into Quechua.

Primarily drawing upon, expanding, and synthesizing my own work in this area, I will

compare and contrast these varieties and discuss their relevance for the transfer debate. In Table I

a number of features of these varieties are presented and contrasted, including their status with

respect to the two distinctions introduced in the work of Grosjean (this volume): dynamic

interference versus static transfer, and monolingual versus bilingual language mode. It also

briefly characterizes them in terms of the MAT (morphemic matter) versus PAT (structural

patterns) distinction introduced in the work of Sakel (2007), a distinction which goes back at least

to Heath (1978)s distinction between direct (MAT) and indirect (PAT) diffusion, but probably

even to earlier sources.

Media Lengua Mixed songs Kallawaya

Location Ecuador (Saraguro,

Caar, Salcedo,

Imbabura)

Central and southern

highlands in Peru,

highland Bolivia

Bolivia (Charazani

province)


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Morpho-syntactic

frame

Ecuadorian Quechua Various Quechua varieties Bolivian (Charazani)

Quechua

Inserted elements Spanish root shapes Spanish root shapes,

mostly verbs

A non Quechua root

lexicon, partly

Puquina

Sociolinguistic

profile

In-group register in

communities

undergoing shift

Songs played and

broadcast in bilingual

settings (partly urban)

A ritual register used

by practicioners of

traditional medicine

Dynamicity Static Dynamic Static or dynamic

Language mode Monolingual or

bilingual

Bilingual Monolingual with

extra lexical register

Matter and/or

pattern

Mostly matter, some

pattern

Matter Mostly matter, some

pattern

Key references Muysken 1979, 1981,

1988, 1997a; Gomez

Rendn 2006, 2008

Muysken 1990, 2000 Stark 1972; Muysken

1997, 2009

Table 1: Features of the three mixed varieties discussed

It is apparent that there are both similarities and important differences between these varieties.

The root/affix asymmetries referred to in the title of this paper are typologically and areally

specific: roots are single initial elements that either require another suffix (verbs) or do not, in

Quechua and surrounding Andean languages. They do not involve the kinds of units that one


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finds in (for instance) lots of French loanwords in Native Canadian languages, where nouns often

get borrowed with an article attached.

2. Relexification

Relexification is a general term used for massive lexicon replacement in a language, and has its

roots in Creole studies. The concept has been applied in two areas in this sub-discipline. First of

all, it has been used to explain the intricate interactions between African and European language

features in the Caribbean Creole languages. Thus, some researchers that take the substratist

position in Creole studies have embraced some version of the notion of relexification.

Second, it has been used to justify the assumption of West African Portuguese Pidgin as the

common substrate of the Caribbean Creole languages, explaining many of their common features.

This is referred to as the monogenetic position. In these different areas, it often has a somewhat

different meaning, however.

In the African feature debate, one of the early exponents was Adam (1883), who proposed the

term hybridologie linguistique. Since then, there have been numerous more informal attempts to

suggest that many patterns in Caribbean creoles resulted essentially from European word shapes

coupled with African meanings and patterns. The most explicit and extreme defendant of this

position has been Lefebvre (1998), who argued that Fongbe was relexified with French word

shapes to produce Haitian Creole. A cursory survey of the literature will reveal that Lefebvres

very strong claims have aroused much debate. Many creolists will allow more more modest

amounts of relexification as one of the constitutive processes in creole genesis.

The debate surrounding West African Portuguese Pidgin went under the label monogenesis

versus polygenesis. In line with the monogenetic position, but in a less extreme version, was

Hesselings (1933) paper on Papiamentu influence on Negerhollands, the Dutch lexifier creole


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language formerly spoken on the Virgin islands. Hesseling assumed that there had been a group

of Papiamentu speakers present in the early stages of the genesis of Negerhollands, who later

shifted to a variety of the Dutch creole. Not only did they leave lexical MAT+PAT influences (as

kabayfor horse CHK; cf. Sp caballo, Port cabalho). They also were responsible for some PAT

meaning configurations, as the use of the Dutch word form wilto denote both the wish to do

something and the desire for an object or person (cf. Sp. querer, Port quer, Pap kerwith both

meanings). In Dutch itself, wilcan only mean the wish for some action or state. Thus, ik wil jou

means I want (to have) you but not I love you, while the Negerhollands equivalent has both

meanings, as does Spanishyo te quiero. Or course, these meanings are not unconnected, but you

can want someone on your team or for a particular position without loving that person.

In Voorhoeve (1973) it is argued that the original Creole slave population of Surinam was

Portuguese pidgin rather than English pidgin speaking (due to the prominent role of Portuguese

pidgin in the Atlantic slave trade), but that their language was progressively relexified towards

English under the influence of the English plantation owners. The Saramaccan maroons escaped

into the jungle before their language was fully relexified, which accounts for the high number of

Portuguese elements in their language, according to Voorhoeve. In this account, both MAT and

PAT are involved in relexification.

Schematically:

Source Domain Nature of the transfer

Hesseling

(1933)

Papiamentu influence on Negerhollands MAT(+PAT) (kabay horse)

PAT (ker > wil want)

Voorhoeve Portuguese pidgin presence in Surinam MAT+PAT (Portuguese elements in


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(1973) creoles Saramaccan)

Lefebvre

(1998)

Fongbe structural (and occasionally

lexical) presence in Haitian Creole

PAT (semantic and structural

presence), occasional MAT+PAT

Table 2: Use of the notion of relexification in creole genesis by different authors

3. Media Lengua

In the Andes of Ecuador several cases of mixed Spanish-Quechua languages have been

documented (Muysken 1979, 1981, 1988, 1997a; Gmez Rendn 2005, 2008), which often are

labeled as Media Lengua (other terms are Chaupi lengua, Chaupi shimi [both: half language],

Utilla ingiru [little Quechua], Chaupi quichua [half Quechua], Quichuaol [Quechu-anish],

and Chapu shimi [mix language]). The best studied cases are the Media Lengua of Salcedo,

Cotopaxi province (studied by Muysken) in the center, and the Media Lengua of San Pablo,

Imbabura province (studied by Gmez Rendn) in the north, while Muysken has also

documented varieties near Caar, Caar province and Saraguro, Loja province in the south.

These varieties span a large part of the Ecuadorian Interandean corridor, and as far as we know

are unrelated. I will cite examples here from Gmez Rendns valuable (2008) monograph, since

the data in my own publications are more easily accessible and have already been frequently

cited.

Basically, Media Lengua is a form of Quechua in which the large majority of the roots have

been replaced with Spanish elements. These elements retain their basic lexical properties,

although they are partially adapted phonologically. Thus we have examples such as the

following, from a narrative (Gmez Rendn 2008: 85; glosses adapted):


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(1) ai-manda lexo-ta bi-kpi-ka

there-ABL far-AC see-SUB.DS-TOP

uno blanko asienda kaza-mi asoma-ri-xu-shka-n-ga

one white hacienda house-AF show.up-REF-PRG-EU-TOP

wagra dueo-ka alla-man-mi contento i-shka

cow owner-TOP there-AL-AF happy go-NPAS

pero el-ka akorda-ri-shpa-wan anda-xu-shka

but 3-TOP reflect-REF-SUB.SS-COM walk-PRG-NPAS

patron-ka solta-wa-nga-chu ima-shi kuanto-ta-shi

boss-TOP loosen-1.OB-3.FU-Q what-IGN how.much-AC-IGN

kobra-wa-nga yuya-shpa anda-xu-shka

charge-1.OB-3.FU reflect-SUB.SSwalk-PRG-NPAS

Then, while he saw it far away, a white hacienda house became visible, and the owner of

the cow walked towards it happily, but thinking by himself he walked along: will the boss

let me go, what will it be, how much will he charge me?, thinking those things he was

walking along.

Italicized elements are from Quechua throughout this paper. Notice that in (1) the large majority

of root elements is from Spanish. The exceptions are wagracow, imawhat, andyuya-think.


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Wagramay be a term locally used in Spanish as well, imais part of a fixed expression ima-shi

what will it be?, andyuya-is a genuine counterexample to the claim that all roots are from

Spanish. Gmez Rendn (2008) notes that Imbabura Media Lengua contains more Quechua

elements than the Salcedo variant. Muysken (2010a) argues that the most prominent apparent

counterexample in the Salcedo Media Lengua data, the Quechua copula ka-be, is actually a

clitic in the relevant Quechua variety, and hence is expected not to be relexified.

Are just Spanish MAT items, outward morphological shapes, imported, or is underlying

semantic PAT material brought in as well? For many words, this is hard to establish. Thus the

meaning of Quechuapuu-sleep and Spanish dormir sleep is not sufficiently different in their

semantic range to decide whether Media Lengua durmi-is just a MAT or also a PAT transfer.

However, for other words, this is easier. In Table 3 I have tried to establish, on the basis of the

discussion and examples presented in Gmez Rendn (2008), which Media Lengua verbs show

evidence of Quechua meaning (PAT) transfer. A number of verbs fall into this category.

Media Lengua Quechua Spanish

akorda-ri- think, remember yuya-ri- think, remember acordar(se) remember

ambri- be hungry (imp.) yarika- be hungry (imp.) hambre hunger

(noun)

dizi- say, make sound x ni- say, make sound x decir say

kriya- grow up wia- grow up criar raise

lleba- take, bring (over

there)

apa- take, bring (over

there)

llevar take


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llena-chi fill (caus.) hunta-

chi-

fill (caus.) llenar fill

llora- cry, make noise waqa- cry, make noise llorar cry

mori- die, be ill wau- die, be ill morir die

nuwa-y,

nuwabi-

there is not illa- there is not no hay there is not

sinta- sit, live, be located tiya- sit, live, be located sentar(se) sit

Table 3: Relexification (PAT transfer) operant in Imbabura Media Lengua verbs

Different varieties of Media Lengua show different degrees of transfer of Quechua semantic

distinctions. Saraguro is the most Quechua-like version. The distinction between 1SG and 1SG.POS

is not made (just like in Ecuadorian Quechua varieties), there is no 3SGgender distinction, and no

2SGpoliteness distinction. In Imbabura Quechua a politemess distinction has been introduced for

2SG, but this is not characteristic for Quechua as a whole.

Feature ML Saraguro ML Salcedo ML Imbabura Spanish Quechua

1SG miu yo/ami yo, mio/miyu, uka yo uka

1SG PO miu mi, mio mi, mo (strong)

2SG ste bos Bos vos, tu kan

(kikin)2SG (H) ust usted

3SG M el el il/el l pay

3SG F illa/ella ella


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1PL miukuna nurzhu nosotros/notros, nuitro/nutro nosotros ukanchik

2PL ustekuna boskuna boskuna ustedes kankuna

2PL (R) ustikuna (kikinkuna)

3PL M elkuna elkuna ilkuna/elkuna/illoskuna ellos paykuna

3PL F illakuna/ellakuna/illaskuna ellas

Table 4: Media Lengua personal pronouns in the different varieties

4. Bilingual songs, the wayno

In Peru and Bolivia there is the popular genre of the wayno, bilingual popular songs performed by

small bands and transmitted through radio and cassette or CD. These songs are sung at festive

occasions but also at dances and in bars. In these waynosvery frequently a combination of both

Quechua and Spanish occurs. Large collections of these waynos have been printed. A typical

example of a wayno is given in Escobar and Escobar (1981: 256) (Quechua elements italicized):

(2) Pobre sicuan-e-ita, [Poor girl from Sicuani]

poor Sicuan-PRV-DIM.F

a qu habrs venido, [wherefore have you come?]

to what have.2.FU come.PP

Kay runa-h wasi-n-pi [In this houseof strangers]

this man-GEN house-3-LOC

waqa-na-lla-yki-pah? [just to cry?]

cry-NOM-DEL-2-for


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Kay runa-h llahta-n-pi [In this townof strangers]

this man-GEN town-3-LOC

llaki-na-lla-yki-pah? [just to grieve?]

grieve-NML-DEL-2-for

Mama-y-mi ni-wa-ra-n [My mother told me]

mother-1-AF say-1.OB-PAS-3

ama ri-pu-y-rah-cu; [dont go awayyet;]

PRH go-BEN-IMP-yet-NEG

mama-y-mi ni-wa-ra-n [my mother told me]

mother-1-AF say-1.OB-PAS-3

ama pasa-y-rah-cu; [dont leave from hereyet;]

PRH pass-IMP-yet-NEG

.

The bilingual element comes in by various means. In the song above two means are illustrated:

code switching (the switch from initial Spanish to subsequent Quechua), and the one of concern

here in this paper, bilingual doubling.

The poetic effect in this genre of songs is reached for a large part with this technique of

parallelism or doubling. Phrases are repeated, but often with a slight lexical modification. Thus

we have a number of semantically roughly equivalent lexical pairs in subsequent lines, at least in

the universe of the song (given in bold in (2) above):

(3) wasi house waqa- cry ri-pu-go away


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llahtatown llaki-grieve pasa- pass (by)

Since it is often difficult to find a semantic equivalent in the same language, as in the first two

pairs in (3), often equivalents from Spanish are taken, as in the third pair. This is by itself not

remarkable, since Spanish words can easily borrowed into Quechua. However five features stand

out in doubling in bilingual songs:

(a) it is an extremely frequent phenomenon;

(b) it involves particularly verbs rather than nouns, while ordinarily nouns are borrowed with

much more frequency (although Spanish verb borrowing is not impossible in Quechua);

(c) it involves basic vocabulary as well, not just more marginal vocabulary;

(d) it frequently involves verbs that are never borrowed in ordinary discourse, as can be

established from corpus studies of spoken Cuzco Quechua;

(e) the verb occurs with all the relevant Quechua suffixes, as illustrated in (4), taken from the

last line in (2):

(4) Ama pasa-y-rah-chu

PRH pass-IMP-yet-NEG

Dont leave from here yet

Typical verb doublings found in waynos include:

(5) SPANISH ORIGIN QUECHUA ORIGIN

sabi- know yacha- know


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bulta- return kuti- return

pasa- pass ri-pu- go away

tuma- drink uxya- drink

tupa- meet tinku- meet

I assume these forms to be conventionalized doublets, which can be freely entered into the wayno

for doubling purposes, and then receive the full range of Quechua affixes.

5. Kallawaya

In a very different speech genre, something similar to both Media Lengua and the waynoverb

doubling is found: the Kallawaya ritual language of the professional healers of the Charazani

region north of La Paz in Bolivia. Compare the paired examples in (6) and (7):

(6) a. Qari-s, warmi-s, alkalde-tah ri-n-ku. (QUECHUA)

man-PL, woman-PL, alcalde-EMP go-3-PL

b. Laja-kuna, atasi-kuna, alkalde-tah isna-n-ku. (KALLAWAYA)

man-PL woman-PL alcalde-EMP go-3-PL

Themen, the women and the mayor went. (Stark 1972: 216)

(7) a. Ri-pu-nki mana willa-ku-spa. (QUECHUA)

go-BEN-2 NEG tell-REF-SUB.SS


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b. Isna-pu-nkiu uri-ku-spa. (KALLAWAYA)

go-BEN-2 NEG tell-REF-SUB.SS

You went away without telling. (Oblitas Poblete 1968: 34)

The forms in (6a) and (7a) represent the ordinary speech of the speech community, while the

forms in (6b) and (7b) the special ritual language. The non-italic forms in (6b) replace the

Quechua equivalents in (6a), while the Quechua morphology and grammar is maintained (in

addition there is a Spanish loan, alkaldemayor, in both language samples of (6); it need not

concern us here). As far as we can establish many of the lexical roots of Kallawaya are of

Puquina origin, but there may also be other languages involved, such as Leko, Tacana, Moseten,

and Uru. Finally, a number of words may simply be neologisms; striking is the avoidance of

loans from Spanish, in contrast with all the languages of the area, and certainly with Quechua.

Just like in the case of Media Lengua, there is replacement of Quechua roots with elements

from another language, and these elements are partially adapted phonologically to Quechua. In

addition, there words are affixed with the standard Quechua affixes, for the most part. For all

intents and purposes, contemporary Kallawaya is a form of Quechua with roots from another

language. It resembles the wayno songs in that through lexical replacement different registers are

created: in the case of Kallawaya this is the ritual register, in the case of the wayno songs this is

the doubling register.

6. Issues of genesis and processing

In this section, I will briefly comment on issues of genesis and processing with respect to Media

Lengua, mixed bilingual songs, and Kallawaya. In terms of scenarios of genesis, three primary

scenarios come to the fore: Creation,Shift, andBorrowing.


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Creation. It is quite possible that in all three cases, processes of conscious creation have

played a role. Media Lengua may have emerged out of a language game in the early decades of

the twentieth century, when so far almost monolingual Quechua-speaking construction workers

from rural villages suddenly found themselves working in the rapidly expanding capital of Quito.

Both the expansion of the capital and the mobility of the work force were the result of the

construction of a railroad connection to the coastal port of Guayaquil. This language game may

then have become conventionalized in the communities the migrant construction workers were

from.

There has been no study so far of the history of popular music in the southern Andes, but there

is no doubt that the bilingual songs were the result of a process of semi-conscious creation,

triggered by the requirements of the process of semantic doubling in Quechua poetry and

facilitated by the wide-spread bilingualism in the area.

The origins of Kallawaya remain obscure, but it is clear that in the more contemporary forms

of Kalllawaya usage, creative processes linked to the ritual practices play an important role.

Kallawaya usage is highly performative in nature, as far as we know.

Shift. Media Lengua may be interpreted as a linguistic phenomenon that accompanies the

overall shift in many rural highland communities in Ecuador from Quechua to Spanish; indeed in

all cases where forms of Media Lengua have emerged we find shift occurring as well. However,

several observations speak against a strong intrinsic link between Media Lengua formation as

such and shift. First, in many Andean communities there has been language shift without the

creation of Media Lengua. Second, the genesis of Media Lengua took place at a time when there

was no shift yet to Spanish in the relevant communities. There is no intrinsic link between Media

Lengua formation and shift, particularly also when we take other mixed languages into account.


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The use of bilingual songs in the southern Andes is indicative of wide-spread bilingualism, but

not necessarily of shift. Rather, the continued presence of Spanish and Quechua in these songs

suggests a form of possibly stable diglossia.

In the case of Kallawaya, there has been shift originally, but in this case away from the lexifier

language (Puquina) to the structure language (Quechua). The resulting ritual language, however,

is more like a case of counter-shift or U-turn.

Borrowing. Again, the relation with borrowing is quite complex. In the areas where Media

Lengua is spoken there is also extensive borrowing, and the way Spanish borrowed forms are

adapted to Quechua is exactly like the way relexified items are adapted. However, borrowing is

quantitatively restricted to about maximally 40% of the root tokens in the local varieties of

Quechua (Stark and Muysken, 1977), while in the case of Media Lengua we have almost 100%

of the root tokens. Qualitatively, borrowing is mostly restricted to non-basic vocabulary and the

distinction basic/non-basic is irrelevant in the case of Media Lengua.

In the varieties where waynosare sung there is also wide-spread borrowing (although more

limited than in Ecuador), but the pattern of bilingual verb doublings involved verbs that are never

borrowed.

Regarding Kallawaya, it is clear that the systematic use of Puquina and non-Quechua other

words in the ritual language is very different from what we may find elsewhere in the region;

there have been reports of some unusual specialized vocabulary, but the Quechua of the area is

overwhelmingly non-Puquina influenced, as far as can be gathered from the materials published

so far.

Language modeand dynamicity. As to language mode, the picture is different for the three

varieties at hand.


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It is clear that in the original invention stage of Media Lengua the two languages must have

been present in the mind of the speaker, in order for her or him to be able to relexify; however, as

the Media Lengua stabilized, relexifications became conventionalized, and there was no need for

the activation of either language. In fact, there are speakers of Media Lengua without good

knowledge of Quechua (vocabulary), although the initial creators of Media Lengua surely were

highly proficient speakers of Quechua, incipient bilinguals in Spanish. For MAT transfer as in

relexification to occur, there is no need for very deep knowledge of the second language. Words

are adapted phonologically, nativized, although some properties of the original lexemes are

retained (see below).

The producers of and many of the listeners to bilingual songs are bilinguals, and indeed the

confrontation of the two languages is part and parcel of the esthetic pleasure that these songs

provide. However, many of the actual verb doublets are highly conventionalized.

The present day speakers of Kallawaya left do not know Puquina. The Puquina words are

simply part of a lexicon of non-Quechua words that they can use in speaking Kallawaya, while

they are also able to use the Quechua lexicon in speaking Quechua.

Matter and pattern. The final issue that concerns us here is that of the transfer of matter versus

pattern. How do we account for (a) the lexicon/grammar split in these three varieties, and (b) the

affix/root split?

What the mixed language data clearly show is that manipulating access to a lexicon separate

from the one that is conventionally attached to the grammar is clearly a possibility in this case, in

special but not exceptional circumstances. While speakers need to know the matrix grammar and

phonology well, the transferred lexicon is possibly only incompletely known. The phonology of

the mixed languages involved shows mixed features (Van Gijn 2009). Vowel distinctions

([mid]/[high] in the case of Media Lengua, [long]/[short] in the case of Kallawaya) for instance


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are closer to those of the donor language, while phonotactic patterns are more like those those of

the recipient language. For this reason, the phonology does not provide us with much of a clue

here.

The question remains, however, why Quechua as a language has allowed these processes of

relexification or massive lexical transfer. Part of the answer may lie in its history as an imperial

language which was adopted in many parts of the Andes as a second language during and even

after Inca rule, and in the bilingual sociolinguistic context within which it is spoken. This cannot

be the whole story, however, since other languages in the world also have this character of

imperial languages and do not show relexification to the same extent, if at all.

What facilitates the separation of the Quechua lexicon from its grammar is that most of the

burden of interacting with the actual grammatical system in Quechua lies in the affixes rather

than in the roots. Most grammatical work is done by suffixes, not by the lexical roots themselves:

(a) Roots belong to two word classes, nouns (with a subclass of adjectives) and verbs.

Elements such as pronouns, quantifiers, adverbs, and conjunctions are subclasses of the noun

class.

(b) Some elements are both nouns and verbs.

(c) All nouns can occur as bare forms in the language, most often they carry some case

marking, person marking, topic marking, evidentials, etc. Verbs can never occur as bare forms.

Thus taking roots from another language does not have a major impact on grammatical

processing, which mostly interacts directly with the affixes. Furthermore, roots and affixes are

clearly distinct from the perspective of lexical processing.

Roots always initial in Quechua: there are only suffixes, no prefixes or infixes. Furthermore,

there are different phonotactic constraints for roots and affixes, and phonological rules such as

voicing, vowel raising, contraction in central Ecuadorian Quechua clearly distinguish between


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affixes and roots. Most roots have two syllables, affixes one. Roots have more types of sounds

and are phonologically more complex. Affixes have a much more abstract meaning than roots.

The token frequency of affixes is much higher than that of roots.

These differences are coupled with the agglutinative morphology characterizing Quechua.

Altogether, the grammatical and morpho-phonological properties of Quechua on the whole are

propitious to a process of relexification involving the roots of the language, and not the affixes.

The affixes function as separate units and theoretically could be relexified by themselves.

Indeed we find some cases of Spanish suffixes in Media Lengua, includingnduadverbial

subordination, and duresultative nominalization. However, only the form nduappears to be

productively used, and is also the suffix which does not occur frequently as a borrowing in other

Quechua varieties. Spanish suffixes in Quechua will be the subject of the next section.

7. Spanish suffixes in Quechua

In Table 5 (summarized from Muysken 2010b) the different Spanish suffixes are listed, loosely

ranked in terms of their grammatical status and productivity, that occur in varieties of Media

Lengua and Quechua.

BorrowedSpanish

suffix

Spanish form Gloss Variety References

-ndu -ndo Gerund Salcedo MediaLengua (Ec)

Muysken 1981, 1997

-do -do Resultative Inga (Col) Levinsohn 1976

Salcedo Media

Lengua (Ec)

Muysken 1981

-dor/-dora

-dur

-dor/-dora Agentive /Habitual /

Professional

Inga (Col) Levinsohn 1976

Cajamarca (Pe) Quesasa (1976: 42)

Imbabura ML

(Ec)

Gomez Rendn (2008)

dero -dero Agentive / Inga (Col) Levinsohn 1976


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habitual /

professional

-hora hora hour Temporal

subordination


-itu / -ita / -situ/-ditu

-ito/-ita/-ecito Diminutive Cochabamba(Bol) Urioste (1964)

Cajamarca (Pe) Quesada (1976: 42, 105)


Santiago del

Estero (Arg)

Bravo (1985: 113, 150)

-ilu/-ila ?-illo/-illaabu-elo/a

Characterizer,diminutive

Santiago delEstero (Arg)

Bravo (1985: 143, 178/9)

-lun -lon (cf.dormilnsleepy

person)

Characterizer Cotopaxi (Ec) Muysken (1977)

-likido lquido liquid Characterizer Lamas (Pe) Taylor (1975: 54)

Cajamarca (Pe) Quesada (1976: 91)

-nyintu -niento Characterizer Cajamarca (Pe) Quesada (1976: 64. 67,68)

-iru -ero Characterizer Cajamarca (Pe) Quesada (1976: 140)

-s -s Plural Salcedo ML (Ec) Muysken (1981)

Cochabamba

(Bol)

Urioste (1964)

Table 5: Suffixes borrowed or relexified from Spanish in different varieties of Quechua and

Media Lengua

We can conclude that there is a wide variety of Spanish suffixes that have been adopted into

different Quechua varieties. Broadly speaking, they fall into four categories:

I. Suffixes that replace a Quechua suffix, often in the verbal paradigm:

(8) - kpiandshpa > -ndo adverbial subordinator (only in Media Lengua)

-sqa, -ska, -shka > -do resultative nominalizer


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-q, -k > -dor, -dero agentive

?-pacha > -hora temporal subordinator

In some varieties these suffixes are only partially productive and limited to the lexical domain,

but this requires more study. The elementhoramay replace the suffixpachatime, world,

since, but in most Quechua varieties this suffix is not used grammatically as -horais in Inga in

Colombia.

An example of the use ofndoor -nduin Salcedo Media Lengua is:

(9) ahi-da-ga abi-n, piru tarde-ya-ndu-ga gana-u-nga-y

there-AC-TOP exist-3 but late-TRF-SUB-TOPearn-PRG-3.FU-EMP

It is there, but when it gets late he will be winning.

Media Lengua, Ecuador (Muysken 1997: 386)

Thisndureplaces the different subject subordination markerkpihere. Cases ofdor, which

replaces the Quechua agentive markerq(Peru) ork(Ecuador), are:

(10) Chay runa-ka macha-dor-mi

` that man-TO drink-AG-AF

That man is a drunkard. Ecuador (Ross 1960: 51-52)

(11) sementerio-ma apa-dor ka-rka-kuna

cemetery-to take-AG be-PA-PL

They used to take [us] to the cemetery. Inga, Colombia (Levinson 1976: 106)


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II. A range of diminutive suffixes that only partly come in the place of Quechua suffixes, but

also derive some gender properties from the donor language Spanish (Cochabamba Quechua;

Urioste 1964):

(12) *-itu after Quechua words that end in /u/, but also partially sensitive to (particularly

natural) Spanish masculine gender

punqu punq-itu little door

*-ita after Quechua words that end in /a/, but also partially sensitive to (particularly

natural) Spanish feminine gender

uma um-ita little head

*-situ after Quechua words that end in /i/

rumi rumi-situ little stone

We also find the formdituoccasionally as a diminutive or a characterizer.

III. A range of characterizing and affective suffixes often loosely modeled on Spanish suffixes

but without clear Quechua models:

(13) -ilu/-ila diminutive, affective

-lun characterizer

-likido characterizer

-nyintu characterizer

-iru characterizer


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Some selected examples:

(14) siki-lu

ass-CHAR

with a big ass Santiago del Estero (Bravo 1985: 296)

(15) wacha-chi-lun

give.birth-CAU-AG

midwife Ecuador (Muysken 1977)

(16) rumi-likido

stone-liquid

like stone Lamas Peru (Taylor 1975: 54)

Interesting is the fact that these suffixes appear to be characteristic of two closely related,

affective semantic domains in nominal morphology: affective and characterizing. Seifart (2009)

stresses the tendency towards specialization within a single domain as a feature of morphological

borrowing.

IV. A final category is the Spanish plural suffixswhich is used almost obligatorily with

Quechua nouns ending in a vowel (the vast majority) in Bolivian Quechua.

(16) warmi-s women

algu-s dogs Bolivia (Urioste 1964)


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It is rare if not nonexistent in other varieties of Quechua. The origin and spread of this use ofs

merits further historical study.

Altogether the range of Spanish suffixes and their spread across a number of varieties of

Quechua is striking, although further comparative work on similar situations involving other

languages, such as Nahuatl (Karttunen and Lockart 1976; Field 2002) will be needed to be sure of

this. In any case, these findings tend to support the observations made in section 7 about the

special separate status of affixes in Quechua.

8. Conclusions

This paper has ranged over different Andean territories, from Colombia and Ecuador to

Argentina, and has explored the psycholinguistic transfer types, needed to be postulated to be

hypothetically involved in the emergence of two mixed languages and a mixed register with a

Quechua structure: Media Lengua (Ecuador) and Kallawaya (Bolivia), both relexified varieties

within the Quechua language family, and bilingual mixed songs in Peru, waynos. The two issues

that require most attention are (a) the mental status of roots versus affixes in the transfer process;

(b) the possibility of manipulating lexical access in transfer. The languages and the register share

a number of structural features, but were found to be sociolinguistically totally different. In

Media Lengua the lexicon comes from a new language (Spanish), and in Kallawaya from an

old language (Puquina). Media Lengua is an informal community language, while Kallawaya a

ritual healing language only used by male adults. In Waynosthere is evidence of relatively

balanced bilingualism. The mixed language are confronted with the mirror phenomenon of

Spanish suffixes that occur in Quechua, to help us further understand the processing issues

involved.


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With respect to the mental status of roots versus affixes in the transfer process, we can

conclude that affixes in Quechua are fairly autonomous, and separate from roots. With respect to

the possibility of manipulating lexical access in transfer, we can conclude that roots, but not

affixes, can easily be manipulated. Presumably, affixes carry the grammatical processing load by

themselves, freeing roots for being transferred, either from an ancestral community language, as

in the case of Kallawaya, or from a dominant post-colonial language, as in the case of Media

Lengua. In mixed songs, as well, we see the freedom of manipulation with respect to roots,

though not affixes.

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Appendix A : Glosses used

ABL ablative M masculine

AC accusative NEG negation

AF affirmative evidential NML nominalizer

AL allative NPAS narrative past

BEN benefactive OB object

COM comitative, instrumental PAS past

DEL delimitative PL plural

DIM diminutive PO possessive


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EMP emphatic PP past participle

EU euphonic PRH prohibitive

F feminine PRG progressive

FU future PRV provenance

GEN genitive Q question

H honorific SUB.DS different subject subordinator

IGN ignorative SUB.SS same subject subordinator

IMP imperative TOP topic

LOC locative TRF transformative

root affix asymmetries

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