Nominal Derivation and “Possessive” Denominalization

This chapter describes a set of processes involve nominalization, producing action nominalizations, participant nominalizations of various sorts, and abstract noun formations. It focuses on three denominalizers that all relate to the idea of “ownership”. There are three suffixes which occur exclusively on nominal roots to derive verbs concerned with ownership, i.e., possession or deprivation of an object or an attribute. Some derivational affixes applied to noun roots result in nouns with substantial meaning differences. In Panare, as in other Cariban languages, the issue of nominalization is salient for at least three reasons. First, there are many suffixal and ambifixal nominalizers which may occur on verb, ad-form and adverb roots and stems. Second, the use of these nominalized forms in discourse is very frequent. Third, some (but not all) nominalizers synchronically have multiple functions: they may derive nouns, but many have also been reanalyzed as Tense-Aspect-Mode affixes. Keywords:Cariban languages; nominalization; noun; Panare; suffixes; verbs