Non-verbal predication: A perspective from Indigenous languages

Our current understanding of human language would not be possible without the contribution coming from the description of Indigenous languages, whose theoretical importance goes far beyond the study of a single language or family and stands in stark contrast to the prejudice many of these lects still face. In fact, minoritized languages often exhibit uncommon or even rare linguistic features that allow us to explore the limits of human language (cf. Campbell 1997: 15-16; Wohlgemuth and Cysouw 2010; Nevins 2022, among others). This talk will illustrate how Indigenous languages expand our typological knowledge of non-verbal predication. Based on Hengeveld (1992) and Stassen (1997), we can distinguish three types of non-verbal predicative constructions, which involve (i) the use of a copula, (ii) the juxtaposition of subject and predicate, and (iii) an inflection on the non-verbal predicate. In the last strategy, also known as "predicative inflection construction" (Bertinetto, Ciucci and Farina 2019), the predicate receives a verb-like inflection, often stemming from the cliticization of a copula. However, the description of the small Zamucoan family (Bolivia and Paraguay; Bertinetto 2014[2009]; Ciucci 2016) has led to the identification of another, rare, subtype of predicative inflection, in which the markers on the non-verbal predicate are typically zero or morphologically lighter than those on the argument. After addressing this construction in Zamucoan, I will show that it is also found in some Tupi-Guarani languages, at some stages of Semitic (Bertinetto, Ciucci and Farina 2019), and was recently identified in some Cushitic languages (Tosco, Forthcoming 2025) and Cuwabo (Bantu; Guérois, Forthcoming 2025). Finally, a typological overview of non-verbal predication in non-WEIRD languages reveals a fourth type of strategy, so far never addressed in literature, which mixes the predicative inflection construction with the use of the copula (Bertinetto, Ciucci and Creissels, Forthcoming 2025).