The grammaticalization of plant-part terms in Chibchan languages

Abstract

It has long been known that the plant-part terms for ‘stick’, ‘leaf’, and ‘seed’ were grammaticalized as classifying elements referring to shape in several Chibchan languages. This interpretation, however, is by no means the only one possible. The Proto-Chibchan terms for ‘stick’, ‘leaf’, and ‘seed’ had a much wider application. They became stem formatives, attested above all in body-part terms. The Proto-Chibchan word for ‘stick’ also grammaticalized as an element with further functions, for instance, as a possessive or purposive marker. Unraveling all these grammaticalization trajectories not only provides insights into how elements of Chibchan lexicon and morphosyntax developed; it also gives an impression of the worldview expressed through Chibchan languages, at least as far as the vegetal world is concerned: plant-parts are conceived of as individual elements with a specific shape, as parts of a whole, and, in certain cases, as related to the general notion of ‘thing’.