Body-part prefixation in Kashibo-Kakataibo: Synchronic or diachronic derivation?

Most Panoan languages have closed sets of about 30 monosyllabic forms that attach phonologically to the front of nouns, adjectives, and verbs. These forms, mainly designating body-part notions and semantic extensions of these, appear at first glance to be synchronically derived from polysyllabic body-part noun roots. This paper offers the first detailed study of the phonological, morphological, syntactic, and semantic properties of prefixation in Kashibo-Kakataibo. In contrast to other authors' analyses of Panoan prefixes, we present evidence to show that prefixes in Kashibo-Kakataibo are synchronically independent morphemes, rather than allomorphs of body-part nouns. Subsequently, we present the diachronic scenarios that can account for the perplexing formal and semantic similarities between body-part prefixes and body-part nouns in Kashibo-Kakataibo. © 2012 by The University of Chicago. All rights reserved.