Lexical categories of stem-forming roots in Mapudüngun verb forms

TL;DR

The paper tackles the problem of accurately identifying which Mapudüngun roots are truly verbal, a prerequisite for reliable verbal valency analysis. It re-evaluates the lexical categories of roots used in Mapudüngun verbal themes by cross-referencing SMEETS2008 with CORLEXIM resources and other sources, acknowledging that many dictionary entries present derived forms rather than isolated roots. The study documents configurations of verbal themes, the fixed suffix-slot architecture, and the behavior of labile and causative co-occurring roots, laying essential groundwork for the forthcoming valency work in chandia2025b. The findings enhance the fidelity of computational morphologies for Mapudüngun verbs, reducing misclassification and improving downstream linguistic analyses and tooling.

Abstract

After developing a computational system for morphological analysis of the Mapuche language, and evaluating it with texts from various authors and styles, it became necessary to verify the linguistic assumptions of the source used as the basis for implementing this tool. In the present work, the primary focus is on the lexical category classification of Mapudüngun roots recognised as verbal in the source utilised for the development of the morphological analysis system. The results of this lexical category revision directly benefit the computational analyser, as they are implemented as soon as they are verified. Additionally, it is hoped that these results will help clarify some uncertainties about lexical categories in the Mapuche language. This work addresses a preliminary task to identify the valency of true verbal roots, the results of which will be presented in a subsequent work that complements this article.