The Categorial Status of Body Part Prepositions in Valley Zapotec ...

Some linguists studying Zapotec languages have assumed that BP locatives are
nouns and that the locative meaning is derived through metaphorical extension. In a
paper which explains in great detail the metaphorical system employed in the use of body
parts as locatives, MacLaury (1989) says of Ayoquesco Zapotec: 4
[the] body-part locatives are not prepositions, because there is no
justification for setting them apart from their primary classification as
nouns. Unlike English prepositions, they are identical in form to the
nouns applied to body organs, their use in syntax is optional, they only add
specificity to other locative expressions, they do not complicate syntax,
they do not denote direction, and they do not mark grammatical relations
as do case markers (120).
It is important to note that MacLaury's comment is only a footnote in a paper which
describes the system of metaphor. The focus of his paper is not to justify his assertion
regarding the syntactic status of these words. Jensen de López (2002), who studies
acquisition of San Marcos Tlapazola Zapotec, states:
Where English employs prepositions, Zapotec relies… on human body
part nouns in referring to the spatial relationship between a trajectory and
a landmark object. Zapotec body-part spatial terms are nouns or nounderived
items which are identical to the nouns used for referring to human
body parts… The grammatical and semantic systems of the SMT Zapotec
BP terms are grammatically and semantically very different from that of
Indo-European prepositions (123).
However, the categorial status of the BP prepositions is not the focus of her paper, either.
To my knowledge, there has been no work done directly on the categorial status of the
BP terms as locatives in any Zapotec language.
4 Ayoquesco Zapotec is spoken in "Santa María Ayoquesco de Aldama, District of
Zimatlán, Oaxaca, Mexico… in the southern extreme of the Valley of Oaxaca"
(MacLaury 1989: 119).
8