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

Section 2.5) and semantically (see Section 2.6) with other prepositions in the language
and therefore should be classified as syntactic prepositions. Notice that non-BP PPs can
also be complements of verbs like these, as exemplified in (7f). (These verbs can also
take locative proforms, such as 'there', as complements, but these will not be discussed
here.)
2.5 Evidence from Coordination
It is a syntactic characteristic that only like constituents can be coordinated. The
fact that làa'iny me'es can be conjoined with cààan gezhi'iilly (as in 8), suggests that
làa'iny me'es must be of the same syntactic category as cààan gezhi'iily in constructions
like these. Cààan 'around' is a non-BP preposition, like those presented in Table 7.
(8) a. Bèe'ecw ca-cabiecy cààan gezhi'iilly. (TMZ)
dog PROG-run around chair
'The dog is running around the chair.'
b. Bèe'ecw ca-cabiecy làa'iny me'es ne cààan gezhi'iilly.
dog PROG-run STOMACH table and around chair
'The dog is running under the table and around the chair.'
2.6 Semantically Infelicitous Body Part Constructions
This section presents arguments for an analysis of BP locatives as syntactic
prepositions that appeal to the semantics of the BP terms when used in locative
constructions.
2.61 Semantically Infelicitous Possessed Body Parts
Recall from Table 8 that all BP prepositional phrases are potentially ambiguous
between two syntactic (and semantic) analyses when presented out of context, namely a
possessed NP or a PP. If one were to argue that the BP terms used in locative
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