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

Table 16. Results for Lorena 6;4
Body Part BP Locative
meaning correct incorrect meaning correct incorrect
cwe'eh 'side' 2 0 'beside' 0 2
dehts 'back' 2 0 'behind' 0 2
gue'ehcy 'head' 2 0 'on top of' 0 2
làa'iny 'stomach' 2 0 'in' 0 2
lohoh 'face' 2 0 'on, in front of' 0 2
ni'ih 'foot' 2 0 'under, beneath' 0 2
ru'uh 'mouth' 2 0 'at the edge of' 0 2
zh:ààa'n 'bottom' 2 0 'behind, under' 0 2
Why would she get all of the preposition questions wrong? Had she
misunderstood the task? This seems unlikely since we went directly from the body part
test to the preposition test. I asked her if the second book was harder, and she said no.
Had she misunderstood the syntax of the relative clause in the locatives test? Perhaps her
results are a reflection of her language loss.
Although Lorena's results are difficult to interpret, they certainly do not argue
against the proposal that there is a categorial difference between the body part and
locational uses of these terms. In fact, if body part terms used in locative constructions
were metaphorical extensions of the noun, one might predict that Lorena would have
been able to answer many questions correctly in the body part locative task, since she
clearly had acquired all of the body part nouns.
4.3.3 Andrea
Andrea was learning both SLQZ and Spanish as her first languages. She knew 7
of the 8 body parts tested: cwe'eh 'side' and làa'iny 'stomach' were identified correctly 4
out of 4 times; gue'ehcy 'head', lohoh 'face', ni'ih 'foot', and zh:ààa'n 'bottom' 3 out of 4
times; and ru'uh 'mouth' was identified correctly 2 out of 3 times.
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