On the Guaikuruan Inverse System: Interpreting Kadiwéu and Mocoví Person Hierarchies

I argue that the distinct patterns in the morphology of agreement in inverse alignment in Kadiwéu and Mocoví are generated by the different ways in which the languages deal with multiple-argument agreement. It is often the case that multiple-argument agreement displays restrictions on the full realization of all combinations of arguments (Nevins 2007), and this paper attempts to show that this is the case in the analysis of Kadiwéu and Mocoví agreement markers. I propose here that Mocoví differs from Kadiwéu only in that Kadiwéu applies impoverishment, whereas Mocoví applies fission on the same output, generating distinct patterns of agreement concerning subject and object.