[Lingtyp] Affectionate or sympathy marking

[Joshua Birchall]

Dear Christian,

First off, I would highly recommend checking out Kelsey Neely's 2018 PhD
dissertation "The Linguistic Expression of Affective Stance in Yaminawa
(Pano, Peru)". She gives a comprehensive description of the different
linguistic resources that Yaminahua speakers use to express the subjective
evaluation of their interlocutors and other referents in the
discourse, including different bound morphemes.

In a different Amazonian language that I have been working with, the
isolate Aikanã, there are two verbal suffixes that may be of interest to
you, -ma 'honorific' and -are 'sympathetic'. The first expresses affection
or respect, and is often used when addressing one's elders or one's
children. The second expresses sympathy, pity or compassion.

1)
kau-ma-'e
eat-HON-IMP
'Please, eat!'

2)
Fabricia ware-’a-are-ya-e
Fabricia go-3SG.REFL-SYMP-DIR:hither-DECL
'Poor Fabrícia came all the way here walking.'

3)
hizaza uhu-h-are-za-e
2PL     cough-2.REFL-SYMP-PL-DECL
‘You poor guys are coughing.’

The examples are from the Aikanã chapter of Amazonian Languages: An
International Handbook (van der Voort and Birchall 2023: 43-44).

All the best,
Josh
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