Aymara Inflection

This contribution describes nominal and verbal inflection in Aymara, an isolate SOV language with a modifier-head word order spoken mainly in Peru and Bolivia. Given its highly agglutinative nature and rich morphology, Aymara provides an interesting perspective from which to study inflection. In this language inflection is suffixal (with the exception of accusative declension, which is typically subtractive). Nominal inflection involves the possessive paradigm, the plural, and suffixes which mark location and case declension. Verbal inflection involves four person/tense paradigms (simple, future, proximal past, and distal past), the plural and mood and modality. This last category includes two counterfactual paradigms, an imperative paradigm, and two evidential suffixes. This chapter provides a concise overview of those suffixes, their interaction, and some remarks on relevant inter-variant differences.