Root/Affix asymmetries in contact and transfer:

Case studies from the Andes*

Pieter Muysken
Centre for Language Studies, Radboud University Nijmegen

Abstract
In this paper I want to explore the psycholinguistic processing issues, in terms of the type of
transfer that they exemplify, that we need to postulate to be hypothetically involved in the
emergence of two mixed languages and a mixed register with a Quechua structure: Media Lengua
(Ecuador) and Kallawaya (Bolivia), both relexified varieties within the Quechua language family,
and bilingual mixed songs in Peru, waynos. The two issues that require most attention are (a) the
mental status of roots versus affixes in the transfer process; (b) the possibility of manipulating
lexical access in transfer. The languages and the register share a number of structural features, but
are sociolinguistically totally different. In Media Lengua the lexicon comes from a new
language (Spanish), and in Kallawaya from an old language (Puquina). Media Lengua is an
informal community language, while Kallawaya a ritual healing language only used by male
adults. Waynos are a very popular musical genre in large parts of the southern Andes in Peru. The
root/suffix asymmetries in the mixed languages are confronted with the mirror phenomenon of
Spanish suffixes that occur in Quechua, to help us further understand the processing issues
involved.

Key words: Quechua, Spanish, Puquina, language mixing, Media Lengua, Kallawaya
*I am grateful for the detailed comments from a reviewer for the journal and from the editors.

1. Introduction
In the large area in the South American Andes where members of the Quechua language family
are spoken, several interesting contact varieties have emerged. In the north, these comprise
varieties of Media Lengua in Ecuador, where Spanish roots are inserted into Quechua morphosyntactic and lexical frames. In the center, particularly in southern Peru, intense mixing is
apparent in a specific register, the bilingual songs named waynos. In an area in the south, we find
Kallawaya, a ritual healing language only used by male adults, in which lexical roots mostly from
an ancestral language (Puquina) are introduced. Throughout the area, Spanish lexical elements,
but also suffixes, have been transferred into Quechua.
Primarily drawing upon, expanding, and synthesizing my own work in this area, I will
compare and contrast these varieties and discuss their relevance for the transfer debate. In Table I
a number of features of these varieties are presented and contrasted, including their status with
respect to the two distinctions introduced in the work of Grosjean (this volume): dynamic
interference versus static transfer, and monolingual versus bilingual language mode. It also
briefly characterizes them in terms of the MAT (morphemic matter) versus PAT (structural
patterns) distinction introduced in the work of Sakel (2007), a distinction which goes back at least
to Heath (1978)s distinction between direct (MAT) and indirect (PAT) diffusion, but probably
even to earlier sources.

Location

Media Lengua

Mixed songs

Kallawaya

Ecuador (Saraguro,

Central and southern

Bolivia (Charazani

Caar, Salcedo,

highlands in Peru,

province)

Imbabura)

highland Bolivia

Morpho-syntactic

Ecuadorian Quechua

Various Quechua varieties

Quechua

frame
Inserted elements

Bolivian (Charazani)

Spanish root shapes

Spanish root shapes,

A non Quechua root

mostly verbs

lexicon, partly
Puquina

Sociolinguistic

In-group register in

Songs played and

A ritual register used

profile

communities

broadcast in bilingual

by practicioners of

undergoing shift

settings (partly urban)

traditional medicine

Dynamicity

Static

Dynamic

Static or dynamic

Language mode

Monolingual or

Bilingual

Monolingual with

bilingual
Matter and/or

Mostly matter, some

pattern

pattern

Key references

Muysken 1979, 1981,

extra lexical register

Matter

Mostly matter, some

pattern

Muysken 1990, 2000

1988, 1997a; Gomez

Stark 1972; Muysken

1997, 2009

Rendn 2006, 2008

Table 1: Features of the three mixed varieties discussed

It is apparent that there are both similarities and important differences between these varieties.
The root/affix asymmetries referred to in the title of this paper are typologically and areally
specific: roots are single initial elements that either require another suffix (verbs) or do not, in
Quechua and surrounding Andean languages. They do not involve the kinds of units that one

finds in (for instance) lots of French loanwords in Native Canadian languages, where nouns often
get borrowed with an article attached.

2. Relexification
Relexification is a general term used for massive lexicon replacement in a language, and has its
roots in Creole studies. The concept has been applied in two areas in this sub-discipline. First of
all, it has been used to explain the intricate interactions between African and European language
features in the Caribbean Creole languages. Thus, some researchers that take the substratist
position in Creole studies have embraced some version of the notion of relexification.
Second, it has been used to justify the assumption of West African Portuguese Pidgin as the
common substrate of the Caribbean Creole languages, explaining many of their common features.
This is referred to as the monogenetic position. In these different areas, it often has a somewhat
different meaning, however.
In the African feature debate, one of the early exponents was Adam (1883), who proposed the
term hybridologie linguistique. Since then, there have been numerous more informal attempts to
suggest that many patterns in Caribbean creoles resulted essentially from European word shapes
coupled with African meanings and patterns. The most explicit and extreme defendant of this
position has been Lefebvre (1998), who argued that Fongbe was relexified with French word
shapes to produce Haitian Creole. A cursory survey of the literature will reveal that Lefebvres
very strong claims have aroused much debate. Many creolists will allow more more modest
amounts of relexification as one of the constitutive processes in creole genesis.
The debate surrounding West African Portuguese Pidgin went under the label monogenesis
versus polygenesis. In line with the monogenetic position, but in a less extreme version, was
Hesselings (1933) paper on Papiamentu influence on Negerhollands, the Dutch lexifier creole

language formerly spoken on the Virgin islands. Hesseling assumed that there had been a group
of Papiamentu speakers present in the early stages of the genesis of Negerhollands, who later
shifted to a variety of the Dutch creole. Not only did they leave lexical MAT+PAT influences (as
kabay for horse CHK; cf. Sp caballo, Port cabalho). They also were responsible for some PAT
meaning configurations, as the use of the Dutch word form wil to denote both the wish to do
something and the desire for an object or person (cf. Sp. querer, Port quer, Pap ker with both
meanings). In Dutch itself, wil can only mean the wish for some action or state. Thus, ik wil jou
means I want (to have) you but not I love you, while the Negerhollands equivalent has both
meanings, as does Spanish yo te quiero. Or course, these meanings are not unconnected, but you
can want someone on your team or for a particular position without loving that person.
In Voorhoeve (1973) it is argued that the original Creole slave population of Surinam was
Portuguese pidgin rather than English pidgin speaking (due to the prominent role of Portuguese
pidgin in the Atlantic slave trade), but that their language was progressively relexified towards
English under the influence of the English plantation owners. The Saramaccan maroons escaped
into the jungle before their language was fully relexified, which accounts for the high number of
Portuguese elements in their language, according to Voorhoeve. In this account, both MAT and
PAT are involved in relexification.
Schematically:

Source

Domain

Nature of the transfer

Hesseling

Papiamentu influence on Negerhollands

MAT(+PAT) (kabay horse)

PAT (ker > wil want)

(1933)
Voorhoeve

Portuguese pidgin presence in Surinam

MAT+PAT (Portuguese elements in

(1973)

creoles

Saramaccan)

Lefebvre

Fongbe structural (and occasionally

PAT (semantic and structural

(1998)

lexical) presence in Haitian Creole

presence), occasional MAT+PAT

Table 2: Use of the notion of relexification in creole genesis by different authors

3. Media Lengua
In the Andes of Ecuador several cases of mixed Spanish-Quechua languages have been
documented (Muysken 1979, 1981, 1988, 1997a; Gmez Rendn 2005, 2008), which often are
labeled as Media Lengua (other terms are Chaupi lengua, Chaupi shimi [both: half language],
Utilla ingiru [little Quechua], Chaupi quichua [half Quechua], Quichuaol [Quechu-anish],
and Chapu shimi [mix language]). The best studied cases are the Media Lengua of Salcedo,
Cotopaxi province (studied by Muysken) in the center, and the Media Lengua of San Pablo,
Imbabura province (studied by Gmez Rendn) in the north, while Muysken has also
documented varieties near Caar, Caar province and Saraguro, Loja province in the south.
These varieties span a large part of the Ecuadorian Interandean corridor, and as far as we know
are unrelated. I will cite examples here from Gmez Rendns valuable (2008) monograph, since
the data in my own publications are more easily accessible and have already been frequently
cited.
Basically, Media Lengua is a form of Quechua in which the large majority of the roots have
been replaced with Spanish elements. These elements retain their basic lexical properties,
although they are partially adapted phonologically. Thus we have examples such as the
following, from a narrative (Gmez Rendn 2008: 85; glosses adapted):

(1)

ai-manda lexo-ta bi-kpi-ka

there-ABL far-AC

see-SUB.DS-TOP

uno blanko asienda

kaza-mi

asoma-ri-xu-shka-n-ga

one white

house-AF

show.up-REF-PRG-EU-TOP

hacienda

wagra dueo-ka
cow

alla-man-mi

owner-TOP there-AL-AF

contento

i-shka

happy

go-NPAS

pero el-ka

akorda-ri-shpa-wan

anda-xu-shka

but

reflect-REF-SUB.SS-COM

walk-PRG-NPAS

3-TOP

patron-ka solta-wa-nga-chu
boss-TOP

ima-shi

loosen-1.OB-3.FU-Q what-IGN

kuanto-ta-shi
how.much-AC-IGN

kobra-wa-nga

yuya-shpa

anda-xu-shka

charge-1.OB-3.FU

reflect-SUB.SS walk-PRG-NPAS

Then, while he saw it far away, a white hacienda house became visible, and the owner of
the cow walked towards it happily, but thinking by himself he walked along: will the boss
let me go, what will it be, how much will he charge me?, thinking those things he was
walking along.

Italicized elements are from Quechua throughout this paper. Notice that in (1) the large majority
of root elements is from Spanish. The exceptions are wagra cow, ima what, and yuya- think.

Wagra may be a term locally used in Spanish as well, ima is part of a fixed expression ima-shi
what will it be?, and yuya- is a genuine counterexample to the claim that all roots are from
Spanish. Gmez Rendn (2008) notes that Imbabura Media Lengua contains more Quechua
elements than the Salcedo variant. Muysken (2010a) argues that the most prominent apparent
counterexample in the Salcedo Media Lengua data, the Quechua copula ka- be, is actually a
clitic in the relevant Quechua variety, and hence is expected not to be relexified.
Are just Spanish MAT items, outward morphological shapes, imported, or is underlying
semantic PAT material brought in as well? For many words, this is hard to establish. Thus the
meaning of Quechua puu- sleep and Spanish dormir sleep is not sufficiently different in their
semantic range to decide whether Media Lengua durmi- is just a MAT or also a PAT transfer.
However, for other words, this is easier. In Table 3 I have tried to establish, on the basis of the
discussion and examples presented in Gmez Rendn (2008), which Media Lengua verbs show
evidence of Quechua meaning (PAT) transfer. A number of verbs fall into this category.

Media Lengua

Quechua

Spanish

akorda-ri-

think, remember

yuya-ri-

think, remember

acordar(se) remember

ambri-

be hungry (imp.)

yarika-

be hungry (imp.)

hambre

hunger
(noun)

dizi-

say, make sound x

ni-

say, make sound x

decir

say

kriya-

grow up

wia-

grow up

criar

raise

lleba-

take, bring (over

apa-

take, bring (over

llevar

take

there)

there)

llena-chi

fill (caus.)

hunta-

fill (caus.)

llenar

fill

chillora-

cry, make noise

waqa-

cry, make noise

llorar

cry

mori-

die, be ill

wau-

die, be ill

morir

die

nuwa-y,

there is not

illa-

there is not

no hay

there is not

sit, live, be located

tiya-

sit, live, be located

sentar(se)

sit

nuwabisinta-

Table 3: Relexification (PAT transfer) operant in Imbabura Media Lengua verbs

Different varieties of Media Lengua show different degrees of transfer of Quechua semantic
distinctions. Saraguro is the most Quechua-like version. The distinction between 1SG and 1SG.POS
is not made (just like in Ecuadorian Quechua varieties), there is no 3SG gender distinction, and no
2SG politeness distinction. In Imbabura Quechua a politemess distinction has been introduced for
2SG, but this is not characteristic for Quechua as a whole.

Feature ML Saraguro ML Salcedo ML Imbabura

1SG

miu

1SG PO
2SG

ste

3SG F

el

Quechua
uka

yo/ami

yo, mio/miyu, uka

yo

miu

mi, mio

mi, mo (strong)

bos

Bos

vos, tu

kan

ust

usted

(kikin)

il/el

pay

illa/ella

ella

2SG (H)
3SG M

Spanish

el

1 PL

miukuna

nurzhu

nosotros/notros, nuitro/nutro nosotros

ukanchik

2 PL

ustekuna

boskuna

boskuna

kankuna

ustikuna

2PL (R)
3PL M

ustedes

elkuna

elkuna

3PL F

(kikinkuna)

ilkuna/elkuna/illoskuna

ellos

illakuna/ellakuna/illaskuna

ellas

paykuna

Table 4: Media Lengua personal pronouns in the different varieties

4. Bilingual songs, the wayno

In Peru and Bolivia there is the popular genre of the wayno, bilingual popular songs performed by
small bands and transmitted through radio and cassette or CD. These songs are sung at festive
occasions but also at dances and in bars. In these waynos very frequently a combination of both
Quechua and Spanish occurs. Large collections of these waynos have been printed. A typical
example of a wayno is given in Escobar and Escobar (1981: 256) (Quechua elements italicized):

(2)

Pobre

sicuan-e-ita,

poor

Sicuan-PRV-DIM.F

a qu habrs

venido,

[Poor girl from Sicuani]

[wherefore have you come?]

to what have.2.FU come.PP

Kay runa-h

wasi-n-pi

this man-GEN

house-3-LOC

waqa-na-lla-yki-pah?
cry-NOM-DEL-2-for

[In this house of strangers]

[just to cry?]

Kay runa-h

llahta-n-pi

this man-GEN

town-3-LOC

llaki-na-lla-yki-pah?

[In this town of strangers]

[just to grieve?]

grieve-NML-DEL-2-for

Mama-y-mi

ni-wa-ra-n

[My mother told me]

mother-1-AF say-1.OB-PAS-3
ama ri-pu-y-rah-cu;
PRH

[dont go away yet;]

go-BEN-IMP-yet-NEG

mama-y-mi

ni-wa-ra-n

[my mother told me]

mother-1-AF say-1.OB-PAS-3
ama pasa-y-rah-cu;
PRH

[dont leave from here yet;]

pass-IMP-yet-NEG

The bilingual element comes in by various means. In the song above two means are illustrated:
code switching (the switch from initial Spanish to subsequent Quechua), and the one of concern
here in this paper, bilingual doubling.
The poetic effect in this genre of songs is reached for a large part with this technique of
parallelism or doubling. Phrases are repeated, but often with a slight lexical modification. Thus
we have a number of semantically roughly equivalent lexical pairs in subsequent lines, at least in
the universe of the song (given in bold in (2) above):

(3)

wasi house

waqa-

cry

ri-pu-go away

llahtatown

llaki- grieve

pasa- pass (by)

Since it is often difficult to find a semantic equivalent in the same language, as in the first two
pairs in (3), often equivalents from Spanish are taken, as in the third pair. This is by itself not
remarkable, since Spanish words can easily borrowed into Quechua. However five features stand
out in doubling in bilingual songs:

(a)

it is an extremely frequent phenomenon;

(b)

it involves particularly verbs rather than nouns, while ordinarily nouns are borrowed with
much more frequency (although Spanish verb borrowing is not impossible in Quechua);

(c)

it involves basic vocabulary as well, not just more marginal vocabulary;

(d)

it frequently involves verbs that are never borrowed in ordinary discourse, as can be
established from corpus studies of spoken Cuzco Quechua;

(e)

the verb occurs with all the relevant Quechua suffixes, as illustrated in (4), taken from the

last line in (2):

(4)

Ama pasa-y-rah-chu
PRH

pass-IMP-yet-NEG

Dont leave from here yet

Typical verb doublings found in waynos include:

(5)

SPANISH ORIGIN

QUECHUA ORIGIN

sabi- know

yacha- know

bulta- return

kuti- return

pasa- pass

ri-pu- go away

tuma- drink

uxya- drink

tupa- meet

tinku- meet

I assume these forms to be conventionalized doublets, which can be freely entered into the wayno
for doubling purposes, and then receive the full range of Quechua affixes.

5. Kallawaya

In a very different speech genre, something similar to both Media Lengua and the wayno verb
doubling is found: the Kallawaya ritual language of the professional healers of the Charazani
region north of La Paz in Bolivia. Compare the paired examples in (6) and (7):

(6)

a. Qari-s, warmi-s,

alkalde-tah ri-n-ku.

man-PL, woman-PL, alcalde-EMP

(QUECHUA)

go-3-PL

b. Laja-kuna, atasi-kuna, alkalde-tah isna-n-ku.

man-PL

woman-PL alcalde-EMP

go-3-PL

The men, the women and the mayor went.

(7)

a. Ri-pu-nki mana willa-ku-spa.

go-BEN-2

NEG

tell-REF-SUB.SS

(KALLAWAYA)

(Stark 1972: 216)

(QUECHUA)

b. Isna-pu-nki u
go-BEN-2

NEG

uri-ku-spa.

(KALLAWAYA)

tell-REF-SUB.SS

You went away without telling.

(Oblitas Poblete 1968: 34)

The forms in (6a) and (7a) represent the ordinary speech of the speech community, while the
forms in (6b) and (7b) the special ritual language. The non-italic forms in (6b) replace the
Quechua equivalents in (6a), while the Quechua morphology and grammar is maintained (in
addition there is a Spanish loan, alkalde mayor, in both language samples of (6); it need not
concern us here). As far as we can establish many of the lexical roots of Kallawaya are of
Puquina origin, but there may also be other languages involved, such as Leko, Tacana, Moseten,
and Uru. Finally, a number of words may simply be neologisms; striking is the avoidance of
loans from Spanish, in contrast with all the languages of the area, and certainly with Quechua.
Just like in the case of Media Lengua, there is replacement of Quechua roots with elements
from another language, and these elements are partially adapted phonologically to Quechua. In
addition, there words are affixed with the standard Quechua affixes, for the most part. For all
intents and purposes, contemporary Kallawaya is a form of Quechua with roots from another
language. It resembles the wayno songs in that through lexical replacement different registers are
created: in the case of Kallawaya this is the ritual register, in the case of the wayno songs this is
the doubling register.

6. Issues of genesis and processing

In this section, I will briefly comment on issues of genesis and processing with respect to Media
Lengua, mixed bilingual songs, and Kallawaya. In terms of scenarios of genesis, three primary
scenarios come to the fore: Creation, Shift, and Borrowing.

Creation. It is quite possible that in all three cases, processes of conscious creation have
played a role. Media Lengua may have emerged out of a language game in the early decades of
the twentieth century, when so far almost monolingual Quechua-speaking construction workers
from rural villages suddenly found themselves working in the rapidly expanding capital of Quito.
Both the expansion of the capital and the mobility of the work force were the result of the
construction of a railroad connection to the coastal port of Guayaquil. This language game may
then have become conventionalized in the communities the migrant construction workers were
from.
There has been no study so far of the history of popular music in the southern Andes, but there
is no doubt that the bilingual songs were the result of a process of semi-conscious creation,
triggered by the requirements of the process of semantic doubling in Quechua poetry and
facilitated by the wide-spread bilingualism in the area.
The origins of Kallawaya remain obscure, but it is clear that in the more contemporary forms
of Kalllawaya usage, creative processes linked to the ritual practices play an important role.
Kallawaya usage is highly performative in nature, as far as we know.
Shift. Media Lengua may be interpreted as a linguistic phenomenon that accompanies the
overall shift in many rural highland communities in Ecuador from Quechua to Spanish; indeed in
all cases where forms of Media Lengua have emerged we find shift occurring as well. However,
several observations speak against a strong intrinsic link between Media Lengua formation as
such and shift. First, in many Andean communities there has been language shift without the
creation of Media Lengua. Second, the genesis of Media Lengua took place at a time when there
was no shift yet to Spanish in the relevant communities. There is no intrinsic link between Media
Lengua formation and shift, particularly also when we take other mixed languages into account.

The use of bilingual songs in the southern Andes is indicative of wide-spread bilingualism, but
not necessarily of shift. Rather, the continued presence of Spanish and Quechua in these songs
suggests a form of possibly stable diglossia.
In the case of Kallawaya, there has been shift originally, but in this case away from the lexifier
language (Puquina) to the structure language (Quechua). The resulting ritual language, however,
is more like a case of counter-shift or U-turn.
Borrowing. Again, the relation with borrowing is quite complex. In the areas where Media
Lengua is spoken there is also extensive borrowing, and the way Spanish borrowed forms are
adapted to Quechua is exactly like the way relexified items are adapted. However, borrowing is
quantitatively restricted to about maximally 40% of the root tokens in the local varieties of
Quechua (Stark and Muysken, 1977), while in the case of Media Lengua we have almost 100%
of the root tokens. Qualitatively, borrowing is mostly restricted to non-basic vocabulary and the
distinction basic/non-basic is irrelevant in the case of Media Lengua.
In the varieties where waynos are sung there is also wide-spread borrowing (although more
limited than in Ecuador), but the pattern of bilingual verb doublings involved verbs that are never
borrowed.
Regarding Kallawaya, it is clear that the systematic use of Puquina and non-Quechua other
words in the ritual language is very different from what we may find elsewhere in the region;
there have been reports of some unusual specialized vocabulary, but the Quechua of the area is
overwhelmingly non-Puquina influenced, as far as can be gathered from the materials published
so far.
Language mode and dynamicity. As to language mode, the picture is different for the three
varieties at hand.

It is clear that in the original invention stage of Media Lengua the two languages must have
been present in the mind of the speaker, in order for her or him to be able to relexify; however, as
the Media Lengua stabilized, relexifications became conventionalized, and there was no need for
the activation of either language. In fact, there are speakers of Media Lengua without good
knowledge of Quechua (vocabulary), although the initial creators of Media Lengua surely were
highly proficient speakers of Quechua, incipient bilinguals in Spanish. For MAT transfer as in
relexification to occur, there is no need for very deep knowledge of the second language. Words
are adapted phonologically, nativized, although some properties of the original lexemes are
retained (see below).
The producers of and many of the listeners to bilingual songs are bilinguals, and indeed the
confrontation of the two languages is part and parcel of the esthetic pleasure that these songs
provide. However, many of the actual verb doublets are highly conventionalized.
The present day speakers of Kallawaya left do not know Puquina. The Puquina words are
simply part of a lexicon of non-Quechua words that they can use in speaking Kallawaya, while
they are also able to use the Quechua lexicon in speaking Quechua.
Matter and pattern. The final issue that concerns us here is that of the transfer of matter versus
pattern. How do we account for (a) the lexicon/grammar split in these three varieties, and (b) the
affix/root split?
What the mixed language data clearly show is that manipulating access to a lexicon separate
from the one that is conventionally attached to the grammar is clearly a possibility in this case, in
special but not exceptional circumstances. While speakers need to know the matrix grammar and
phonology well, the transferred lexicon is possibly only incompletely known. The phonology of
the mixed languages involved shows mixed features (Van Gijn 2009). Vowel distinctions
([mid]/[high] in the case of Media Lengua, [long]/[short] in the case of Kallawaya) for instance

are closer to those of the donor language, while phonotactic patterns are more like those those of
the recipient language. For this reason, the phonology does not provide us with much of a clue
here.
The question remains, however, why Quechua as a language has allowed these processes of
relexification or massive lexical transfer. Part of the answer may lie in its history as an imperial
language which was adopted in many parts of the Andes as a second language during and even
after Inca rule, and in the bilingual sociolinguistic context within which it is spoken. This cannot
be the whole story, however, since other languages in the world also have this character of
imperial languages and do not show relexification to the same extent, if at all.
What facilitates the separation of the Quechua lexicon from its grammar is that most of the
burden of interacting with the actual grammatical system in Quechua lies in the affixes rather
than in the roots. Most grammatical work is done by suffixes, not by the lexical roots themselves:
(a) Roots belong to two word classes, nouns (with a subclass of adjectives) and verbs.
Elements such as pronouns, quantifiers, adverbs, and conjunctions are subclasses of the noun
class.
(b) Some elements are both nouns and verbs.
(c) All nouns can occur as bare forms in the language, most often they carry some case
marking, person marking, topic marking, evidentials, etc. Verbs can never occur as bare forms.
Thus taking roots from another language does not have a major impact on grammatical
processing, which mostly interacts directly with the affixes. Furthermore, roots and affixes are
clearly distinct from the perspective of lexical processing.
Roots always initial in Quechua: there are only suffixes, no prefixes or infixes. Furthermore,
there are different phonotactic constraints for roots and affixes, and phonological rules such as
voicing, vowel raising, contraction in central Ecuadorian Quechua clearly distinguish between

affixes and roots. Most roots have two syllables, affixes one. Roots have more types of sounds
and are phonologically more complex. Affixes have a much more abstract meaning than roots.
The token frequency of affixes is much higher than that of roots.
These differences are coupled with the agglutinative morphology characterizing Quechua.
Altogether, the grammatical and morpho-phonological properties of Quechua on the whole are
propitious to a process of relexification involving the roots of the language, and not the affixes.
The affixes function as separate units and theoretically could be relexified by themselves.
Indeed we find some cases of Spanish suffixes in Media Lengua, including ndu adverbial
subordination, and du resultative nominalization. However, only the form ndu appears to be
productively used, and is also the suffix which does not occur frequently as a borrowing in other
Quechua varieties. Spanish suffixes in Quechua will be the subject of the next section.

7. Spanish suffixes in Quechua

In Table 5 (summarized from Muysken 2010b) the different Spanish suffixes are listed, loosely
ranked in terms of their grammatical status and productivity, that occur in varieties of Media
Lengua and Quechua.
Borrowed
Spanish
suffix

Spanish form

Gloss

Variety

References

-ndu

-ndo

Gerund

Muysken 1981, 1997

-do

-do

Resultative

-dor/-dora
-dur

-dor/-dora

Agentive /
Habitual /
Professional

dero

-dero

Agentive /

Salcedo Media
Lengua (Ec)
Inga (Col)
Salcedo Media
Lengua (Ec)
Inga (Col)
Cajamarca (Pe)
Imbabura ML
(Ec)
Inga (Col)

Levinsohn 1976
Muysken 1981
Levinsohn 1976
Quesasa (1976: 42)
Gomez Rendn (2008)
Levinsohn 1976

hora hour

-hora

-itu / -ita / - -ito/-ita/-ecito

situ/-ditu

habitual /
professional
Temporal
subordination
Diminutive

Inga (Col)

Levinsohn 1976

Cochabamba
(Bol)
Cajamarca (Pe)
Inga (Col)
Santiago del
Estero (Arg)

Urioste (1964)
Quesada (1976: 42, 105)
Levinsohn 1976
Bravo (1985: 113, 150)

Characterizer,
diminutive
Characterizer

Santiago del
Estero (Arg)
Cotopaxi (Ec)

Bravo (1985: 143, 178/9)

-likido

?-illo/-illa
abu-elo/a
-lon (cf.
dormiln sleepy
person)
lquido liquid

Characterizer

-nyintu

-niento

Characterizer

Lamas (Pe)
Cajamarca (Pe)
Cajamarca (Pe)

-iru

-ero

Characterizer

Cajamarca (Pe)

Taylor (1975: 54)

Quesada (1976: 91)
Quesada (1976: 64. 67,
68)
Quesada (1976: 140)

-s

-s

Plural

Salcedo ML (Ec)
Cochabamba
(Bol)

-ilu/-ila
-lun

Table 5:

Muysken (1977)

Muysken (1981)
Urioste (1964)

Suffixes borrowed or relexified from Spanish in different varieties of Quechua and

Media Lengua

We can conclude that there is a wide variety of Spanish suffixes that have been adopted into
different Quechua varieties. Broadly speaking, they fall into four categories:
I. Suffixes that replace a Quechua suffix, often in the verbal paradigm:

(8)

- kpi and shpa > -ndo

adverbial subordinator (only in Media Lengua)

-sqa, -ska, -shka > -do

resultative nominalizer

-q, -k

> -dor, -dero agentive

?-pacha

> -hora

temporal subordinator

In some varieties these suffixes are only partially productive and limited to the lexical domain,
but this requires more study. The element hora may replace the suffix pacha time, world,
since, but in most Quechua varieties this suffix is not used grammatically as -hora is in Inga in
Colombia.
An example of the use of ndo or -ndu in Salcedo Media Lengua is:

(9)

ahi-da-ga

abi-n,

piru tarde-ya-ndu-ga gana-u-nga-y

there-AC-TOP exist-3 but

late-TRF-SUB-TOP earn-PRG-3.FU-EMP

It is there, but when it gets late he will be winning.

Media Lengua, Ecuador (Muysken 1997: 386)

This ndu replaces the different subject subordination marker kpi here. Cases of dor, which
replaces the Quechua agentive marker q (Peru) or k (Ecuador), are:

(10) Chay runa-ka macha-dor-mi

` that man-TO drink-AG-AF
That man is a drunkard.

(11) sementerio-ma
cemetery-to

Ecuador (Ross 1960: 51-52)

apa-dor ka-rka-kuna
take-AG be-PA-PL

They used to take [us] to the cemetery.

Inga, Colombia (Levinson 1976: 106)

II. A range of diminutive suffixes that only partly come in the place of Quechua suffixes, but
also derive some gender properties from the donor language Spanish (Cochabamba Quechua;
Urioste 1964):

(12) *-itu

after Quechua words that end in /u/, but also partially sensitive to (particularly

natural) Spanish masculine gender

punqu
*-ita

punq-itu little door

after Quechua words that end in /a/, but also partially sensitive to (particularly

natural) Spanish feminine gender

little head

uma

um-ita

*-situ

after Quechua words that end in /i/

rumi

rumi-situ

little stone

We also find the form ditu occasionally as a diminutive or a characterizer.

III. A range of characterizing and affective suffixes often loosely modeled on Spanish suffixes
but without clear Quechua models:

(13) -ilu/-ila

diminutive, affective

-lun

characterizer

-likido

characterizer

-nyintu

characterizer

-iru

characterizer

Some selected examples:

(14) siki-lu
ass-CHAR
with a big ass

Santiago del Estero (Bravo 1985: 296)

(15) wacha-chi-lun
give.birth-CAU-AG
midwife

Ecuador (Muysken 1977)

(16) rumi-likido
stone-liquid
like stone

Lamas Peru (Taylor 1975: 54)

Interesting is the fact that these suffixes appear to be characteristic of two closely related,
affective semantic domains in nominal morphology: affective and characterizing. Seifart (2009)
stresses the tendency towards specialization within a single domain as a feature of morphological
borrowing.
IV. A final category is the Spanish plural suffix s which is used almost obligatorily with
Quechua nouns ending in a vowel (the vast majority) in Bolivian Quechua.

(16) warmi-s women

algu-s

dogs

Bolivia (Urioste 1964)

It is rare if not nonexistent in other varieties of Quechua. The origin and spread of this use of s
merits further historical study.
Altogether the range of Spanish suffixes and their spread across a number of varieties of
Quechua is striking, although further comparative work on similar situations involving other
languages, such as Nahuatl (Karttunen and Lockart 1976; Field 2002) will be needed to be sure of
this. In any case, these findings tend to support the observations made in section 7 about the
special separate status of affixes in Quechua.

8. Conclusions
This paper has ranged over different Andean territories, from Colombia and Ecuador to
Argentina, and has explored the psycholinguistic transfer types, needed to be postulated to be
hypothetically involved in the emergence of two mixed languages and a mixed register with a
Quechua structure: Media Lengua (Ecuador) and Kallawaya (Bolivia), both relexified varieties
within the Quechua language family, and bilingual mixed songs in Peru, waynos. The two issues
that require most attention are (a) the mental status of roots versus affixes in the transfer process;
(b) the possibility of manipulating lexical access in transfer. The languages and the register share
a number of structural features, but were found to be sociolinguistically totally different. In
Media Lengua the lexicon comes from a new language (Spanish), and in Kallawaya from an
old language (Puquina). Media Lengua is an informal community language, while Kallawaya a
ritual healing language only used by male adults. In Waynos there is evidence of relatively
balanced bilingualism. The mixed language are confronted with the mirror phenomenon of
Spanish suffixes that occur in Quechua, to help us further understand the processing issues
involved.

With respect to the mental status of roots versus affixes in the transfer process, we can
conclude that affixes in Quechua are fairly autonomous, and separate from roots. With respect to
the possibility of manipulating lexical access in transfer, we can conclude that roots, but not
affixes, can easily be manipulated. Presumably, affixes carry the grammatical processing load by
themselves, freeing roots for being transferred, either from an ancestral community language, as
in the case of Kallawaya, or from a dominant post-colonial language, as in the case of Media
Lengua. In mixed songs, as well, we see the freedom of manipulation with respect to roots,
though not affixes.

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Appendix A: Glosses used

ABL

ablative

masculine

AC

accusative

NEG

negation

AF

affirmative evidential

NML

nominalizer

AL

allative

NPAS

narrative past

BEN

benefactive

OB

object

COM

comitative, instrumental

PAS

past

DEL

delimitative

PL

plural

DIM

diminutive

PO

possessive

EMP

emphatic

PP

past participle

EU

euphonic

PRH

prohibitive

feminine

PRG

progressive

FU

future

PRV

provenance

GEN

genitive

question

honorific

SUB.DS

different subject subordinator

IGN

ignorative

SUB.SS

same subject subordinator

IMP

imperative

TOP

topic

LOC

locative

TRF

transformative