Predicate nominals and enclitic copulas in Jivaroan and Candoshi

Non-verbal predication may involve a fully or partly inflected copula verb, an invariant particle, a bound copula or no overt copula at all. In the case of Aguaruna (Jivaroan), Overall (2008) describes three possibilities for equative/attributive clauses: (i) the unmarked predicate nominal may be juxtaposed to the subject, resulting in a genuinely nonverbal clause; (ii) the predicate nominal may have an enclitic copula; and (iii) a separate fully inflected copula verb may be used. Option (iii) is in complementary distribution with the other options, and is obligatory in most non-present tenses; most non-finite clauses; and where the subject is plural. The enclitic copula has present and remote past tense forms, and is marked for the obligatory verbal categories of person and mood; these are marked as in finite verbs for first and second person subjects (cf. 1, 2), but third person forms are phonologically reduced portmanteaux (compare the finite verb in 3 with the copula enclitic in 4)