1 Possessive semantic relations and construction types in Kukama-Kukamiria Rosa Vallejos 1 University of New Mexico This contribution deals with the linguistic expression of possession in Kukama-Kukamiria 2 and examines potential correlations between possessive semantic relations (Heine 1997, Stassen 2009, Barker 2011) and construction types. Kukama-Kukamiria, a language spoken in the Amazon of Peru, does not have lexical verbs such as ‘have’, ‘belong,’ or a copula to predicate possession. Although the language does not have a dedicated possessive construction, possession can be inferred from several constructions, four of which are the focus of this paper. These are shown in (1) - (4): 3 (1) ajan wayna mɨmɨra-yara this woman son.FEMALE.EGO-owner ‘This woman has a son’ (Lit. This woman is son-owner) (2) emete-taka ajan wayna ɨkɨ exist-MOD this woman chili ‘This woman might have chili’ (Lit. This woman’s chili might exist) (3) ɨwɨrati tsanuyai tɨma emete yai tsuwi forest rodent NEG exist 3SG.FS tail ‘The wild rat doesn’t have a tail’ (Lit. As for the wild rat, its tail doesn’t exist) (4) ta yuwama=ka emete eran kaitsuma 1SG.MS daughter.law=LOC exist good yucca.beer ‘My daughter in law has good yucca beer’ (Lit. There is good yucca beer at my daughter in law) The example in (1) is a predicate nominal construction that consists of two juxtaposed NPs; the possessor is encoded in the first NP, the possessum in the second NP. The second NP includes the clitic -yara ‘owner.’ This pattern is called here EQUATIVE. The example in (2) illustrates one subtype of existential construction, the EXISTENTIAL GENITIVE, in which the 1 I want to express my deepest gratitude to each and every one of the Kukama-Kukamirias that have shared their time and knowledge with me since 1997, especially to Rosa Amías Murayari, my long-time friend and collaborator. Many thanks to two anonymous reviewers for comments that helped me to improve the paper. This work was supported by the NSF Documenting Endangered Languages program (BCS #0965604) and a NEH- NSF Documenting Endangered Languages fellowship (FN-50110-12). Although I am pleased to thank each of these persons and organizations, all findings, conclusions, errors, and omissions in this paper are my own. 2 Previously known as Kokama-Kokamilla. 3 Abbreviations: AUG=augmentative, CAU=causative, COM=comitative, DAT=dative, DEM=demonstrative, EXH=exhortative, FOC=focus, INS=instrument, LOC=locative, NZR=nominalizer, PAS=past, PL.FS= plural female speaker, PL.MS=plural male speaker, PROG=progressive, PUR=purpose, Q=question, REC=reciprocal, REI=reiterative, REL=relativizer, RSN=reason, VBLZ=verbalizer. 1SG.FS = first person singular female speaker, 1SG.MS=first person singular male speaker, 1PL.EX.MS=first person plural exclusive male speaker, 1PL.EX.FS=first person plural exclusive female speaker, 3SG.MS = third person singular male speaker, 3SG.OBJ=third person singular object.