The latin model in the first descriptions of the Mapudungun language: heritage and innovation in colonial-missionary linguistics

Abstract This article describes and explains the use of the comparative paradigm in the study of the Mapudungun language, which took Latin as a model because it was a prestigious language and because it had a strong grammatical tradition. In particular, the paper analyzes the procedures to describe the Mapuche language in the missionary grammars, in relation to the missionaries’ linguistic experimentation. For illustrative purposes, the grammatical category ‘noun’ is used and the study shows that exogenous explanations prevailed in the first descriptions of the Mapudungun language, despite which the syntactic and morphological particularities of this language were manifested.

摘要：本文系统阐述并剖析了马普切语（Mapudungun）研究中比较范式的应用逻辑。该研究之所以选取拉丁语作为参照模型，一是因其彼时享有极高学术声望，二是其拥有成熟深厚的语法研究传统。本文特别结合传教士的语言实验活动，深入分析了传教士语法文本中描述马普切语的具体方法。为便于阐释，本文选取语法范畴“名词”作为示例对象，研究结果表明：尽管马普切语的早期描述多采用外源性阐释框架，但该语言自身的句法与形态学特性仍得以充分体现。