Preverbal Uninflected and Underived Roots in Mapudungun. Wuno and Its Implications

This study examines the grammatical status of preverbal uninflected and underived roots in Mapudungun, with particular focus on wuno 'return/re-'. Through a critical review of scholarly classifications--auxiliaries (Smeets, 2008), modal prefixes (Longkon, 2011), and preverbal particles/complex verb stems (Zúñiga, 2006)--we demonstrate the limitations of existing frameworks. A diachronic corpus analysis spanning four centuries (1606-present) reveals that these elements exhibit three distinct profiles: stable V1 compounds (kim, shinge), volatile V1 rates reflecting orthographic shift (pepi, wuno), and a true particle (kalli). The discovery of V2 attestations for kim and kupa confirms their ...

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