Abstract

This article presents a large set of data concerning Mapudungun expressions of desire. It throws light on two phenomena: The language’s bouletic transparency and its alternative means to convey future orientation. The former is related to the cross-linguistic tendency to mark WANT predicates with counterfactual morphology and express, by these means, either WISH or WOULD WANT statements. It will be shown that Mapudungun follows this crosslinguistic pattern in a quite systematic way. As for the second issue, I will defend the view that Mapudungun is a language that possesses both morphosemantically independent and lexically inherent mechanisms to prospectively displace the time of occurrence of the desired event with respect to the time at which the subject’s preferences are evaluated.