Abstract Q’eqchi’ (Mayan stock, K’ichean subgroup) is an ergative language; a fi-nite verb form obligatorily carries information on the person and number of the abso-lutive participant, i.e., the unique argument of an intransitive verb or the direct objectof a transitive one. The set of personal absolutive markers includes five morphemes;the third person singular has no overt marker. These morphemes in Modern Q’eqchi’are prefixes in a finite verbal predication and enclitics in a non-finite predication.In a finite verb form, the place of an absolutive prefix is between the tense-aspectprefix and personal ergative prefix (in a transitive predication) or verb root (in an in-transitive one). This paper argues that during Colonial Q’eqchi’ (used in the secondhalf of the 16th century and slightly later) the general structure of a verbal complexwas completely different, and all personal absolutive markers were in fact enclitics.They were enclitisized to tense-aspect morphemes that functioned syntactically asmain predicates of a complex construction. Further diachronic change consolidated averbal complex, conditioning the transition to affixation.
The morphological properties of inflectional morphemes in the majority of Mayanlanguages are not well-studied, and usually seem to be established based on someintuitive knowledge of an author, which sometimes proves to be inaccurate after thecritical examination of a problem. As Lehmann (2015a:10) fairly notes, “informa-tion on the clitic or affixal status of grammatical formatives in the Mayan languagesis notoriously unreliable”. The absolutive person markers are of special interest be-cause of their morphological diversity in the Mayan family. Grinevald and Peake(2012:23) claim that the absolutive markers “may be prefixed and/or suffixed” inMayan languages, but add later in the same paragraph that they “may in fact be cliticsor free morphemes that occur (semi)independently of the verb form”. Apart from this,the morphological status of inflectional morphemes evidently underwent diachronicchange, and this point has not received much attention from historical linguistics ofMayan (however, see Bricker 1977, Robertson 1980, 1992).
Q’eqchi’ is a Mayan language of the K’ichean subgroup. It is spoken in the cen-tral and northern parts of Guatemala, as well as in the southern regions of Belize,by approximately 800,000 people and the number of speakers is increasing (Lewiset al. 2015). There are some colonial documents (dating from the 16th century andlater) on Q’eqchi’ that enable diachronic studies. Some of them are hardly acces-sible and others are incomplete; for instance, only parts of the colonial grammar ofde Cardenas (1565) and the undated “Cajabón manuscript” survived. Moreover, othersources provide only very limited lexical and grammatical information; for instance,the majority of land titles normally do so.1 All these factors make it impossible tocollect an extensive textual corpus of Colonial Q’eqchi’; nor is it possible to obtain alarge amount of unconditionally reliable data on the grammatical structure of the old
1Land titles are indigenous documents that were prepared (or used) primarily for legal and political pur-poses in disputes over rights to land.
Diachrony of absolutive markers in Q’eqchi’ 107
Table 1 The prefixal set ofabsolutive markers in ModernQ’eqchi’
1st person 2nd person 3rd person
Singular in- at- [no overt marker]
Plural oo- ex- e’-/eb’-
Table 2 The enclitic set ofabsolutive markers in ModernQ’eqchi’3
1st person 2nd person 3rd person
Singular =in =at [no overt marker]
Plural =o =ex =eb’
language. Nevertheless, some linguistic observations in the domains of morphology,syntax and semantics can be made on the basis of the available documents, and someconclusions about diachronic changes in Q’eqchi’ can be drawn. This paper studiesdiachronic change in the clitic-affixal status of absolutive person markers from thecolonial period to the present-day.
The paper consists of four main sections. Section 2 describes morphological prop-erties and syntactic functions of the absolutive markers in Modern Q’eqchi’. The nextsection provides evidence of these markers’ morphosyntactic behavior in the colonialperiod, as documented in texts and grammars from 16 to 17th centuries. Section 4discusses the transition from colonial to Modern Q’eqchi’ concerning the clitic or af-fixal status of absolutive markers and the structure of the verbal complex in general.It argues that the drastic change from enclitics to prefixes, which took place duringthe last five centuries of the history of Q’eqchi’, was provoked by syntactic reorga-nization and consolidation of the verbal complex. Some parallels in the diachronicdevelopments of Q’eqchi’ and other Mayan languages of the K’ichean branch aredrawn in Sect. 5.
2 Absolutive markers in Modern Q’eqchi’
This section discusses at some length the personal absolutive marking in ModernQ’eqchi’. Q’eqchi’ is a head-marking language, which means that personal indicesare attached to the head of the construction instead of providing the dependent witha marker of the relation. There are two paradigms of absolutive markers in ModernQ’eqchi’: one is prefixed (Table 1) and the other is encliticized (Table 2).2
2Caz Cho (2007:53) and Stewart (1980:24) present similar figures. These authors label this set of mark-ers “set B”, following the tradition of Mayan language descriptions. This notation is concerned with thefact that some Mayan languages exhibit mixed ergative-absolutive and nominative-accusative patterns ofalignment, and the same set of personal markers can be used for different types of arguments. Q’eqchi’ isa purely ergative language, so I prefer to use more informative terms: ergative and absolutive. The ergativemarkers also function as possessives in a nominal phrase.3There are two sets of ergative prefixes, depending on the following sound. The prevocalic set: w- ‘1sg’,aaw- ‘2sg’, r- ‘3sg’, q- ‘1pl’, eer- ‘2pl’, e’r- ‘3pl’; the preconsonantic set: in- ‘1sg’, aa- ‘2sg’, x- ‘3sg’,qa- ‘1pl’, ee- ‘2pl’, e’x- ‘3pl’. The shortening of the vocal often occurs in the second person singular andplural (Caz Cho 2007:47, 50).
108 I. Vinogradov
The prefixed and encliticized morphemes are very similar and, in some cases,identical; compare Tables 1 and 2. However, the difference in vowel length in the firstperson plural and the presence of the prefixed allomorph -e’ in the third person pluralmake it more reasonable to consider them synchronically as two different paradigms,rather than as only one paradigm that exhibits both sets of properties.4 Both absolu-tive paradigms include five mutually exclusive members, as shown in Tables 1, 2. Thethird person singular has no overt absolutive marker, and some authors (Stewart 1980;Caz Cho 2007) use the notion of the zero-morpheme to designate it.
The third person plural absolutive marker =eb’ can be analyzed as a default tran-scategorial plural marker used both with verbs and nouns. In a noun phrase, it has nopersonal reference and only indicates the number, as in (1), and personal reference ina finite predication comes from the zero marker of the third person singular.
(1) a. eb’PL
liDEF
q-as1PL.POSS-older.brother
nak-e’x-yePRES-3PL.ERG-say
naqthat
‘Our older brothers say that. . . ’5
b. t-e’-suq’ii-qFUT-3PL.ABS-return-IRR
chiPREP
usgood
sa’PREP
liDEF
r-ochoch=eb’3SG.POSS-house=PL
‘They will return well to their houses.’6
This analysis is especially plausible because the marker eb’ can also precede andantecede its head; compare (1a) and (1b). Berinstein (1984:45) and Law (2014:79)analyze the third person plural ergative prefixes e’r- and e’x- (see footnote 3) as achain of two separate morphemes: the plural indicator e’- and the third person sin-gular ergative/possessive prefix r- or x-. This is another reason for considering themorpheme e’-/= eb’ as a plural marker, rather than a third person plural absolutivemarker.
Since the purpose of this paper is to establish the morphological properties of acertain class of morphemes, there is no point in dealing with zero marking. Therefore,I exclude all third person singular forms from consideration. The third person pluralabsolutive forms will be examined with some restraint, as there is no certainty abouttheir interpretation as genuine absolutives, at least synchronically. The major part ofdiscussion will concern absolutive markers of the first and second persons, only.
The personal absolutive markers perform three main functions in Q’eqchi’. With anon-finite or non-verbal predicate (2a), as well as with a finite intransitive verb form
4Mó Isém (2006:161–162) proposes the same analysis of morphologically similar preverbal and post-verbal absolutive sets as two different paradigms in Poqomchi’.5In examples from Modern Q’eqchi’, I use the orthography approved by the Guatemalan Academy ofMayan Languages. When I do not cite the source, this indicates that the example comes from my fieldworkin the area of Cobán in December 2014.
As for examples from colonial periods, I present them in both their original orthography and a “stan-dardized” modern orthography with morphemic partition in separate lines. In interpreting examples,I mostly rely on the dictionary Cu Cab and Cu Cab (1998). If the translation of an example in the citedwork is not provided or appears in Spanish, the English translation is mine.6There are no universally accepted terms for tense-aspect categories in Q’eqchi’, see Stewart (1979),DeChicchis (1996), Caz Cho (2007). I will make use of “tense-based” terms, without examining semanticdetails.
Diachrony of absolutive markers in Q’eqchi’ 109
(2b), this set of markers cross-references the unique argument by indicating its personand number. In a transitive predication, this set of markers cross-references the directobject (2c), while the subject is cross-referenced by the ergative set of markers.
(2) a. winq=atman=2SG.ABS‘You are a man.’ (Caz Cho 2007:58; Stewart 1980:90)
b. x-at-warPAST-2SG.ABS-sleep‘You slept.’ (Caz Cho 2007:54)
c. t-at-in-b’oqFUT-2SG.ABS-1SG.ERG-call‘I will call you.’ (Stewart 1980:55)
When an absolutive marker is attached to a non-verbal predicate, it is encliticizedto the stem (2a), while with finite verb forms it is prefixed and placed between thetense-aspect prefix and a verbal stem (2b) or, in the case of transitive verbs, an ergativeprefix (2c). Stewart (1980:32–37) and Caz Cho (2007:56–57) describe the possibilityof double absolutive marking on a finite verb form (3).
The cases of double personal marking are restricted to only two peripheral dialects(Caz Cho 2007:56). Although, according to some models, this could have been evi-dence of an intermediate stage in the development of person marking,7 for now, thereare insufficient data to advance hypotheses in regard to Q’eqchi’.
In Modern Q’eqchi’, the left-attached markers are undoubtedly prefixes. They arecompletely bound to a stem, cannot be used separately and cannot be used as prefixesor proclitics with parts of speech other than verbs (4a). Their place in a word form isfixed; they always follow a tense-aspect prefix and never precede it (4b).
(4) a. *in-winq1SG.ABS-manPresumable translation: ‘I am a man.’
b. *in-x-war1SG.ABS-PAST-sleepPresumable translation: ‘I slept.’
There are some movement roots in K’ichean languages, which can be incorporatedin a verbal complex. If such an element intervenes in a finite verb form in ModernQ’eqchi’, it does not separate the absolutive marker from the verb root (5a). Instead,the movement element precedes the absolutive marker, which maintains its connec-tion to the verb stem (5b).
7Double absolutive marking was reported, for example, in the Huixtán dialect of Tzotzil, another Mayanlanguage. Robertson (1992:185–186) views that phenomenon as an intermediate stage of the diachronicdevelopment from prefixation (in the Zinacantán dialect of Tzotzil) to suffixation (in Tzeltal).
110 I. Vinogradov
(5) a. *t-ex-ox-wa’-aqFUT-2PL.ABS-go-eat-IRR
Presumable translation: ‘You (pl.) will go to eat.’b. t-ox-ex-wa’-aq
FUT-go-2PL.ABS-eat-IRR
‘You (pl.) will go to eat.’
Interestingly, the absolutive prefixes can never begin a word form. In rare cases oftense-aspect omission (for instance, in some optative-imperative contexts),8 the pre-fixal set becomes impossible and the enclitic morphemes are used instead (6).
(6) q-il-aq=at1PL.ERG-see-IRR=2SG.ABS
‘We would see you.’ (Stewart 1980:68)
Predicates lacking an initial tense-aspect marking, as in (6), can formally be con-sidered non-finite predicates (Coon to appear). This would explain why overtly un-marked optative-imperative forms have retained an absolutive enclitic; compare (6)and (2a) or (7), where a perfect participle functions as non-finite predicate.
(7) war-jenaq=insleep-PERF=1SG.ABS
chikalready
‘I have already slept.’ (Caz Cho 2007:124)
The right-attached absolutive markers should be analyzed as enclitics. If one startsfrom the commonly used “criteria of morphosyntactic wordhood” (see Haspelmath2011b, among many others), then the place of the right-attached absolutive markerson the cline from independent words to affixes should be within clitics.
The absolutive markers can never constitute a complete isolate utterance, so theydo not satisfy the criterion of free occurrence and should definitely not be analyzed asindependent words. The absolutive markers from the right-attached set do participatein accentuation patterns. They are always found at the end of a phonological word,so they receive the stress that falls on the last syllable in Q’eqchi’ (Stewart 1980:21).These markers are not mobile within a phrase, as they always follow the host. Thecombination of the stem and absolutive marker is uninterruptible, except by somebound morphemes; for instance, the irrealis suffix in (6) and the perfect participialsuffix in (7).
An argument for considering the right-attached absolutive markers as encliticsrather than suffixes is the fact that they are not selective with respect to the class ofhost to which they can be attached. They can appear on diverse stems (nominal, adjec-tival, numeral, verbal), cf. (2a) and (6). They can also be added to the pronominal stemlaa’-, which itself is bound because it lacks the property of free occurrence, in order
8Stewart (1979:189; 1980:61–62) postulates a zero-allomorph of the optative/imperative marker. For moredetails on tense-aspect omission, see also Vinogradov (2015).
Diachrony of absolutive markers in Q’eqchi’ 111
to form a personal emphatic pronoun: laa’in ‘I’, laa’at ‘you’, laa’o ‘we’, laa’ex ‘you(pl.)’.9 Haspelmath (2011b) calls this criterion “non-selectivity” or “promiscuity”.10
3 Absolutive markers in Colonial Q’eqchi’
This section addresses morphological properties of personal absolutive markers inColonial Q’eqchi’. The argument is based on the information provided in grammati-cal descriptions, principally in Berendt (1875) but also in de Cardenas (1565), and onthe analysis of some published documents, including Burkitt (1905), Freeze (1980),Breton (1915), Weeks (1997).
The phonological representation of the absolutive markers in that period was al-most the same as in the modern language. The unique and minor phonetic change con-cerns the marker of the first person plural, which is oo-/=o in the modern language(Tables 1, 2). The colonial texts and grammars do not provide reliable informationon vowel length and, in most cases, represent this marker as a simple o. Neverthe-less, the colonial grammar “Arte de lengua Cacchi para bien comun” (Berendt 1875),by conjugating verbal and non-verbal predicates, lists forms in the first person pluralwith the augment ô. There is no information about the possible meaning of this accentmark in the grammar, so one can only infer that it was not a simple short vowel [o],but presumably another, slightly different, vowel.11
More important changes occurred in the area of morphosyntax. There are twopieces of strong evidence that there were no absolutive prefixes in the colonial pe-riod, and that, in general, the verbal complex was less consolidated. I argue that theabsolutive markers were invariably encliticized on the constituent to their left.
The first piece of evidence comes from constructions with focalized adverbs,where the absolutive marker appears on the right of the focalized constituent (8).
(8) a. Example from the colonial grammar (de Cardenas 1565:89)cebat Ehiculucseeb’=at chi-k’ulun-qsoon=2SG.ABS FUT-come-IRR
‘Come soon’b. Examples from the colonial grammar (Berendt 1875:38)
euerat chi vilewer=at chi w-ilyesterday=2SG.ABS PREP 1SG.ERG-see‘Yesterday I saw you’
c. cau in ta cha tem Eakaw=in ta ch-a-tenq’astrong=1SG.ABS OPT FUT-2SG.ERG-help‘Help me greatly’
9The third person pronouns do not make use of this pattern. The singular form is similar to the demonstra-tive pronoun a’an ‘this’. The morpheme eb’ can be added to indicate a plural number.10Note that the transcategorial uses may also be interpreted as manifestation of syntactic autonomy of anagglutinative affix, as opposed to a flective one (Plungian 2001).11It can also be noted that the absolutive marker of the first person plural is reconstructed as *o’N forProto-Mayan (Kaufman 1990:72, Robertson 1992:53).
112 I. Vinogradov
Examples in (8) are, in fact, biclausal constructions. The adverb with an encliticizedabsolutive marker constitutes the main clause, and the elements to the right of theabsolutive marker form the complement. There are still some difficulties in clarifyingthe exact morphosyntactic structure of this dependent unit. The element chi/ch- canactually be tense-aspect marker of the future/optative (as I gloss it in (8a) and (8c))or a preposition that introduces a nominalized verb form. It is probable that both arediachronically related. The latter case cannot be discarded due to the ambiguity ofthe ergative/possessive prefixes, but it should also be assumed that it was possible inColonial Q’eqchi’ to nominalize a transitive verb form without any additional marker(8b), (8c); in the modern language, the suffix -b’al is used to nominalize a transitivestem. If the latter case is correct, the verbal suffix in (8a) should be analyzed as anominalizer -k rather than as a marker of irrealis status -q.12 Other examples illustratethe fact that focalized constructions can occur both with (9a) and without (9b) a tense-aspect marker.
(9) a. Examples from the colonial grammar (de Cardenas 1565:88)yalac innaxicyalaq=in na-xikanyway=1SG.ABS PRES-go‘Anyway I would go.’
b. acexxicak=ex xikalready=2PL.ABS go‘You (pl.) go already.’
The colonial data are not consistent as respects the structure of the complement: itcan contain a tense-aspect marker or omit it, the verb can appear in its nominalizedform as well as the finite and the preposition can be used to introduce the complementor be omitted.13 It seems very probable that in the 16th century, the process of therestructurization of a verbal complex had already begun, and that the complement ofa complex construction was affected in the first instance.
The same phenomenon occurs in subordinated clauses introduced by the conjunc-tion naq ‘when’ (10).
(10) a. The testament from 1583 (Burkitt 1905:273)nac quin chi camcnaq=in chi-kam-qwhen=1SG.ABS FUT-die-IRR
‘. . . when I die’b. Example from the colonial grammar (Berendt 1875:38)
nacat chintaunaq=at ch-in-tawwhen=2SG.ABS FUT-1SG.ERG-come.up‘. . . when I come up with you’
12The colonial -c (as well as -E) can refer to both -k and -q , because of the inconsistent orthography.13Robertson (1980:240–245) discusses differences in the formal structures of embedded clauses in differ-ent Eastern Mayan languages, including colonial K’iche’ and Kaqchikel.
Diachrony of absolutive markers in Q’eqchi’ 113
The second piece of evidence of the fact that the absolutive indices were not yetprefixes in Colonial Q’eqchi’ is the interruptibility of what in the modern languageis a finite verb form. In colonial times, some particles were able to occur betweentense-aspect morpheme and verb root (11).
(11) a. Example from the colonial grammar (Berendt 1875:31)naquinta loEonicnak=in=ta loq’on-iikPRES=1SG.ABS=OPT love-PASS14
‘Would I be loved.’b. Undated translation of the Lord’s Prayer (Breton 1915)
bota avaEhab chiza ybanunquil Ea maacb=o=ta aw-ak’ab’ chisa’PROH=1PL.ABS=OPT 2SG.ERG-lead PREP
i-banun-kil qa-maak3SG.POSS-make-NMLZ 1PL.POSS-sin‘Do not lead us into temptation.’
The colonial optative particle ta apparently was a clitic.15 It attached to the tense-aspect auxiliary after the absolutive marker, and this complex constituted the mainpredicate. It was followed by the verb (11a), which, according to transitivity, canbear the ergative prefix (11b). Thus, tense-aspect markers were independent words inthe colonial period, unlike their manifestations in the modern language.
We do not know exactly how extensive is the list of such particles as ta ‘opta-tive’. There are examples in colonial texts of at least three more morphemes attachedto the tense-aspect auxiliary (not necessarily accompanied by an overt absolutivemarker when it cross-references the third person) followed by a verbal complement:raj ‘counterfactive’ (12a), le ‘quotative’ (12b) and ut ‘and’ (12c).
(12) a. Example from the colonial grammar (Berendt 1875:39)naquin rah iloEonnak=in=raj i-loq’onPRES=1SG.ABS=CF 3SG.ERG-love‘S/he would have loved me.’
b. Example from the colonial grammar (de Cardenas 1565:92)olecamc nauabio=le kam-k na-w-ab’iPAST=QUOT die-REAL PRES-1SG.ERG-hear‘I hear [that] s/he died.’
c. Example from the petition from 1619 (Freeze 1980:120)taut rabi le pe
˜ta=ut r-ab’i le PadrePRES=and 3SG.ERG-listen DEF priest‘The priest was listening to her/him.’
14Cu Cab and Cu Cab (1998:105) translate the verb loq’on as ‘to appreciate’.15In Modern Q’eqchi’, this particle has changed its meaning. Now, it is used mainly in negative contexts,a fact that enabled Kockelman (2006) to label it “counterfactive”.
114 I. Vinogradov
Another similar construction showing the complex clausal nature of a colonial verbalpredication involves a motion verb (13).
(13) Example from the colonial grammar (Berendt 1875:72)nacat hul in taE lanak=at ul in-taqlaPRES=2SG.ABS come 1SG.ERG-call‘I come to call you’
Here, the tense-aspect auxiliary is followed by a verbal complement just as in (12),with the particularity that this complement consists of a verb of motion plus its pur-posive dependent. This complex has an internal structure such that ergative markingdoes not appear on the motion verb, but on the dependent verb. Constructions of thistype characterize other K’ichean languages as well; for instance, K’iche’ (López Ix-coy 1997:195–196). They are traditionally referred to as “(movement) incorpora-tion”; see, for instance, Robertson (1980), Kaufman (1990:72), Maxwell and Hill(2006:51). However, at least for colonial languages, this term seems to be inappro-priate, since the verbal complex was not bound, and both tense-aspect marker andmovement verb were, in fact, autonomous words.
The colonial data show that the absolutive markers were invariably clitics and notaffixes, by the criterion of host selectivity. They were attached to a syntactic position(to the first element in a clause), whether it was a tense-aspect auxiliary, a focalizedadverb or a conjunction, rather than to a word belonging to a certain category. Thismeans that the colonial absolutive markers were even less selective than the modernones. The tense-aspect markers were, in fact, independent words, serving as mainpredicates in biclausal constructions and hosting absolutive enclitics.
4 From Colonial to Modern Q’eqchi’
In Modern Q’eqchi’ (Sect. 2), the personal absolutive markers function as both pre-fixes and enclitics, depending on the finiteness of the predication and the presence orabsence of a tense-aspect prefix. In Colonial Q’eqchi’ (Sect. 3), the personal abso-lutive markers were enclitics, and could be attached to a non-verbal predicate, to atense-aspect auxiliary, to a conjunction or to a focalized adverbial constituent. Thus,the enclitic status of the absolutive markers in non-finite predications remains thesame, while in most of the verbal predications it underwent a drastic change fromthat of an enclitic to a prefix. Schematically, the structures of Colonial and Modernverbal complexes are contrasted in Table 3.
This change can be explained by reference to a relatively recent morphosyntac-tic contraction that occurred in a verbal complex. Despite a long-standing interestin grammaticalization pathways on the part of historical linguistics, the paths of di-achronic change of complex predications have not been well-studied until now; itis worthwhile to mention Bowern (2008), Harris (2008) and Givón (2009), amongother recent works. Nevertheless, some suppositions about the exact course of theuniverbation process that took place in Q’eqchi’ over the last 500 years can bemade.
Diachrony of absolutive markers in Q’eqchi’ 115
Table 3 The structures of verbal complexes, partly adapted from Pye (2009:267)
Colonial Q’eqchi’ Matrix Complement intransitive
TAM_aux=absolutive [stem-status]
Matrix Complement transitive
TAM_aux=absolutive [ergative-stem-status]
Modern Q’eqchi’ TAM_prefix-absolutive-stem-status intransitive
The tense-aspect markers became compulsory members of a verbal complex, andcoalesced with the full verb.16 They lost their independent status and became as-sociated with the verb stem. They became obligatory slot fillers.17 The absolutivemarkers were “trapped” between a tense-aspect marker that had lost its autonomyand a verb,18 so they became more bound, too, changing from clitics to affixes. Asthere was now no free morpheme to their left, they became formally right-bound. Atthe final stage, both tense-aspect markers and absolutive markers became prefixes, asmentioned in Table 3. Prohibition against an absolutive prefix beginning a finite verbform, which still operates in Modern Q’eqchi’ (Sect. 2, Example 6), seems to be aremnant of its left-bound enclitic status in colonial times.
It is not surprising that this coalescence was sometimes accompanied by phono-logical attrition, see Hopper and Traugott (2003:154–155). It affected tense-aspectmarkers to a much greater extent than absolutive indices, due to the Q’eqchi’ ac-centuation pattern that allows the stress to fall only on the last syllable. The uniquechange concerning the reduction of absolutive markers involved the third person plu-ral marker -eb’, which developed the prefixal (and not enclitic) allomorph -e’ (seeTables 1, 2 in Sect. 2). The phonological structure of tense-aspect markers underwentmore significant changes; compare the description of the Colonial tense-aspect sys-tem in Berendt (1875:15–16) and (partially) in Freeze (1980:116) with the Modernstate discussed thoroughly in Stewart (1979) and DeChicchis (1996). For example,nak ‘present’ and tak ‘present (Colonial) > future (Modern)’ became the allomorphsn- and t-, respectively. The single-consonant past tense marker x- could appear onlywhen tense-aspect morphemes had already lost their autonomy; Berendt (1875:29–30) describes the change from the old form xk-/xki- to the new form of x-.
Some observations about the transition from a biclausal verbal complex to mon-oclausal one can be made on the basis of Hermann Berendt’s (1875) notes on themargins of his copy of the earlier colonial grammar.19 In the second half of the 19thcentury, Berendt analyzed the examples from this grammar with the help of a native
16Following Lehmann (1985; 2015b:157), by “coalescence” I mean any increase in boundedness; see alsoHaspelmath (2011a).17Lehmann (1985) labels the loss of syntagmatic variability as “fixation”.18Harris and Faarlund (2006) and Harris (2008) apply this metaphor to similar phenomena.19Berendt used his own orthography, elaborated especially for Mesoamerican indigenous languages; seeBerendt (1869). This orthography is quite complicated and involves many diacritical marks and modifiedsymbols of Latin script. In the examples given here, I have slightly simplified this orthography.
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speaker of the Cobán dialect, and wrote down his comments. Comparing this datawith the earlier colonial data on the one hand, and with the modern language on theother, one can trace an approximate path of language change.
A number of possible first-position elements in a verbal complex were reduced totense-aspect auxiliaries. Movement of an absolutive marker to the left was banned,even if there was a conjunction or focalized adverb to which the absolutive markermight have attached earlier. In the modern language, such constructions do not per-mit the encliticization of the absolutive marker to the first element in a clause, andthe verbal complex remains bound without requiring any change in the internal struc-ture (14).
(14) a. hulajtomorrow
t-oo-jul-aqFUT-1PL.ABS-come-IRR
chiPREP
wa’-akeat-NMLZ
aaw-uk’in2SG.POSS-with
‘Tomorrow we will come to eat with you.’ (Caz Cho 2007:215)b. ak
alreadyx-x-kam-siPAST-3SG.ERG-die-CAUS
liDEF
aaqpig
naqwhen
t-at-’aj-qFUT-2SG.ABS-wake.up-IRR
‘S/he will have already killed the pig when you wake up.’ (Caz Cho2007:237)
In 1875, Berendt accepted some of the examples under consideration (8c), for in-stance), but offered quite different alternatives for the others: compare (8b) and (10b)with (15a) and (15b), respectively.
(15) a. Examples from Berendt’s marginal notes from 1875 (Berendt 1875:38)euer xat uilewer x-at-w-ilyesterday PAST-2SG.ABS-1SG.ERG-see‘Yesterday I saw you.’
b. naq txatin tau
naq ch-at-in-tawwhen FUT-2SG.ABS-1SG.ERG-come.up‘. . . when I come up with you’
If one does not take into account transitivity and lexical semantics, both Exam-ples (15) are morphosyntactically similar to those of Modern Q’eqchi’ (14): the verbforms are necessarily finite and therefore inflected by person, number and tense-aspect.
Berendt (1875:31) accepts the examples with enclitization to the tense-aspect aux-iliary (11a), (12a), but also allows another order of morphemes, where the particle ta
attaches to the full verb (16).
(16) Example from Berendt’s marginal notes from 1875 (Berendt 1875:31)nakin loqoniktának=in loq’on-iik=taPRES=1SG.ABS love-PASS=OPT‘Would I be loved.’
Diachrony of absolutive markers in Q’eqchi’ 117
An interesting observation can be made regarding the constructions with movementverbs. Berendt notes that there was dialectal variation regarding the position of themotion verb stem. In the dialect of Carchá, as respects the linear order of morphemes,the motion verb is situated between absolutive and ergative personal markers, as inColonial Q’eqchi’; compare (13) and (17a). Meanwhile, in the dialect of Cobán, themotion verb is dislocated to the left and is situated linearly between a tense-aspectmarker and an absolutive marker (17b), as in Modern Q’eqchi’ (18).
(17) a. Example from Berendt’s notes from 1875, Carchá dialect (Berendt1875:72)txat ul uilaqch=at ul w-il-aqFUT=2SG.ABS come 1SG.ERG-see-IRR
‘I will come to see you.’b. Example from Berendt’s notes from 1875, Cobán dialect (Berendt
1875:72)txul at uilch-ul-at-w-ilFUT-come-2SG.ABS-1SG.ERG-see‘I will come to see you.’
(18) x-ol-in-x-b’oqPAST-come-1SG.ABS-3SG.ERG-call‘S/he came to call me.’ (Stewart 1980:73)
These examples illustrate the process of how absolutive markers lost their encliticstatus and became associated with the verb stem, rather than with the tense-aspectauxiliary. They were reinterpreted as bound morphemes attached to the next wordto the right. When this process was concluded, they should no longer attach directlyto the tense-aspect marker and became able to leave the second position in a verbalcomplex for another element (in this case, for a movement verb). As documented byBerendt (1875), this process happened in Cobán by 1875, and in Carchá after thatdate.
Thus, it can be concluded that while the personal absolutive markers had not com-pletely lost their enclitic status in a finite predication in 1875, this process had stillbegun by that date. The verbal complex was still interruptible and the absolutive cli-tics were generally still more selective than in Modern Q’eqchi’, but a clear tendencyto become affixes can be already observed.
5 Q’eqchi’ in the context of the K’ichean subgroup
This section positions Q’eqchi’ within the historical context of the K’ichean sub-group as a whole. However, it does not pretend to provide an exhaustive analysis ofK’ichean diachronic changes in the structure of a verbal complex, which would beimpossible due to the scarcity of historical data on most languages of the subgroup.20
20The colonial sources on K’iche’ and Kaqchikel, the dominant languages of Guatemalan highlands at thetime of the conquest, are more extensive than those for other K’ichean languages (Sachse 2009:10).
118 I. Vinogradov
Table 4 K’ichean subgrouping,adapted from Kaufman(1976:103)
Greater K’ichean Uspantec
Nuclear K’ichean Sipacapa
Sacapultec
K’iche’
Achi
Tz’utujil
Kaqchikel
Poqom Poqomam
Poqomchi’
Q’eqchi’
The K’ichean subgroup consists of nine or 10 languages (depending on the statusof Achi, whether it is considered a separate language or a dialect of K’iche’). Table 4represents the genetic structure of this subgroup.21
The basic patterns of absolutive pronominal inflection in Mayan languages are dis-cussed by different authors, including Bricker (1977:1), Campbell (1979), Robertson(1980:42, 86–96; 1992:53), Dayley (1981:16) and Law (2014:91–92).22 Generally,they agree that there are three strategies: there are languages (1) where the absolu-tive index consistently precedes the stem, (2) where the absolutive index consistentlyfollows the stem and (3) where the absolutive indices occur in both preposition andpost-position, depending on the presence or absence of an overt tense-aspect marker.Q’eqchi’, evidently, belongs to the third group, together with Poqomchi’ and Po-qomam. However, the absolutives in nuclear K’ichean languages (see Table 4) areexclusively prepositive (Law 2014:92). Unlike in Q’eqchi’, there are no absolutiveenclitics in these languages; the absolutive markers necessarily precede the predicatein both non-finite (19a) and finite clauses (19b). Note that Modern Q’eqchi’ (Sect. 2,Examples 2a, 2b) is different regarding the position of the absolutive index in a non-finite predication.
(19) a. Modernat
Tz’utujilwinaq
(Dayley 1985:62, 63)
2SG.ABS person‘You are a person.’
b. x-at-war-iPAST-2SG.ABS-sleep-REAL
‘You slept.’
It seems that during the Colonial stage, the morphosyntactic properties of the absolu-tive indices in nuclear K’ichean languages were similar, compare (19) and (20).
21Kaufman (1976:108) and Campbell (1977:72) argue that Q’eqchi’ was the first language to branch offthe rest of the K’ichean subgroup, in approximately 600 B.C.22Note that some authors do not allow for the clitic/affix status of pronominal markers.
Diachrony of absolutive markers in Q’eqchi’ 119
(20) a. Colonial K’iche’, examples from Popol Vuh (Dürr 2003:67, 175)in banol vleuin b’an-ol ulew1SG.ABS make-AGN earth‘I am the maker of the earth.’
b. quinicamizahk-in-i-kam-isa-jPRES-1SG.ABS-2PL.ERG-die-CAUS-DV
‘You (pl.) kill me.’
In a non-verbal predication, the prepositive absolutive marker is an independent wordform in which it can bear enclitics (21).
(21) Colonial K’iche’, example from Popol Vuh (Dürr 2003:160)ix catit, ix pu cachuchix q-ati’t ix=pu qa-chuch2PL.ABS 1PL.POSS-grandmother 2PL.ABS=and 1PL.POSS-mother‘You (pl.) are our grandmother, and you (pl.) are our mother.’
In a finite predication in nuclear K’ichean languages, both Colonial and Modern, theabsolutive index is less bound to the stem than in Modern Q’eqchi’. This can bedemonstrated by reference to so-called “incorporated movement” constructions (forModern Q’eqchi’, see Example 5a). In Colonial K’iche’, the intervening movementelement hosts the absolutive prefix (22a). Note the possibility of adding some encli-tics (22b).
(22) a. Colonial K’iche’, examples from Popol Vuh (Dürr 2003:102)ta xebe camoc ri quicahauta x-e-b’e kam-oq ri ki-qajawthen PAST-3PL.ABS-go die-IRR DEF 3PL.POSS-father‘Then their fathers went to die.’
b. quixbe na cu nuvabak-ix-b’e=na=ku nu-wab’-a’PRES-2PL.ABS-go=FUT=then 1SG.ERG-lead-IRR
‘I will go and lead you (pl.).’
In Modern K’iche’, the verbal complex is more consolidated and is uninterruptible byparticles, compare (22) and (23). However, the linear position of the motion verb isthe same as in Colonial K’iche’ and Colonial Q’eqchi’ (13), but differs from ModernQ’eqchi’ (5).
(23) Modern K’iche’ (López Ixcoy 1997:85)k-ix-b’e-wa’kat-oqPRES-2PL.ABS-go-walk-IRR
‘You (pl.) go to walk.’
Thus, the absolutive marker in verbal predications should be analyzed as a prefix, onethat is attached to the verb. Analysis of the absolutive marker as an enclitic attachedto the preceding tense-aspect marker, which was proposed for Colonial Q’eqchi’ in
120 I. Vinogradov
Sect. 3, is not relevant for Colonial K’iche’ nor for Colonial Kaqchikel, at least.Most grammatical tense-aspect markers were phonologically represented by a singleconsonant in these languages during the colonial stage (Dürr 2003:46–47, Maxwelland Hill 2006:53–54), so they were not autonomous words by definition and couldnot host clitics.
The unique difference between colonial and modern stages of nuclear K’icheanlanguages seems to be in the variety of such intervening elements. Dürr (2003:101)reports the verb quiz ‘to complete’ among them, while in modern K’iche’, there areonly two verbs that exhibit this kind of syntactic behavior: b’e ‘to go’ and ul ‘tocome’. Maxwell and Hill (2006:52) report a wide range of such “intervenors” inColonial Kaqchikel; not only verbs but also some particles: k’is ‘to finish’, kanäj ‘toremain’, ul ‘to arrive’, k’a ‘deictic particle’, etc.
The objective of this section was to show that the general historic trajectory ofabsolutive markers and verbal complexes during the last 500 years in Q’eqchi’ is notthe same as those of K’iche’ or Kaqchikel, which belong to the nuclear K’icheangroup. Nor is the synchronic status of absolutive markers the same. In contrastingcolonial data on Q’eqchi’ and nuclear K’ichean, two important facts surface: (1) in afinite predication, the evidence of a biclausal origin of a verbal complex in K’icheanis not as strong as in Q’eqchi’, and (2) in a non-finite predication, the absolutivemarkers are independent words in K’ichean and enclitics in Q’eqchi’. However, thereis insufficient information to support speculation on whether Q’eqchi’ and nuclearK’ichean exhibit different evolutionary paths or whether they occupy different stagesof the same diachronic process.
6 Conclusion
The linguistic analysis of colonial data on Q’eqchi’ makes it evident that in the colo-nial period, the verbal complex was not monoclausal like it is in the modern stage.The Q’eqchi’ diachronic data support Pye’s (2009:267) ideas that the Mayan ver-bal complex “masks a structure of complementation”, and that “a complex clausalanalysis accounts for the structure of the verbal complex better than a monoclausalanalysis”; see a similar account in Lehmann (2015a:12). In this respect, ColonialQ’eqchi’ resembled Chol (Coon 2010) and Yucatec (Lehmann 1993), for example,where a finite verbal clause—either synchronically or diachronically and at least insome tense-aspects—should be interpreted as a complex clause, consisting of a tense-aspect auxiliary as the main predicate and an inflected verb form as its complement.A verbal clause in Modern Q’eqchi’ does not permit such analysis.
The transition from the colonial state to the modern one was called forth bythe process of univerbation (i.e., “welding of a syntagm into one word”, Lehmann2015b:160), which was not completely finished until the end of the 19th century. Thematrix that consisted of the tense-aspect auxiliary and absolutive enclitic coalescedwith the complement. As a result of this coalescence, the personal absolutive cliticswere reanalyzed as affixes. Then, the tense-aspect marker lost its autonomy and wasunable to serve as host. The absolutive markers became formally attached to the verbstem to their right, rather than to the tense-aspect marker to their left.
Diachrony of absolutive markers in Q’eqchi’ 121
Table 5 Diachronic changes inthe morphological status of theabsolutive markers
Proto-Mayan independent words
Colonial Q’eqchi’ enclitics
Modern Q’eqchi’ enclitics prefixes
(in non-finite predications) (in finite predications)
During the last 500 years, Q’eqchi’ changed from a syntactically complex finitepredication formed by independent or clitisized words to a simple flat structure basedon affixation. Although from the synchronic point of view, the personal absolutivemarkers are often morphologically represented as prefixes in Modern Q’eqchi’, thecolonial data corroborate Lehmann’s (2015a:11) claim that “at the stage of Proto-Maya, they were words with a tendency to enclisis”, an argument that can seem con-tradictory if one relies only on present-day language data.
Therefore, the full path of the absolutive indices from Proto-Mayan to ModernQ’eqchi’ is illustrated in Table 5.
Acknowledgements The author gratefully acknowledges support by the Program of postdoctoral fel-lowships at the National Autonomous University of Mexico. I am also grateful to Vladimir Plungian forhis comments on the initial version of this paper. I gratefully acknowledge the collaboration of GuillermoSaquil and Alejandro Quib Coc, native speakers of Q’eqchi’. My profound gratitude goes to the threeanonymous reviewers whose criticism helped to refine the analysis.
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