Deictic particles in Mayan

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chris_notts
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Deictic particles in Mayan

Post by chris_notts »

Just thought I'd share something I ran into and am using in my current project. In some Mayan languages, deictic distinctions (this/that, here/there, …) are not marked by individual words or morphemes but are split between a distance neutral deictic trigger word which determines the function (presentative, adverbial, adnominal, …) and a series of clause final particles (not necessarily adjacent) which mark location. Some example from Yucatec:

Code: Select all

Presentative
He’ … =a’       Here it is
He’ … =o’       There it is
He’l … -be’     There it comes (audible), Right here/there

Adverbial
Te’ … =a’        Here
Te’ … =o’        There
Ti’ … =i’          There (anaphoric)
Way … =e’      (In) here
Tol … =o’        (Out) there

Determiner / adnominal
Le … =a’        This
Le … =o’        That
Le … =e’        As for that one, topical 
(Note that le seems to be more or less a definite article, so any common unpossessed definite NP triggers one of these clause final particles)
Some examples:

He’l hun-p’iit ts’aak=a’!
Presentative one-bit cure=deictic1
“Here’s some medicine!”

Kaa=h-ook le=x-chuup chak u=nook=o’
kaa=PRV-enter(B3SG) DET=F-female red(B3SG) 3=garment=deictic2
“And then the woman dressed in red entered…”

It also seems to be true, although it’s hard to find a detailed description of this phenomenon, that these clause final clitics don’t stack, so if multiple triggers for a deictic particle are present in the clause then only one will control the deictic clausal enclitic. E.g. in the following there is only one enclitic, not two:

Ts’a’ le=ba’l te’l=o’!
Give/put(B3SG) DET=thing there=deictic2

Both the determiner le and the adverbial te’/te’l are triggers for clause final deictics, but only one =o’ surfaces. The domain for this one deictic rule includes the pre-verbal focus, if applicable, and all post-verbal material, but excludes a dislocated/fronted topic NP, which takes its own deictic enclitic. Some languages have a special enclitic mostly used to mark fronted topics, like =e' in Yucatec.

Some sources, e.g. Routledge’s The Mayan Languages, briefly describe this as a kind of circumfixal NP definite marking, but this is clearly wrong from descriptions elsewhere (e.g. Demonstratives in Cross-Linguistic Perspective) which make clear that (i) the second element is always placed clause finally even if that doesn’t coincide with the end of the NP, and (ii) elements other definite articles trigger and require the final deictic enclitics.

Anyway, I just thought this was interestingly different enough that others might want to make use of it.
chris_notts
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Re: Deictic particles in Mayan

Post by chris_notts »

On final thing is that when the elements are adjacent, there are slightly different combining forms in some cases. E.g. le=a' = lela' = "This", le=o' = lelo' = "That".
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Nel Fie
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Re: Deictic particles in Mayan

Post by Nel Fie »

Very interesting indeed, thank you for sharing!
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Re: Deictic particles in Mayan

Post by Man in Space »

AWWWWWWWWWWWW YEAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAH I know how I’m restructuring the CT deictic system now. Thanks for sharing this!
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Creyeditor
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Re: Deictic particles in Mayan

Post by Creyeditor »

Just wanted to mention that colloquial German and some Austronesian languages do something similar. I am mentioning them together because they seem to be similar and might have a similar diachronic source. In colloquial German, demonstratives are split into a prenominal distance-neutral determiner der, die, das and a post-nominal distance indicator hier, da.

(1) German split-demonstratives
a. das Auto hier
DEM car PROX
`this car'
b. das Auto da
DEM car DIST
`that car'

The demonstrative is almost homophonous with the definite article, except that it gets some level of phrasal stress and that it neither reduces nor fuses with preceding prepositions. The final distance indicator is homophonous to the words for 'here' and 'there'. Interestingly, the distance indicators can also be clause-final in at least some cases. This is very colloquial, I think.

(2) Non-local splits
a. Das Auto hab ich geseh'n da.
DEM car have I seen DIST
`I have seen that car' (e.g. while pointing at a car in the distance)
b. Das Auto hab ich geseh'n hier.
DEM car have I seen PROX
`I have seen this car' (e.g. while pointing at a car in close proximity)

And of course, they can also occur without any intervening material as der/die/das hier `this' and der/die/das da `da'.

Dan Brodkin has a handout about a similar pattern in the Austronesian language Mandar. Here is the link: https://people.ucsc.edu/~ddbrodki/PDFs/ ... SRG_23.pdf.
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Znex
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Re: Deictic particles in Mayan

Post by Znex »

Split demonstrative phrases are the norm in Celtic languages as well, although there are distinct demonstrative pronouns for 'this' and 'that'. However the colloquial Welsh has become similar to the German in that the distinct demonstrative pronouns (hwn/hon/hwnnw/honno/hyn/hynnny) are more often replaced in determiner phrases with the adverbs (yma/yna), so the German phrases translated into Welsh and Irish for instance:

y gar hon/'ma
an carr seo
DEF car PROX
'this car'
y gar honno/'na
an carr sin
DEF car DIST
'that car'

There also are distinct presentative demonstratives (dyma/dyna) in Welsh, but they aren't split like determiners. Irish just uses the same demonstrative forms as above.

Dyma rai moddion!
Seo roinnt cógais!
PROX.PRSV some medicine
'Here's some medicine!'
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