The Comparative Method of Language Acquisition Research 9780226481319

Citation preview

The Comparative Method of Language Acquisition Research

The Comparative Method of Language Acquisition Research

Clifton Pye

The University of Chicago Press    Chicago and London

The University of Chicago Press, Chicago 60637 The University of Chicago Press, Ltd., London © 2017 by The University of Chicago All rights reserved. No part of this book may be used or reproduced in any manner whatsoever without written permission, except in the case of brief quotations in critical articles and reviews. For more information, contact the University of Chicago Press, 1427 E. 60th St., Chicago, IL 60637. Published 2017 Printed in the United States of Amer­i­ca 26 25 24 23 22 21 20 19 18 17   1 2 3 4 5 ISBN-13: 978-0-226-48128-9 (cloth) ISBN-13: 978-0-226-53961-4 (paper) ISBN-13: 978-0-226-48131-9 (e-­book) DOI: 10.7208/chicago/9780226481319.001.0001 Library of Congress Cataloging-­i n-­Publication Data Names: Pye, Clifton, author. Title: The comparative method of language acquisition research / Clifton Pye. Description: Chicago ; London : The University of Chicago Press, 2017. | Includes   bibliographical references and index. Identifiers: LCCN 2017016752 | ISBN 9780226481289 (cloth : alk. paper) |   ISBN 9780226481319 (e-­book) Subjects: LCSH: Language acquisition. | Mayan languages—­Acquisition. |   Chol language—­Acquisition. | Mam language—­Acquisition. | Quiché language—­   Acquisition. | Psycholinguistics—­C omparative method. Classification: LCC P118 .P94 2017 | DDC 401/.93—­dc23 LC rec­ord available   at https://­lccn​.­loc​.­gov​/­2017016752 This paper meets the requirements of ANSI/NISO Z39.48-1992 (Permanence of Paper).

Contents Preface ix chapter 1. Comparing Languages 1 1.1 The Monolingual Approach to Crosslinguistic Research  1 1.2 The Unit of Comparison Prob­lem  8 1.3 Why Is Crosslinguistic Research Needed?  10 1.4 The Comparative Method of Crosslinguistic Research  17 1.5 The Comparative Method and Usage-­Based Approaches to Language Acquisition  26

chapter 2.  A History of Crosslinguistic Research on Language Acquisition  30 2.1 The Period of Single Language Studies  31 2.2 The Search for Language Universals  33 2.3 Pa­ram­e­ter Theory  36 2.4 Crosslinguistic Surveys  38 2.5 The Acquisition of Polysynthesis  44 2.6 Building a Comprehensive Description of Language Acquisition  48

chapter 3.  The Comparative Method of Language Acquisition Research  49 3.1 The Comparative Method of Historical Linguistics  50 3.2 The Acquisition of Negation in the Germanic Languages  52 3.3 The Acquisition of Verb Inflection in the Germanic languages  62 3.4 Conclusion  70

vi Contents

chapter 4. The Structure of Mayan Languages  72 4.1 The Synthetic Structure of Mayan Languages  73 4.2 The Mayan Lexicon  75 4.3 The Mayan Verb Complex  77 4.3.1 Mayan Person Marking  79 4.3.2 Mayan Verb Suffixes  86 4.4 Stative Predicates  87 4.5 Mayan Nominalization  91 4.6 Summary  93 4.7 Mayan Syntax  94 4.8 The Mayan Communities  96 4.9 The Acquisition Database for the Mayan Languages  97 4.9.1 The K’iche’ Language Samples  98 4.9.2 The Mam Language Samples  99 4.9.3 The Ch’ol Language Samples  100

chapter 5. The Acquisition of the Mayan Lexicon  101 5.1 Mayan Lexical Categories  102 5.1.1 Nouns  102 5.1.2 Relational Nouns  102 5.1.3 Adjectives  104 5.1.4 Verbs  105 5.1.5 Positionals  107 5.1.6 Particles  108 5.2 The Production of Lexical Categories in K’iche’  109 5.3 The Production of Lexical Categories in Mam  111 5.4 The Production of Lexical Categories in Ch’ol  113 5.5 Comparing Lexical Production in K’iche’, Mam, and Ch’ol  113 5.6 Mayan Pronouns  120 5.7 The Acquisition of Mayan Pronouns  122 5.7.1 The Acquisition of Pronouns in Ch’ol  124 5.7.2 The Acquisition of Pronouns in Mam  126 5.7.3 The Acquisition of Pronouns in K’iche’  128 5.8 Summary  130

chapter 6. The Acquisition of the Mayan Intransitive Verb Complex  133 6.1 Acquisition of the Intransitive Verb Complex in K’iche’  139

Contents

vii

6.2 Acquisition of the Intransitive Verb Complex in Mam  146 6.3 Acquisition of the Intransitive Verb Complex in Ch’ol  152 6.4 Summary  159

chapter 7.  The Acquisition of the Mayan Transitive Verb Complex  162 7.1 Acquisition of the Transitive Verb Complex in K’iche’  166 7.2 Acquisition of the Transitive Verb Complex in Mam  172 7.3 Acquisition of the Transitive Verb Complex in Ch’ol  178 7.4 Summary  183

chapter 8.  The Acquisition of Person Marking in the Mayan Verb Complex  185 8.1 The Acquisition of Ergative Person Markers on Transitive Verbs  187 8.2 The Acquisition of Ergative Person Markers on Intransitive Verbs  192 8.3 The Acquisition of Absolutive Person Markers on Intransitive Verbs  197 8.4 Conclusion  203

chapter 9.  The Acquisition of Mayan Argument Structures  206 9.1 Argument Structure in K’iche’  207 9.2 Argument Structure in Mam  210 9.3 Argument Structure in Ch’ol  215 9.4 Comparative Argument Structure in K’iche’, Mam, and Ch’ol  220 9.5 ­Children’s Argument Structure in K’iche’, Mam, and Ch’ol  221 9.5.1 ­Children’s Argument Production in K’iche’  221 9.5.2 ­Children’s Argument Production in Mam  225 9.5.3 ­Children’s Argument Production in Ch’ol  226 9.5.4 Comparative Argument Structure in Child K’iche’, Mam, and Ch’ol  231 9.6 Conclusion  233

chapter 10.  Argument Realization in Mayan Languages  235 10.1 Argument Realization in K’iche’  235 10.2 Argument Realization in Mam  237 10.3 Argument Realization in Ch’ol  240

viii Contents

10.4 Comparing Argument Realization in K’iche’, Mam, and Ch’ol  244 10.5 K’iche’ ­Children’s Production of Verb Arguments  245 10.6 Mam ­Children’s Production of Verb Arguments  248 10.7 Ch’ol ­Children’s Production of Verb Arguments  251 10.8 Comparison of ­Children’s Argument Realization in K’iche’, Mam, and Ch’ol  254 10.9 Analy­sis or Synthesis  257

chapter 11. Conclusion 261 11.1 Broader Implications  270 11.2 Theoretical Implications  272

Acknowl­edgments  277 Abbreviations 279 References 283 Index 297

Preface

M

odern research on language acquisition was profoundly ­shaped by Chomsky’s revolutionary proposal that ­children must have access to something like a language acquisition device or, in pres­ent terms, Universal Grammar. Tacit knowledge of the abstract structure of h ­ uman language would equip ­children with the linguistic foundation they need to break the code of the adult language that was spoken all around them. This theoretical perspective implies that, no ­matter what the language, ­children would initially demonstrate a common grammar at some level. This perspective biases the researcher to seek out universals in child language and ignore the differences. Differences according to this perspective are the result of superficial features of the languages, the acquisition pro­cess, and individual differences between ­children. Differences are uninformative in the quest to identify universals of language acquisition. I began my academic c­ areer searching for such universals. I was fortunate at the time to be a student of Terrence Kaufman, a leading investigator of Mayan languages. He introduced me to the Mayan language ­family and tolerated my interest in the potential implications the Mayan languages have for theories of language acquisition. I began my research ­career by investigating w ­ hether Roger Brown’s claims for the order of morpheme acquisition held for the Mayan language K’iche’ (Pye 1979). Brown (1973) claimed that ­children acquiring En­glish begin producing inflections ­a fter first learning to put words together into primitive sentences. He referred to c­ hildren’s initial two word utterances as “telegraphic speech” ­because they ­were similar to tele­grams, which ­were still being sent in t­hose days. Telegraphic speech tends to omit functional morphemes such as determiners, tense inflections, and auxiliary verbs,

x Preface

which ­were also missing in the ­children’s speech. Brown discovered that ­children acquiring En­glish would begin producing functional morphemes in similar ­orders beginning with the progressive suffix -­ing and the prepositions in and on, and slowly adding determiners, the copula be, and the auxiliary verbs. I set off to Guatemala in 1977 to investigate ­whether ­children acquiring the Mayan language K’iche’ would demonstrate the same telegraphic features that Brown had discovered in the language of American c­ hildren. The initial prob­lem I encountered was learning how to reconcile the differences between the functional morphemes in En­glish and K’iche’. The regular En­glish plural suffix -­s is used on all count nouns in a plural context (e.g., ‘two cows’). K’iche’ has two regular plural morphemes that are in­de­pen­dent words rather than inflections. The plural morpheme taq is used with all count nouns, while the plural morpheme ee is used with animate nouns. The K’iche’ plural morphemes can be used in combination with each other or omitted entirely. Plural marking on nouns is optional in K’iche’ ­because the verbs also inflect for number agreement with subjects and objects. ­T hese differences hint at a proposal by Quine (1968) that differences in number marking between languages signal profound differences in the under­lying concepts. ­T here is simply no basis for comparing plural concepts in K’iche’ and En­glish ­because the semantic structures of the two languages are so radically dif­fer­ent. Such differences lead to very dif­ fer­ent acquisition routes in the two languages and defeat the search for superficial universals in c­ hildren’s language. I quickly discovered how dif­fer­ent language acquisition could be in a Mayan language when the first recordings showed that although K’iche’ ­children simplify their productions, they do not omit all functional morphemes. One example is the ­children’s production of the K’iche’ existential verb k’oolik. This verb translates into En­glish as the verb be in the sense of being in a location and have in the sense of having a dog. The verb contains the root morpheme -­k ’oo, the positional suffix -­l , and the intransitive verb suffix -­ik. Brown predicted that K’iche’ ­children would produce the verb root and omit the suffixes, whereas K’iche’ ­children did just the opposite. They produced the suffixes and omitted the positional root. The K’iche’ ­children demonstrated early mastery of the vari­ous suffixes on intransitive and transitive verbs and thus showed that structural differences between K’iche’ and En­glish had a direct bearing on the form of c­ hildren’s utterances (Pye 1983). This example showed that theoretical

Preface

xi

predictions based on the study of En­glish did not hold for acquisition of other languages. New data from other languages continue to prove this point. I began a second phase of my ­career when I undertook a collaboration with Penny Brown, Lourdes de León, and Barbara Pfeiler to investigate ­whether the speech of ­children acquiring the Mayan languages Tzeltal, Tzotzil, Yucatec, and K’iche’ had any linguistic features in common. At first glance, t­ hese languages have many structural similarities. Verbs in all four languages are marked for aspect and agreement with subject and object. The verbs in all four languages also have suffixes like ­those that I had found in the early speech of K’iche’ c­ hildren. Although we initially expected the comparison to be easy, we soon discovered that ­these four Mayan languages had innovated dif­fer­ent uses for their cognate morphemes. We faced the same prob­lem that I had initially encountered when I had tried to compare plurals in En­glish and K’iche’. While the prob­lem of comparison was similar, it was slightly more tractable when restricted to comparison between genet­ically related languages. The differences made it pos­si­ble to explore the effects that ­these differences had on the c­ hildren’s productions in g­ reat detail. For example, the absolutive subject marker is a prefix in K’iche’ and a suffix in Tzeltal, Tzotzil, and Yucatec. The absolutive markers have similar forms in the four languages, apart from a difference in number marking. K’iche’ has six distinct absolutive markers: three for singular persons and three for plural persons. Tzeltal, Tzotzil, and Yucatec combine the singular markers with a separate plural morpheme so that ­children acquiring ­these languages hear the same person marker used in both singular and plural contexts. We found that ­children acquiring Tzeltal, Tzotzil, and Yucatec produce the absolutive suffixes much earlier than K’iche’ ­children do (Brown et al. 2013). This collaboration led to two developments in my research. I began to develop a framework for crosslinguistic research, the comparative method, and I started to apply this framework to a series of investigations across dif­fer­ent Mayan languages. With support from the National Science Foundation, I began a proj­ect with Pedro Mateo Pedro that documented how ­children acquire the Mayan languages Ch’ol, Q’anjob’al, and Mam. Pedro is a native speaker of Q’anjob’al and arrived at the University of Kansas just in time to help me undertake this proj­ect. He was instrumental in helping me recruit and train native speakers of the three languages to rec­ord and transcribe ­children’s speech in three Mayan

xii Preface

communities. He has now published his findings on the acquisition of Q’anjob’al (Mateo Pedro 2015). My experience on this proj­ect provided a better understanding of the full scope of language acquisition research. Rather than collecting acquisition data in order to test some linguistic theory of the day, I came to view language acquisition research in the context of language loss. The accelerating loss of indigenous languages around the world requires investigators to redirect their attention to documenting the acquisition of the world’s endangered languages and the unique challenges the structures of t­ hese languages pose for c­ hildren. The field of language acquisition research has largely neglected c­ hildren acquiring endangered languages and our knowledge of the ­human potential for language acquisition is correspondingly deficient. Documenting the acquisition of an endangered language requires that attention be paid to documenting the full scope of ­children’s linguistic accomplishments. The investigator of an endangered language must assume that ­there ­will never be another opportunity for further research on the language. This situation requires the documentation of ­children’s language at all levels from their first sounds to their abilities to engage in discourse. All of ­these features connect in a holistic fashion that makes it impossible to study how c­ hildren acquire plural markers without also understanding the vari­ous ways that a language uses plural markers across dif­fer­ent domains of discourse. Recording how ­children interact with their caretakers in daily activities is the best way to understand how adults and c­ hildren deploy the resources of underdocumented languages. The investigator has a responsibility to the local community as well as the scientific community to produce a rec­ord of c­ hildren’s language development that is as informative as pos­si­ble. The comparative method of language acquisition research that I describe in this book grew from the data that we recorded from Ch’ol, Q’anjob’al, and Mam, as well as from a ­later investigation of the acquisition of Teenek (Wastek) made by Barbara Pfeiler. T ­ hese investigations showed how data from additional languages helped complete a picture of Mayan language development that I had begun with research on K’iche’. The Ch’ol, Q’anjob’al, and Mam data filled in the gap between K’iche’ and Yucatec that we had explored earlier. With the additional data, we ­were in a better position to see how the historical changes between the languages resulted in structures that Mayan ­children interpret in dif­fer­ent ways. Teenek is the most distinctive Mayan language, but with the help of our

Preface

xiii

previous studies, we w ­ ere able to fit the Teenek data into the larger pattern of Mayan language acquisition. Writing a book on Mayan language acquisition has provided a new way to apply the comparative method to language acquisition research. My colleagues and I have published a series of articles using the comparative method, but we have always been constrained by the need to confine our investigations to the allotted space in each publication. T ­ hese space limitations have prevented us from providing a detailed account of Mayan grammar as well as detailing the interconnections between the acquisitions of dif­fer­ent levels of the grammars. In this book I have the opportunity to demonstrate the comparative method and explain its rationale. However, in addition I am able to buttress this discussion with a sketch of Mayan grammar that explains how the individual pieces fit into a complete language. Another section provides a brief history of the research on Mayan language acquisition. The Mayan acquisition studies that I pres­ent in the remaining chapters grew out of ­these preceding studies but differ from ­these studies in that the analyses that I undertake in each chapter build on the analyses presented in the previous chapters. My hope is that by the end of the book readers w ­ ill have a better idea of how the individual investigations combine to document the acquisition of a complete language. I have tried to put myself in the place of readers not familiar with the structure of Mayan languages. I have minimized the grammatical discussions by focusing on the acquisition of three Mayan languages: K’iche’, Mam, and Ch’ol. ­These three languages belong to three dif­fer­ ent branches of the Mayan language f­ amily and demonstrate the startling ways in which historically related languages can put the same morphemes to distinct uses. While I refer to acquisition data from other Mayan languages from time to time, my hope is that readers ­will acquire an understanding of how the similarities and differences between the three target languages shape ­children’s acquisition of the languages on a number of dif­fer­ent levels. I have also kept the analyses in this book at a fairly general level by omitting a number of details about the individual languages when I felt that ­these details would obscure the larger picture. Interested readers can consult the grammars of K’iche’ (Larsen 1988, Mondloch 1978), Mam (­England 1983), and Ch’ol (Vazquéz Álvarez 2011) for details. I also omitted discussion of the theoretical implications of the Mayan results ­because this discussion would obscure the larger picture of Mayan language

xiv Preface

acquisition. I have addressed theoretical implications in a number of my publications (e.g., Pye 1990, 2007b; Pye and Pfeiler 2017).

Mayan Orthography I use the practical orthography developed by the Proyecto Lingüístico Francisco Marroquín (Kaufman 1976) for the Mayan examples in this book except that I use  rather than  for the glottal stop. The other orthographic symbols have their standard International Phonetic Alphabet values except:   = /ɓ/,  = /ts/,  = /ts’/,  = /tʂ/,  = /tʂ’/,  =​ /tʃ/,  = /tʃ’/,  = /x/,  = /j/,  = /ŋ/,  = /ɲ/, and   = /ɨ/.  = /ʃ/ in K’iche’, Ch’ol, and most Mayan languages, but  = /ʂ/ in Mam and Q’anjob’al;  = /ʃ/ in Mam and Q’anjob’al.

chapter one

Comparing Languages 1.1 The Monolingual Approach to Crosslinguistic Research

T

he modern era of language acquisition research began with the recognition that h ­ uman language ability has more in common with h ­ uman locomotion than with the ability to write (Chomsky 1965). Normally developing ­children learn to walk and talk without special instruction and in a wide variety of cultural contexts. ­Children only learn to write ­after years of training, and even then many ­children strug­gle to match written characters with the language that they speak. The difference between the tacit learning evident in learning to walk and speak and the conscious effort necessary to learn to write is evidence that oral or signed language is an ability that is built into the ­human genome. ­C hildren have been acquiring language without special instruction for at least two hundred thousand years. Despite the evidence that c­hildren are able to acquire any h ­ uman language, language acquisition research has failed to develop a systematic method for comparing language acquisition in dif­fer­ent languages. In her summary article on crosslinguistic research Ruth Berman (2014: 33) notes “an explicit and generally applicable articulation of what is universal and what par­tic­u­lar in first language acquisition . . . ​would greatly advance the field of child language research as a ­whole.” Crosslinguistic research on language acquisition resembles a g­ iant jigsaw puzzle in that we know more than ever before about the acquisition of individual languages, but we lack the means to assem­ble all of ­these pieces into a coherent picture of the acquisition pro­cess as it unfolds in diverse ­human languages. Since the first baby biographies of Darwin (1877) and Taine (1876), acquisition research remains focused on the acquisition of single languages.

2

chapter 1

The monolingual focus of language acquisition research is reflected in the methods, descriptions, and theoretical orientation of the field. Researchers are trained to investigate how ­children acquire a single language rather than comparing how ­children acquire dif­fer­ent languages. We know more than ever before how ­children acquire individual languages, but we lack an explicit procedure for comparing results across dif­fer­ent languages. Language acquisition research lacks a framework for systematic crosslinguistic investigation that would fit results from individual languages into a comprehensive picture of c­ hildren’s language abilities. Understanding how ­children acquire specific languages does not address the more general prob­lem of understanding c­ hildren’s ability to acquire all languages. Textbooks on language acquisition reflect this single language approach. With few exceptions, textbooks take students through the basic descriptions of language development in En­glish (Slobin 2014). Students learn that babies can perceive all of the sounds in the world’s languages, but they only learn how ­children acquire phonemes in one language. Ambridge and Lieven acknowledge this limitation in their textbook and attribute this situation to “the fact that most of the theory development and empirical research has been conducted in countries where ­these languages [cp. Eu­ro­pean] are spoken” (2011:139). The textbooks written by David Ingram (1989) and Barbara Lust (2006) have sections that discuss the acquisition of other languages, but ­these discussions only show how dif­fer­ent results can be in other languages rather than build a comprehensive understanding of ­children’s ability to acquire all languages. My claim that we lack a method of crosslinguistic research may appear to be extreme in the face of the growing number of crosslinguistic studies on language acquisition, some of which I have contributed to myself. Multiplying studies of individual languages does not address the prob­lem of comparing results in dif­fer­ent languages. One indication of the single-­ language orientation of crosslinguistic research is that the term “crosslinguistic” is even applied to research on a single language when its focus is not En­glish. Research on the acquisition of Turkish is presumed to be crosslinguistic, while research on En­glish is not. This usage reflects an assumption in the field that research on the acquisition of En­glish provides a standard for crosslinguistic comparison, and that En­g lish pres­ents a typical set of acquisition prob­lems. While we certainly know more about the acquisition of En­glish than about the acquisition of any other language, ­there are many reasons why En­glish is a spectacularly poor choice

Comparing Languages

3

for a standard of acquisition research. For example, En­glish has an odd vowel system, l­ittle morphology, and a rigid word order. No rational linguist would choose En­glish as a model of h ­ uman language. Crosslinguistic research on language acquisition typically focuses on the study of individual languages. Most of the chapters in the five-­volume series The Crosslinguistic Study of Language Acquisition edited by Dan Slobin describe the acquisition of individual languages. Two summary chapters by Slobin (1985, 1997) attempt to draw common threads from all of ­these studies, but the chapter by Melissa Bowerman (1985) reminds readers that exceptions to broad generalizations are easy to find. Another example comes from a series of studies directed by Wolfgang Dressler (cf. Bittner, Dressler, and Kilani-­Schoch 2003). T ­ hese studies examine the impact of typology on the development of dif­fer­ent linguistic categories such as inflection in a variety of languages (almost entirely Eu­ro­pean). Both of ­these research programs provide a wealth of findings on the acquisition of individual languages, and yet neither proj­ect addresses the general prob­ lem of comparing ­children’s ability to acquire languages with dif­fer­ent grammatical structures. Experimental research on language acquisition is especially prone to a single-­language orientation. This orientation does not stop investigators from drawing universal conclusions from the study of one language. Soja, Carey, and Spelke’s study of c­ hildren’s use of count and mass nouns (1991) is a classic example of the single-­language approach to experimental investigation. Soja et  al. presented two-­year-­old ­children acquiring En­glish with novel objects that had the characteristics of individuated objects or masses and asked the ­children to extend a novel label to another instance of the objects and masses. They found that their subjects distinguished between objects and masses in a statistically significant fashion and concluded “young ­children have an innate knowledge of the difference between mass and count nouns.” Imai and Gentner (1997) replicated Soja et  al.’s study with groups of ­children and adults acquiring En­glish and Japa­nese. Japa­nese does not distinguish between mass and count nouns in the En­glish manner. Instead, Japa­nese treats virtually all nonhuman nouns as mass terms, and then requires numeral classifiers to count individual objects. Imai and Gentner replicated Soja et al.’s results for their subjects acquiring En­glish, but they found significant differences between the Japa­nese and En­glish ­children and adults. Their study showed that the c­ hildren’s count/mass distinction was learned rather than the product of an innate ontology, but

4

chapter 1

they did not discuss the results relative to count/mass distinctions in all languages. Jakubowicz (1996) pres­ents another example of the single-­language approach to crosslinguistic investigation. She outlines several acquisition studies that focus on the distinction among strong pronouns, weak pronouns, and clitics. She references a linguistic lit­er­a­ture on pronouns that established this distinction among person markers in the Germanic and Romance languages (e.g., Corver and Delfitto 1993; Haegeman 1998; Kayne 1975). In this, like other monolingually oriented investigations, Jakubowicz generalizes a distinction from work on a few Eu­ro­pean languages to all languages without checking to see w ­ hether the generalization is valid. A more comprehensive survey of person markers in the world’s languages reveals a continuum from strong pronouns to pronominal affixes and even zero marking (Siewierska 2011). Jakubowicz outlines an experimental test of w ­ hether c­hildren produce strong forms before weak forms in French and German. Jakubowicz claims that German uses strong pronouns as subjects and weak pronouns as objects and that French uses weak pronouns as subjects and pronominal clitics as objects. She omits any discussion of person marking realized by the verb agreement suffixes in French and German, which artificially limits the hypothesis to pronouns and clitics rather than recognizing the full spectrum of person marking forms. According to the hypothesis that Jakubowicz tests, c­ hildren should produce pronominal clitics before pronominal affixes. The extension to pronominal affixes strengthens the original hypothesis by recognizing the full spectrum of person forms in the languages. Jakubowicz reported that both French and German c­ hildren aged 2;2 to 2;6 produced more strong pronouns than weak pronouns. She acknowledged that this result is confounded by the use of strong forms as subjects in both languages and suggests that further research would resolve ­whether ­children acquire strong pronominal subjects earlier than weak pronominal subjects. She neglected to test w ­ hether German ­children produce more strong subject pronouns than the French c­ hildren produce weak subject pronouns. This prediction also follows from the logic of Jakubowicz’s hypothesis, but it requires a between-­language comparison rather than a within-­language comparison. The same comparison could be made for the weak object pronouns in German and the object clitics in French. French and German c­ hildren would be expected to produce

Comparing Languages

5

subject agreement on verbs at the same rate and less frequently than their production of ­either the subject or object forms. This last observation underlines the monolingual nature of Jakubowicz’s approach to crosslinguistic research. Her experiment assumes linguistic categories such as weak pronouns and clitics that are not informed by a survey of the world’s languages. She does not acknowledge the possibility that her results reflect the shared history of French and German rather than a more general feature of all languages. She neglects the agreement affixes that French and German also use to mark person ­because her theoretical framework imposes an artificial distinction between pronominal clitics and pronominal agreement. Fi­nally, she maintains a within-­ language design even though her hypothesis allows a between-­language test. She does not discuss the difficulty of testing the hypothesis in non-­ European languages. The parametric approach to language study represents the best known attempt to develop a framework for crosslinguistic research. The parametric approach was proposed by Chomsky as a way to account for differences between languages. He thought that differences between languages would fall into neat categories such as languages with verb-­initial and verb-­fi nal word ­orders. The pro-­drop pa­ram­e­ter received the most attention in language acquisition research (Hyams 1986). The pro-­drop pa­ram­e­ter divides languages between ­those with obligatory subjects as in En­glish, and t­ hose with optional subjects as in Spanish. Baker (2001) proposes a general list of par­ameters based on an analy­sis of 45 languages. The parametric approach developed out of the monolingual approach to crosslinguistic research and retains most of its limitations. The pro-­ drop pa­ram­e­ter, for example, was based on differences among En­glish, Spanish, and Italian, rather than on a survey of the world’s languages or even a survey of Italian dialects (Kayne 2000). The parametric approach only envisions a categorical distinction between languages with and without pro-­d rop. It does not explain the variation in subject use across languages, most notably in the variation among strong pronouns, weak pronouns, clitics, and affixes (Siewierska 2011). It is not surprising to find that linguists eventually realized that the par­ameters did not extend beyond the initial sample of languages, and Italian turned out to have dozens of regional variants that do not pa­ram­e­terize neatly (Newmeyer 2005). A common ele­ment of the monolingual approach to crosslinguistic research is to take a linguistic feature from one language, usually En­glish,

6

chapter 1

and impose it on other languages as a basis for comparison. This approach assumes that features in dif­fer­ent languages realize the same linguistic category. For example, c­ hildren’s use of infinitive verb forms in dif­fer­ent languages remains a topic of interest despite the absence of a definition for the infinitive verb form that would apply to all languages (Wexler 1998). ­W hether researchers investigate verbs, subjects, pronouns, passives, causatives, or bilabial stops, they make no attempt to survey such forms in the world’s languages in order to establish w ­ hether they have the same properties in all languages. Researchers do not acknowledge the degree of crosslinguistic variation of basic features of language and the difficulties involved in crosslinguistic comparison (Stassen 2011). I am acutely aware of crosslinguistic differences in linguistic categories through my acquaintance with the Mayan languages. The passive is a good example of a construction that many researchers refer to as if it ­were a single linguistic category despite the variation that exists between “passives” in dif­fer­ent languages (cf. Ambridge and Lieven 2011). The Mayan language K’iche’ has two passive constructions. The first passive adds the suffix -­x to derived transitive verbs (e.g., verbs with a causative suffix) and lengthens the vowel of root transitive verbs. The resulting verb stem has the intransitive forms of the status suffix. The first passive only allows third-­person agents to be expressed in an oblique phrase, but not first-­or second-­person agents (Larsen 1988). The second passive adds the suffix -­taj to both root and derived transitive verbs. The resulting verb stem also takes the intransitive forms of the status suffix. T ­ here is a subtle semantic distinction between the two passives. The second passive emphasizes the resulting state of the patient or the successful completion of the action. It allows agents of all persons to be expressed in an oblique phrase, including first-­and second-­person agents. ­England (1983:202–209) describes five passive forms for the Mayan language Mam. The -­eet passive is used with most Mam verbs. Agents of all persons can be expressed in oblique phrases with the - ­eet passive of root transitive verbs, but not with the - ­eet passive of derived transitive verbs. The -­njtz passive is only found on some root transitive verbs. The -­njtz passive indicates that the agent has lost control of the action. It only allows third-­person agents to be expressed in an oblique phrase. The -­j passive has a function that is similar to the -­njtz passive, but is more productive. The -­j passive is restricted to root transitive verbs. Agents of any person can occur in an oblique phrase with the -­j passive. The -­b’aj passive

Comparing Languages

7

is used with both root and derived transitive verbs, but it only allows third-­person agents to be expressed in oblique phrases. The -­b’aj passive requires the use of a movement verb in order to express the motion taken by the agent to accomplish the action. The fifth Mam passive does not have an overt suffix and only allows third-­person agents to be expressed in an oblique phrase. It is used when the agent is unknown or when the focus is on the patient. The “passive” constructions of K’iche’ and Mam illustrate the difficulties inherent to a crosslinguistic study of passives or any other linguistic object. The passives of both languages reference the distinction between root and derived transitive verbs, but even this distinction differs between K’iche’ and Mam. A root transitive verb in K’iche’ may correspond to a derived transitive verb in Mam and vice versa. The K’iche’ and Mam passives also differ in the expression of agents as well as their contexts of use. The cover term “passive” confers a false sense of identity to crosslinguistic investigations of passives and their acquisition. I w ­ ill pres­ent many examples of such correspondence failures in the following chapters. Categories such as “passive,” “subject,” “pronoun,” and “bilabial stop” do not provide an objective basis for crosslinguistic research. One of the major goals of crosslinguistic research on language acquisition has been to identify universals in the acquisition pro­cess. Knowledge that ­children can acquire any h ­ uman language motivates the search for universal properties that make all languages accessible to ­children. The search for language universals is another manifestation of the monolingual orientation of the field. A universalist approach attempts to fit all acquisition results into one monolingual basket and disregards any results that do not fit the under­lying assumption. The universalist perspective provides investigators with an excuse for ignoring results from other languages ­because they can claim a universal result by studying how ­children acquire a single language. Universalists take comfort in the belief that eventually discordant results from other languages ­will be reconciled with results from their own languages. Monolingual theories of language acquisition have the perverse effect of discouraging research on the acquisition of non-­European languages. A significant part of research on language acquisition is devoted to finding support for one or another theoretical camp rather than to expanding the acquisition database. Basic research needed to document the acquisition of endangered languages is deemed insignificant without a theoretical test of some kind. This prejudice does not recognize the

8

chapter 1

monolingual bias inherent in acquisition theories based on the structure of En­glish nor the difficulty of finding a unit of comparison that would be useful in testing an English-­oriented theory in an unrelated language. A theory of how ­children acquire vowels in En­glish does not apply to the Otomanguean language Pame with its contrasts between long and short vowels and plain and creaky vowels. A theory of how c­ hildren acquire the subject-­tense relation does not apply to languages that do not mark tense. A theory of how c­ hildren acquire word order is not applicable to ­ rders and optional verb arguments. U ­ ntil languages with flexible word o acquisition theories recognize the variety of language structures that exist in the world, they ­will remain an impediment to understanding the full ­human potential for language acquisition.

1.2 The Unit of Comparison Prob­lem A fundamental prob­lem for crosslinguistic research on language acquisition centers on finding a unit of comparison that is valid in all languages (Bowerman 2011; Stassen 2011). Acquisition research must incorporate categories of some kind in order to account for c­ hildren’s language development, but t­ hese categories may e­ ither be language-­specific (e.g., adjective and preposition) or so general that they do not make useful predictions (e.g., verb). A theory that explains how ­children acquire nouns in En­glish ­will not necessarily explain how ­children acquire noun affixes in Upper Chehalis (Kinkade 1964). Crosslinguistic comparison must be based on a standard unit of comparison, and this standard does not exist. ­C hildren acquiring dif­fer­ent languages acquire dif­fer­ent categories of sounds, words, and discourse structures. T ­ here is l­ittle to gain from insisting that c­ hildren acquire pronouns in the same way if a language such as Madurese has two pronouns (sengkoq ‘I/me’ and tang ‘my’), whereas Fijian has 135 pronouns (Siewierska 2004). En­glish uses pronouns to fill in for subjects and objects, but French and Teenek use pronominal clitics, Spanish uses pronominal agreement, and Mam uses noun classifiers. The unit of comparison prob­lem has profound implications for theories of language acquisition. One area in which the prob­lem has become evident is in research that explores the effect of regularity on morpheme acquisition. This research began with investigations of the acquisition of regular and irregular verb tense in En­glish. C ­ hildren acquiring En­glish produce verbs with an irregular past tense such as ran and made before

Comparing Languages

9

they consistently inflect verbs with the regular past tense such as walked and talked. C ­ hildren then pass through a period in which they sometimes extend the regular past tense inflection to the irregular verbs to produce overregularized verb forms such as runned and buyed that are not part of the adult language. Vari­ous researchers have investigated the frequency of regular and irregular verbs in En­glish and the correlation between the frequency of irregular verbs in the adult language and the ­children’s production of overregularized verb forms (Marcus et al. 1992; Rumelhart and McClelland 1986; Bybee and Slobin 1982). The acquisition research on regularity in the inflectional paradigm never defined the term “regular.” ­These investigators simply started with the distinction between regular and irregular verbs in En­glish and proposed dif­fer­ent mechanisms to model how ­children acquire En­glish tense forms. ­These researchers never considered how their proposals extend to languages that have several “regular” and “irregular” inflectional paradigms. Spanish, for example, divides verbs into three major classes with infinitive forms that end in -ar, -­er, and -­ir. It has subsets of irregular verbs within each of t­ hese major classes. The dichotomy b ­ ehind the notion of regularity in En­glish does not generalize to all languages (cf. Dąbrowska 2001; Szagun 2001; Laaha et al. 2006; Keuleers et al. 2007). Another example of the unit of comparison prob­lem is seen in research on the acquisition of subject agreement. Investigators found that ­children acquiring Spanish and Italian inflect verbs for subject agreement more frequently than c­hildren acquiring En­glish and German do (e.g., Hoekstra and Hyams 1998). Theoretical accounts for this difference center on the difference between languages with and without “rich” agreement (Wexler 1998). Rich agreement, like regularity, lacks a precise definition. It results in a circular argument, in which rich agreement is used to explain why c­ hildren produce subject agreement on verbs, and the ­children’s production of subject agreement is used as evidence that a language has rich agreement. The rich agreement account divides languages into two categories without entertaining the possibility that languages may be divided into more than two categories or the possibility that languages exhibit a continuum of agreement types that results from the grammaticalization pro­cesses that underlie agreement (Pye and Pfeiler 2017). Researchers who do not recognize the unit of comparison prob­lem assume that linguistic categories are identical across languages. Valian (2014) makes this claim to argue for the existence of innate lexical categories and against the idea that c­hildren acquire language solely

10

chapter 1

through exposure to the input language. She bases her argument on the assumption of substantive language universals such as nouns, verbs, determiners, and tense, but she admits that Chinese does not have tense. Her argument for innate categories thus leads to an immediate contradiction; by the same logic, the n-­, s-­, and kə-­classes of nouns in Northern Pame (Berthiaume 2003) constitute substantive universals that do not occur in all languages. Valian’s main argument is that two-­year-­old c­ hildren acquiring En­glish demonstrate an accurate and productive use of determiners. She argues from this specific result to the generalization that ­children must have an innate category of determiners regardless of w ­ hether or not their language has determiners. Her argument is not valid u ­ ntil she demonstrates that all languages with determiners use them in the way that En­glish does, and it is exactly this crosslinguistic step that Valian omits. Her results only show that the ­children acquired an early knowledge of how En­glish determiners are used based on their exposure to En­glish. The variety of language constituents and structures constitutes the primary challenge for acquisition theories of all types. Researchers have not tested theories of phonological acquisition with data for the full range of sound categories. Neither have researchers tested theories of morphological acquisition with data for the full range of language morphologies, nor have they tested theories of syntactic acquisition with data from a full range of syntactic types. The magnitude of the gap between theory and data remains the primary embarrassment of the monolingual approach to the crosslinguistic study of language acquisition (cf. Norcliffe, Harris, and Jaeger 2015).

1.3 Why Is Crosslinguistic Research Needed? Just as no two p ­ eople behave exactly alike, so no two languages function exactly alike. ­Humans have vari­ous idiosyncratic quirks in physiology and aptitude, and languages have equally quirky features. Evans and Levinson (2009:431) observe that: languages may have less than a dozen distinctive sounds, or they may have 12 dozen, and sign languages do not use sounds at all. Languages may or may not have derivational morphology (to make words from other words, e.g., run. runner), or inflectional morphology for an obligatory set of syntactically consequential choices (e.g., plural the girls are vs. singular the girl is). They may

Comparing Languages

11

or may not have constituent structure (building blocks of words that form phrases), may or may not have fixed ­orders of ele­ments, and their semantic systems may carve the world at quite dif­fer­ent joints.

­ here are between five thousand and seven thousand languages that are T spoken on the planet (Crystal 2000). T ­ hese languages encompass all that we ­will ever know about the development of the h ­ uman language potential over the past two hundred millennia. Each of the world’s languages, ­whether they are Athabaskan, Mayan, or Austronesian, constitutes a single volume of a vast encyclopedia of h ­ uman experience. The En­glish volume of the encyclopedia provides only a sliver of information about the ­human cognitive potential. The other seven thousand volumes help to ­ uman mind can do with language and complete the picture of what the h what ­children are capable of acquiring. A study of all of ­these volumes is necessary to gain a full perspective on our collective linguistic potential. It should also be required reading for anyone interested in how ­children acquire language. ­Children around the world successfully accomplish the intellectual feat of learning to speak their m ­ other tongue like their parents. ­Children learn how to produce the creaky vowels of Pame, the nine prefixes of a Navajo verb, the semantic contrast between tight and lose fit in Korean verbs of placement, or the audible demonstrative in Ch’ol. C ­ hildren are born with the potential to acquire any h ­ uman language, but we do not understand precisely how ­children translate this potential into the acquisition of out-­ of-­control reduplication in Columbian Salish or switch reference in Kiowa. No amount of research on how ­children acquire En­glish pronouns w ­ ill predict how c­ hildren acquire pronouns in Fijian or Pitjantjara. Languages use dif­fer­ent concepts to express sentences with similar pragmatic intent. The physical context serves as the final arbiter for communicative intent and provides much of the content, but languages select dif­fer­ent aspects of the local context to express. Sapir (1949) notes this difference in the use of articles to express definiteness in En­glish, gender in German, and visibility in Kwakiutl. All three languages use articles in sentences with the meaning ‘The stone falls’, but the articles in each language express dif­fer­ent information about the scene. Much of the time the definiteness of an entity has been previously established in a conversation, and so many languages do not require articles. ­T here is a tradeoff between the information that languages overtly express and the information available from the conversational context. Definiteness, visibility,

12

chapter 1

audibility, number, gender, and animacy are all features that are intrinsic to any conversation. Languages select a subset of features to express in their grammars b ­ ecause daily communication does not allow enough time to express ­every feature of the context. The division between analytic and synthetic languages marks a primary typological divide between languages. Analytic languages such as En­glish have relatively ­little morphology and rely upon word order and constituency to compose sentences. Synthetic languages such as Mohawk and Yup’ik have a more robust morphology that allows them to compose sentences from a single word. Mithun (1999:59) provides the example of a Mohawk verb shown in (1). (1)  Mohawk ­verb 2-­ts-­ya-­kwa-­n 2hst-­rų-­ko-­ʔ. future-­repetitive-1exclusive.agent-­plural-­corn-­set-­reversive-­perfective.aspect ‘We ­w ill scrape the corn off the cob’.

While ­children acquiring En­g lish may not begin by memorizing the sentences that they hear, c­ hildren acquiring synthetic languages have ­little choice other than to begin memorizing the sentence words that they hear. Mithun comments that Mohawk speakers treat their words as a unit and do not recognize the individual morphemes in isolation. Thus, the prob­lem of lexical acquisition is the same in En­glish and Mohawk, but the pro­cess of lexical acquisition in Mohawk is of an entirely dif­fer­ent order of magnitude than lexical acquisition in En­glish. ­T here is no reason to assume that ­children acquiring synthetic languages would begin combining words to form sentences in the same way as c­ hildren acquiring analytic languages would. We do not know ­whether c­ hildren acquiring synthetic languages combine morphemes first at the level of syntax or at the level of morphology. Acquisition theories that ignore synthetic languages, or languages without constituents, or nonconfigurational languages do not explain how ­children acquire language in general. The Mohawk example has a significant implication for theories of how ­children acquire sentence structures in En­g lish. Ambridge and Lieven (2011) base their pre­sen­ta­tion of the acquisition of syntax in En­g lish on such examples as ‘I’m kicking it’ and ‘I’m eating it’ without considering the possibility that c­ hildren acquiring En­glish might impose a Mohawk sen-

Comparing Languages

13

tence schema on such utterances and construe them as single words, for example, ‘Imkickingit’ and ‘Imeatingit’. In other words, c­ hildren might treat the En­glish pronouns as verb inflections. A child adding an overt object to such a verb would produce ‘Imeatingit cookie’. An awareness of synthetic language structures introduces theoretical possibilities that are far from obvious when researchers focus on the acquisition of analytic languages. One does not have to look very far for examples of idiosyncratic packaging in language. For example, all languages find it necessary to track who does what to whom. Morphemes that mark person help languages track such information. ­T here is a clear need to distinguish among first-­, second-­, and third-­person activities. En­glish uses the pronouns I, you, he, she, and it to express such differences, and yet even the En­glish pronouns display a certain quirkiness in marking a gender distinction for the third-­person pronouns he, she, and it. Native speakers of En­glish differ in which of ­these three pronouns they use for babies and cars. Languages such as K’iche’ and Warlpiri do not mark gender. ­T hese differences come about ­because languages are not content to express person as an in­de­pen­ dent semantic unit. Languages tie person to such concepts as gender, number, animacy, the social relation between speaker and addressee, and ­whether or not the person has appeared in the previous discourse. For dif­fer­ent languages such concepts are natu­ral parts of the concept of person marking, and each person is partly defined by their place in the local society. If c­ hildren ­were purists about keeping a strict separation between person and t­ hese other concepts, they would never be able to acquire the range of person marking that languages express. Siewierska’s 2011 study of person marking shows the limitation of any acquisition study that purports to investigate concepts such as person. Linguistically uninformed investigations of person marking overlook the core induction prob­lem of language acquisition. In addition to determining the pronouns for first and second person, ­children acquiring En­glish must determine ­whether pronouns are restricted by social hierarchies, animacy hierarchies, or discourse. C ­ hildren have the ability to detect when a person marker marks more than person and what specific complex of information the markers express. The pos­si­ble inductive generalizations for person in En­glish are far more numerous than confusions of you for me and she for he. We do not know how many ­children acquiring En­glish initially impose a Madurese or Fijian system on their use of pronouns. A knowledge of how the world’s languages package core concepts is the

14

chapter 1

only means of appreciating ­children’s ­actual linguistic accomplishments in any single language. Research on how c­ hildren acquire other languages is the only way to avoid the parochial belief that we can learn all that we need to know about the ­human language potential by studying the acquisition of En­ glish. It would be wonderful to know how ­children acquired the system of speaker addressee person markers of the now extinct language Koasati (Haas 1944). A comprehensive study of how ­children acquire all of the ­ uman poworld’s languages is the only means of understanding the full h tential for language. A systematic program of crosslinguistic research is needed to glimpse this potential. I am not the first researcher to call for such a program of research. Dan Slobin’s crosslinguistic acquisition studies are an impor­tant pre­ce­dent. More recently, Barbara Lust (2006), Ruth Berman (2014), and Norcliffe et al. (2015) have reiterated the need for more crosslinguistic research. In sum, ­there is a desperate need to investigate how ­children acquire the world’s languages. Unfortunately, ­little pro­g ress has been made in this area due to the absence of a framework for crosslinguistic research. Research is begun on two or three unstudied languages e­ very year, and ­there is no sign that this rate has changed much over the past three de­ cades. A review of biblio­graphies of child language research for the past hundred years shows that we now only have published rec­ords for as few as two hundred languages, and many of t­ hese reports only provide information on one or two features of the ­children’s language development (Puppel 2001; Slobin 1972, 2014). At this rate researchers may be able to document the acquisition of 10 ­percent of the world’s languages by the time most languages ­will have ceased being acquired by ­children. Signs of language loss appear around the world as roads, schools, or satellite dishes dotting the indigenous landscape. It is not uncommon to find a tele­vi­sion antenna attached to the top of a wooden pole with a cable ­running to a mud hut. As the modern global infrastructure ties more communities to a world wide web, it persuades c­ hildren to give up their maternal language in ­favor of the language spoken by their school-­age siblings and neighbors. Indigenous parents have power­ful incentives to give their ­children more opportunities in the modern world by encouraging their ­children to acquire a foreign language so that they ­will not be bullied in school for speaking their home language. C ­ hildren hear their grandparents use a marginal language, while watching younger users of

Comparing Languages

15

the majority language enjoying themselves on tele­vi­sion. Even two-­year-­ olds can tell which language is moribund. It is fast becoming impossible to locate c­ hildren anywhere who are learning indigenous languages. I tried unsuccessfully in 1983 to locate ­children who ­were acquiring the Thompson Salish language of British Columbia, Canada. The families that I visited lived at the ends of dirt roads or on the far side of the Fraser River. The Fraser River flows down a steep canyon to Vancouver and effectively isolates the western side of the canyon from the rest of British Columbia. Bridges are few and ferry ser­vice is marginal. A modern highway travels down the eastern side of the Fraser canyon linking Vancouver with towns all the way north to the Yukon Territories and Alaska. The far side of the canyon has dirt roads that link together isolated logging sites. This is the sort of environmental isolation that preserves marginal languages, but everywhere I looked I found ­children who w ­ ere confirmed En­glish speakers. I was told many times that I should switch to recording ­children acquiring the nearby Athabaskan language Chilcotin. I was even told by many ­people on the Chilcotin reserve in central British Columbia that their ­children still spoke the language, but I discovered that only ­children over six years old still spoke the language (Pye 1992). The babies had all switched to En­glish. In one Chilcotin ­house that I visited, a ­mother spoke to her two-­year-­old son in En­glish, but turned to her ­mother and spoke Chilcotin. Thus, Chilcotin babies ­were hearing two languages, but ­were identified by their families as monolingual En­glish speakers before they started speaking. One ­family made a deliberate effort to raise their ­children in a Chilcotin-­speaking environment, but they had isolated themselves from the rest of the community and w ­ ere regarded as odd for this reason. The situation is the same in Mexico. In the Zoque community of Copainala the only speakers of Zoque are over sixty years old. The Zoque language was once spoken in many communities across the state of Chi­ ere apas, Mexico. It is a descendant of the Olmec language. The Olmecs w one of the first civilized states in Mesoamerica, and they in­ven­ted their own writing system and left several large stone heads and other monuments. One more paved road is all that prevents the last community with Zoque-­speaking ­children from switching to Spanish. I found another indigenous language in retreat in the Northern Pame region of the state of San Luis Potosí in Mexico. The Mexican government has been busy

16

chapter 1

constructing roads and schools in remote regions of the country for many years. ­Today one must travel on dirt roads to the most remote villages in order to find babies who are still acquiring Northern Pame. Even in many of ­these ­house­holds, the school-­age ­children frequently switch to Spanish. Maps published by the United Nations Educational, Scientific, and Cultural Organ­ization and National Geographic indicate that the indigenous languages spoken in Guatemala and Mexico are still v­ iable. ­T hese maps rely on census data reported in both countries. The censuses show ­there are several hundred thousand speakers of Mam, K’iche’, and Kaqchikel. The censuses do not show how hard it is to locate babies who are learning ­these languages. Walking the streets of most towns in Guatemala and Mexico, one only hears parents speaking Spanish to c­ hildren. If languages with a hundred thousand speakers cannot be maintained, then languages with many fewer speakers may already be lost to acquisition research. ­T here is ­little mystery about why ­children do not speak the language of their parents. Chilcotin parents in British Columbia, Q’anjob’alan parents in Guatemala, and Pame parents in Mexico all experienced ­great difficulties in school for speaking their ­mother tongue. They suffered the humiliation of not speaking the language of their teachers and some of their classmates, and many ­were punished for speaking a language that their teachers did not understand. They saw that ­people who only spoke the indigenous language ­were doomed to impoverished lives in the local community. ­T hese parents form a core of speakers who want their ­children to have opportunities that they did not have, and so make e­ very effort to encourage their ­children to give up their maternal language and use the majority language. We currently have l­ittle idea of how c­ hildren acquire the majority of the world’s languages and lack acquisition theories that can be applied to most languages. I outline a framework for crosslinguistic research in the next section, and define its empirical and theoretical advantages over the pres­ent state of affairs. The following chapter offers a brief history of crosslinguistic research on language acquisition. That chapter shows how varied language acquisition can be in dif­fer­ent languages, and how difficult it can be to understand the significance of such diverse results. The third section provides an introduction to verb complexes in five languages as an illustration of the types of linguistic features that are not discussed in the current acquisition lit­er­a­ture. The remaining chapters

Comparing Languages

17

in the book provide case studies of language acquisition that use this framework and suggest field techniques for documenting how ­children acquire endangered languages.

1.4 The Comparative Method of Crosslinguistic Research A framework for crosslinguistic research should control the se­lection of the target languages as well as control extraneous ­factors that distort the units of comparison between languages. It should be thoroughly crosslinguistic in nature by making use of results from newly studied languages to add perspective to previous findings from other languages. Most importantly, a framework for crosslinguistic research must define the units being compared in dif­fer­ent languages. Adapting the comparative method of historical linguistics to research on language acquisition satisfies all of ­these criteria. Historical linguistics uses the comparative method to reconstruct the historical development of linguistic features in a ­family of genet­ically related languages. Using the comparative method, historical linguists have reconstructed the vocabulary and culture of Proto-­Indo-­Europeans (Mallory and Adams 2006). Rankin (2006) uses data from the comparison of the Siouan languages to reconstruct the history of the names for cultivars and compare the results with dating evidence from ancient pollen samples for the plants. One significant difference between historical linguistics and other branches of linguistic investigation is that historical linguists build their investigations on the results of previous research. Historical linguists still refer to Grimm’s law of sound change in the Indo-­ European languages to inform investigations of newly discovered Indo-­ European languages. A comprehensive research program that systematically builds on previous findings separates scientific investigation from the world of fashion. A key advantage of the comparative method is that it automatically restricts the scope of its investigation to a f­ amily of historically related languages. This restriction defines an adequate sample as one that is representative of the language f­ amily. This is a far more manageable task than trying to assem­ble a representative sample of the world’s languages. The comparative restriction also limits theoretical claims to a single ­family of languages. Claims for universality are saved ­until a representative sample of the world’s languages have been analyzed. The comparative approach

18

chapter 1

yields the immediate result that the majority of acquisition findings do not extend beyond the Germanic and Romance languages in which the research was conducted. Current theoretical claims are not supported by data from Indo-­Iranian or Slavic languages, much less by data from Athabaskan or Otomanguean languages. Restricting the scope of the investigation does not eliminate the challenge of finding the needle of common acquisition pro­c esses amid a haystack of surface variation. Investigating the acquisition of related languages significantly shrinks the size of the haystack, but it does not eliminate the surface variation altogether. The similarities between related languages help investigators identify and control for contingent features that are not obvious when only one language is investigated or when two or more unrelated languages are compared. Rūķe-­Draviņa (1959:265) made this observation earlier when she wrote “­T hose languages whose systems are more similar ­will correspond to each other also in the pro­cesses of development in child language.” The investigation of related languages leads to a better understanding of the differences between superficial and meaningful similarities in the acquisition pro­cesses in the languages. ­Because the comparative method is based on a ­family of languages, it automatically defines the investigation as crosslinguistic in scope. An investigation of the acquisition of a single language is incomplete by itself and requires the investigation of additional languages in the same f­ amily in order to fully interpret its findings. An investigation of the acquisition of En­glish is not complete ­until its results can be compared with results from Dutch, Frisian, German, and Scandinavian. Sadly, we lack systematic comparisons for the acquisition of the Germanic languages despite the many investigations that exist for the individual languages. The comparative method provides a detailed roadmap for ­future investigations by highlighting results that lack crosslinguistic comparison. The key advantage of the comparative method is that it precisely ­defines the units of comparison. ­Because the ­daughter languages all descend from a common protolanguage, the languages have similar linguistic forms with similar contexts of use. ­These similarities enable researchers to define the units of comparison more precisely. Crosslinguistic research typically begins by selecting a topic for investigation such as how c­ hildren acquire sentence subjects. Sentence subjects then serve as the unit of comparison. The comparative method defines the unit of comparison by examining the contexts in which languages use the units. En­glish speakers use subjects in the initial position of sentences, whereas German speakers

Comparing Languages

19

may put subjects before or ­after the object depending on which is the topic of the sentence. Spanish speakers do not produce subjects and rely instead upon subject agreement markers on verbs (Grinstead 2000). By focusing on the contexts of use of the unit of comparison rather than the units themselves, the comparative method reduces the comparison of apples and oranges. Sentence subjects have more contexts of use in common in En­glish and German than with topicalized subjects in Spanish. The immediate prediction is that ­children are more likely to use subjects in similar ways in En­glish and German than they would in Spanish. The comparative approach to the acquisition of subjects does not begin with a structural or functional definition of subject. A structural approach to subjects defines a sentence subject in relation to a position in a syntactic structure, for example, a noun phrase in Spec of IP. The structural approach immediately imposes a peculiar theoretical object, namely an IP, that is poorly defined and subject to change. The elaborate syntactic structure that results from this pro­cess must be reconciled with dif­fer­ent subject features in individual languages. The structural approach assumes that subjects have the same structural properties in Spanish as in En­glish, and must then posit ad hoc features to account for the missing subjects in Spanish. A functional approach to subjects defines a sentence subject in terms of a specific functional role, for example, agent. The functional approach ascribes a universal function to subjects and has to reconcile the dif­fer­ent functions served by subjects in En­glish and Spanish. The comparative method avoids appeals to universal structural or functional features by focusing on the contexts of use of each linguistic ele­ ment in a language. The contexts of use are defined within each language by the combination of their phonological, lexical, morphological, syntactic, semantic, and pragmatic features. A sentence subject is an overt noun phrase that is defined by the syntactic, semantic, pragmatic, and morphological features of its context of use. The sentence context is defined by its own properties that include ­whether the subject agrees with an auxiliary verb or the main verb and ­whether the subject agrees with transitive verbs or intransitive verbs. Defining contexts of use is a recursive pro­cess in that each of the units that I referenced in the preceding sentence (auxiliary verb, main verb, transitive verb, intransitive verb) are defined by their own contexts of use. Linguistic categories emerge from their use in relation to other linguistic categories within each language. The description of where subjects are used in En­glish has been a topic of linguistic investigation for the past seventy years (Davies and Dubinsky

20

chapter 1

2004). Subjects in En­glish interact with many other features of the grammar such as case and agreement as well as raising and control. Existential constructions exert their own restrictions on subjects (Lakoff 1987). Imperative sentences do not even require subjects. The sentences in (2) illustrate a few of t­ hese puzzles. (2)  a.  Rory appeared to know the locale. b.  It appeared that Rory knew the locale. c.  Susan hoped to meet her new in-­laws. d.  *It hoped that Susan met her new in-­laws. e.  Harry expects she eats pizza. f.  Harry expects her to eat pizza. g.  Ashley says she eats manicotti. h.  *Ashley says her to eat manicotti. i.  There is a prize in e­ very box. j.  *Here is a prize in e­ very box. k.  It was a dark and stormy night. l.  *It is being a dark and stormy night.

The sentences in (2) define vari­ous contexts of subject use in En­ glish, that is, subjects of matrix clauses, subjects of raising predicates (b), subjects of nonraising predicates (d), subjects with accusative case (f), subjects of existential clauses (i and j), and subjects of stative verbs (k and l). Subjects have dif­fer­ent contexts of use in other languages ­because predicates in other languages have dif­fer­ent constraints. The contexts in (2) provide a starting point for the comparative method where the investigator would need to assem­ble the equivalent sentences in other Germanic languages such as German and Dutch. This comparison clarifies the overlap between the languages in the contexts of subject use. The main advantage of the comparative method is that it provides a language-­neutral framework for identifying the contexts of use for linguistic ele­ments. To the extent that subjects share more contexts of use in En­ glish and German than in En­glish and Fijian, it becomes easier to compare the ­factors that govern the acquisition of subjects in the Germanic languages. Each Germanic language adds crucial information about the contexts of use for subjects in all of the Germanic languages. At this point it becomes pos­si­ble to propose a theory of how c­ hildren acquire

Comparing Languages

21

subjects in the Germanic languages without the expectation that such a theory would account for the acquisition of subjects in Fijian. Comparing the contexts of use for linguistic ele­ments in dif­fer­ent languages reveals differences that are not obvious from the study of a single language. Verbs have dif­fer­ent contexts of use in dif­fer­ent languages. The En­glish copula be is translated into Spanish by the verbs ser, estar, and haber. The verb ser refers to permanent states, whereas the verb estar refers to transitory states and locations. The Spanish verb haber is used to translate existential uses of the En­glish copula as in the sentence ‘­T here is an egg on the t­ able’. The difference between a permanent state and transitory state ultimately depends on the speaker’s perspective rather than any feature of the situation. T ­ able 1.1 compares some of the contexts of use for the En­glish copula be and the Spanish verbs ser, estar, and haber. ­Because the comparative method references contexts of use rather than structural or functional categories, it can systematically compare the acquisition of linguistic ele­ments in dif­fer­ent languages without imposing conceptual assumptions. The comparative method does away with reference to universal ideas and functions. ­T here is no universal concept of being that would help c­ hildren acquire the contexts of use for “be” verbs in En­glish and Spanish. Reference to contexts of use avoids the error of imposing the En­glish concept of being on a study of Spanish verbs and vice versa. The comparison between En­g lish and Spanish identifies contexts of use that are not obvious from the study of En­glish alone. The contexts of use and not the verbs or their meanings provide the systematic basis for comparing how c­ hildren acquire verbs in En­glish and Spanish. The comparison between the En­glish and Spanish verbs shows that ­children acquiring En­glish must learn to generalize the En­glish copula to perma­ hildren acquiring Spanish must nent, transitory, and existential states. C learn to restrict their use of ser to permanent states. ­table 1.1 ​Contexts of use of En­g lish and Spanish verbs En­g lish Contexts of use Identification Time Location Condition Existential

Be He is kind. It is Saturday. She is ­here. The dog is tired. ­T here is a time.

Spanish Ser X X

Estar

Haber

X X X

22

chapter 1

The main focus of the comparative method then is to define the contexts of use for each linguistic ele­ment across a ­family of languages. ­Table 1.1 identifies the contexts of use by means of category labels and En­glish examples. The examples provide the ­actual basis for the identification of the contexts of use. The category labels merely suggest a f­ amily resemblance for each use; the category labels lack theoretical status. The En­glish examples demonstrate the use of the copula with predicate adjectives and nouns. They should also include its use with progressive participles, for example, ‘She is leaving’. Describing the usage of each word in a language is the province of lexicographers who decide when the use of a word warrants a separate entry in the dictionary. Rather than trying to fit the use of a word into a predefined set of usage categories, lexicographers rec­ord when words are being used in contexts that differ from their previously recorded contexts of use. The comparative method begins by listing the contexts of use for each linguistic ele­ment. A dictionary of En­glish provides an excellent guide to the contexts of use for the copula be, and dictionaries of Spanish provide information about the contexts of use for the verbs ser, estar, and haber. The contexts of use defined for one language or language f­ amily need not apply to other languages and language families. The contexts of use in ­Table 1.1 are not especially helpful in the investigation of Mayan languages. Giving priority to contexts of use rather than structure or meaning enables historical linguists to show how the contexts in which linguistic ele­ments are used change over time. In some cases, linguistic forms lose contexts of use over time. The En­glish word corn used to refer to all types of grains, but now mainly refers to maize. In other cases, linguistic forms gain new contexts of use, as when the word computer was extended to ­ eople. The historical changes that are seen in machines in addition to p the use of linguistic ele­ments show that linguistic ele­ments are not tied to innate ontological categories. ­Children acquire linguistic ele­ments within a dynamic system that enables the ele­ments to evolve new functions as needed. Yesterday’s telephone is t­ oday’s smart phone. The comparative procedure applies to linguistic ele­ments at all linguistic levels: phonology, morphology, syntax, semantics, or pragmatics. At the morphological level, the contexts of use of pres­ent tense verb forms can be compared in En­glish and Spanish as shown in ­Table 1.2. The pres­ ent tense verb forms in En­glish and Spanish conflate person and tense. ­Table 1.2 shows that En­glish has null suffixes where Spanish has overt suffixes and vice versa.

Comparing Languages

23

­table 1.2 ​Pres­ent tense verb forms in En­g lish and Spanish Person

English

Spanish

First Second Third

-­ -­ -­s

-­o -­s -­

­table 1.3 ​Contexts of use of En­g lish and Spanish pres­ent tense Context of Use

En­g lish

Spanish

Immediate ­f uture Progressing events States Past events with current relevance Habitual events Generic states

Pres­ent tense Progressive aspect Pres­ent tense Pres­ent perfect Pres­ent tense Pres­ent tense

Pres­ent tense Pres­ent tense Pres­ent tense Pres­ent tense Pres­ent tense Pres­ent tense

En­glish and Spanish use pres­ent tense verb forms to express events in the immediate ­future, for example, ‘We go to Paris to­night’. Spanish uses pres­ent tense verb forms to express events taking place at the time of speech, for example, ‘I’m eating’. En­glish restricts this use of the pres­ent tense to express states that hold at the time of speech, for example, ‘He wants a dog’. En­glish uses the progressive form for actions that take place at the time of speech. Spanish also uses pres­ent tense verb forms in an expression that is translated into En­glish by the pres­ent perfect, for example, ‘I have lived ­here for a month’. Both En­glish and Spanish use pres­ent tense verb forms to express habitual and generic events and states, for example, ‘She goes to school ­every Tuesday’. I compare the contexts of use of En­glish and Spanish pres­ent tense verb forms in ­Table 1.3. The contexts of use in ­Table 1.3 define the basis for comparing the acquisition of pres­ent tense verb forms in En­glish and Spanish. This comparison suggests that c­ hildren acquiring En­glish mainly acquire pres­ent tense marking in the context of state descriptions, for example, ‘She has a book’ or ‘He is home’, while ­children acquiring Spanish acquire pres­ent tense marking in the contexts of both actions, for example, ‘She comes’, and states. Observing t­ hese contexts of use accounts for the finding that ­children acquiring En­glish, but not Spanish, restrict the use of pres­ent tense to stative verbs (Freudenthal, Pine, and Gobet 2009). C ­ hildren acquiring Spanish are exposed to a wider range of verbs with pres­ent tense

24

chapter 1

forms in the first and second persons. Rather than assuming that ­children acquire a structural projection for tense or map the verb forms to a pres­ent tense concept, the comparative method focuses attention on the ­children’s usage of pres­ent tense verb forms in each language. B ­ ecause this usage differs in En­glish and Spanish, the c­ hildren’s acquisition of pres­ent tense verb forms also differs. The acquisition of pres­ent tense can be compared in En­glish and Spanish to the extent that Germanic and Romance languages preserve similar contexts of use for pres­ent tense verb forms. The comparisons that I just made between verb use in En­g lish and in Spanish may resemble the typical crosslinguistic method of investigation, but they make two revolutionary changes. The first change is that the comparisons are defined by the contexts of use. Ambridge and Lieven (2011:139), for example, compare pres­ent tense verb forms in En­glish, Rus­ sian, Dutch, German, French, and Spanish, but do not provide the contexts of use for the pres­ent tense forms in each language. By focusing on the contexts of use, the comparisons reveal the precise similarities and differences between the uses of verb forms in dif­fer­ent languages. The second change is that the comparison can be extended to other languages without abrupt changes to the unit of comparison. Adding French and German to the previous comparisons may modify the contexts of use, but the addition of more languages does not change the comparative procedure. Rather it just refines the results by adjusting the contexts of use as needed for the individual languages. The comparative method produces a comprehensive set of acquisition data that makes it pos­si­ble for the first time to compare the details of tense and person acquisition in the Eu­ro­ pean languages. At this point I w ­ ill provide a Mayan example that illustrates the importance of the contexts of use for crosslinguistic research in non-­European ­ able 1.4 lists some contexts of use for extended ergative marklanguages. T ing on intransitive verbs in the Mayan languages Mam, Q’anjob’al, and Yucatec (Pye, Pfeiler and Mateo Pedro 2013). Verbs in Mayan languages use ergative agreement markers for the subjects of transitive verbs and absolutive agreement markers for the subjects of intransitive verbs. I discuss the acquisition of person marking in the Mayan languages in Chapter 8. Some Mayan languages extend ergative agreement markers to the subjects of intransitive verbs in special contexts. T ­ able 1.4 shows that Mam extends ergative marking to intransitive verbs that follow temporal and manner adverbs, but not to intransitive verbs in the progressive and incompletive aspects. Yucatec extends ergative subject markers to intransitive verbs

Comparing Languages

25

­table 1.4 ​Extended ergative contexts in Mam, Q’anjob’al, and Yucatec Context of Use

Mam

Temporal adverb Manner adverb Desiderative Progressive Incompletive

Extended Extended Extended

Q’anjob’al

Yucatec

Extended Extended Extended

Extended Extended Extended Extended

Source: Pye et al. (2013).

in the progressive and incompletive aspects, but not to intransitive verbs with temporal adverbs. Extended ergative marking in Mayan languages shows that the acquisition of ergative subject markers cannot be investigated without tracking their contexts of use. The ergative/absolutive contrast in the Mayan languages makes it necessary to investigate the acquisition of transitive verb subjects in­de­pen­dently of intransitive verb subjects, and extended ergative marking makes it necessary to investigate the acquisition of subjects in the contexts of temporal adverbs and verbs in the progressive aspect. The comparative procedure can be used to investigate the acquisition of verb forms in Eu­ro­pean and Mayan languages with radically dif­fer­ent contexts of use. The comparative method identifies the contexts in which ­children acquire verb forms and organizes the data in a way that can be extended to other related languages. Throughout this book I ­will or­ga­nize comparisons between languages using the format of ­Tables 1.3 and 1.4. Comparing the contexts of use for subject marking in En­glish and Spanish (­Table 1.3) with the contexts of use of extended ergative marking in Mam, Q’anjob’al, and Yucatec (­Table 1.4) shows that ­children do not rely on the same concept of subject marking in ­these two language families. The term “subject marker” does not predict how ­children acquire subject markers in all languages. By focusing on the contexts of use rather than such vague terms as “subject marker” or “passive” investigators can realize systematic comparisons of language acquisition in multiple language families without imposing irrelevant categories on the analy­sis. The comparative method has three ele­ments that make it the only successful method ever devised for crosslinguistic investigation. First, the comparative method controls the languages that are compared. This control eliminates the assumption that subjects in En­glish have some feature in common with subjects in Mayan languages. En­glish uses the same subject agreement forms for transitive and intransitive verbs, whereas

26

chapter 1

Mayan languages restrict absolutive agreement to the subjects of intransitive verbs (as well as to the objects of transitive verbs). Narrowing the focus of research to subjects in Mayan languages allows the investigator to detect fine details of the use of subjects with dif­fer­ent verbs in specific contexts without being distracted by the many differences between subject marking in the Eu­ro­pean and Mayan languages. The second ele­ment of the comparative method is its crosslinguistic perspective. The comparative method requires data from multiple languages and produces better results with data from multiple languages. Crosslinguistic research to date lacks the means to incorporate disparate results from many languages into a coherent account of language acquisition. The field assumes that ­children acquire all languages in the same manner and discounts any contradictory evidence. The comparative method uses findings from dif­fer­ent languages to identify the contexts of use that establish the unit of comparison. The comparative method uses the differences between the contexts of extended ergativity in ­Table 1.4 to identify the similarities and differences in ergative marking. The third distinctive ele­ment of the comparative method is its reliance on systematic comparison. The comparative method highlights systematic correspondences between the contexts of use in each language and is based on the assumption that historically related languages preserve a regular correspondence between their features. Mayan languages use a similar set of ergative markers for the subjects of transitive verbs. The contexts of use for extended ergativity listed in T ­ able 1.4 can be extended to the other Mayan languages with minor modifications. This means that the results of acquisition studies on ­these languages may also extend to other Mayan languages and define a research program for the investigation of ­these features in the other Mayan languages. The comparative method is systematic in the sense that it precisely defines the contexts of use for linguistic ele­ments in a ­family of languages.

1.5 The Comparative Method and Usage-­Based Approaches to Language Acquisition The comparative method provides a natu­ral extension to usage-­based approaches to language acquisition. Usage-­based approaches to language acquisition assume that ­children acquire linguistic ele­ments in specific contexts of use before they generalize the ele­ments to other contexts

Comparing Languages

27

(Braine 1963; Ambridge and Lieven 2011). Usage-­based approaches to language acquisition highlight the ways in which c­ hildren’s language reflects the usage of linguistic ele­ments in the input. Unfortunately, usage-­ based studies do not have a systematic method for defining the contexts of use that can be extended to other languages. One example of the usage-­based approach to language acquisition is Stephen Wilson’s study of the interaction between subject types and construction types in c­ hildren’s En­glish. Wilson (2003) reports significant within-­subject differences in the ­children’s production of copula be and auxiliary be with pronominal and lexical subjects. He divides the copular constructions into nominal (e.g., it’s big), adjectival (e.g., she’s happy), locative (e.g., it’s ­here) and an “other” type that included possessives and participles. Wilson does not distinguish a separate class of existential copula constructions. Four of Wilson’s five subjects produced third-­ person forms of the copula be with pronominal subjects (e.g., it’s big) at significantly higher rates than with lexical subjects (e.g., the truck’s big). Wilson also found significant between subject variation in the c­ hildren’s production of the copula be, third-­person singular pres­ent tense (e.g., he goes), and auxiliary be (e.g., he’s g­ oing). All of ­these distinctions define the contexts of use for person marking in En­glish. It is precisely at this point that the strengths of the comparative method become compelling. Comparison shows that subjects are realized in dif­ fer­ent forms and in dif­fer­ent contexts across the Germanic languages. Plunkett and Strömqvist (1992), for example, draw attention to the frequent use of cleft constructions in the Scandinavian languages as in (3). Such constructions increase the use of the pronominal subject ‘it’ in the Scandinavian languages relative to the other Germanic languages. (3)  Swedish cleft construction (Plunkett and Strömqvist 1992:466) Det går  en man på ängen. It 

walk a  man  in  field

‘A man is walking in the field’. (Lit., ‘It is walking a man in the field’.)

Wilson investigated w ­ hether ­children acquire person marking as a unified construct or acquire person marking on a construction-­by-­construction basis in En­glish. The comparative method investigates w ­ hether ­children acquire person markers in similar contexts across the Germanic languages. Investigation of the acquisition of subject types in the other Germanic

28

chapter 1

languages is essential to understand the special character of Wilson’s findings for En­ glish. Extending the investigation to other Germanic languages is necessary to show the degree to which c­ hildren acquiring Germanic languages have similar contexts of use for subjects. The investigation of person marking in other Germanic languages brings the special nature of subject types in En­glish into greater relief and provides a better understanding of the productivity of the c­ hildren’s En­glish grammar. The comparative method ensures that investigators do not confuse the acquisition of subject types in En­glish with the acquisition of subject types in general. The lack of comparative information on c­ hildren’s production of subject types in En­glish and the other Germanic languages indicates a major shortcoming in the current state of research on language acquisition. The gaps are due to the tendency of researchers to lump dif­fer­ent contexts of use together in a way that makes it impossible to extend a study from one language to other languages. The comparative method identifies the correspondence between the contexts of use for linguistic ele­ments and shows where a single context in one language corresponds to dif­fer­ent contexts in the related languages. This is how the comparative method solves the unit of comparison prob­lem. The comparative method provides a systematic framework that allows researchers to add new divisions as comparisons with more languages reveal dif­fer­ent contexts of use. In this book I pres­ent a series of acquisition studies that illustrate the comparative method of language acquisition research. I demonstrate how the comparative method can be applied to study the acquisition of negation markers and person markers in the Germanic languages before turning to the acquisition of Mayan languages. Mayan languages have a synthetic morphology that enables Mayan speakers to express complete propositions by means of a single word that contains many morphemes. The result is that the contexts of use for many morphemes in Mayan languages are word-­internal rather than the word-­external contexts found in En­glish and other Eu­ro­pean languages. Mayan languages also have an ergative agreement morphology that marks a major distinction between transitive and intransitive verbs. This division means that the contexts of use for Mayan verb inflection are fundamentally dif­fer­ent from the contexts of use for verb inflection in Eu­ro­pean languages. Studies of the acquisition of Mayan languages provide a fresh perspective on the acquisition of Eu­ro­pean languages and introduce issues for acquisition research that cannot be addressed by research on the Eu­ro­pean languages.

Comparing Languages

29

I have gradually refined my understanding of the comparative method of acquisition research through a series of studies that I made with my colleagues Penelope Brown, Lourdes de León, Pedro Mateo Pedro, and Barbara Pfeiler. We have compared the forms of Mayan c­ hildren’s verbs (Pye, Pfeiler, de León, Brown, and Mateo 2007), applicatives (Pye 2007b), initial consonants (Pfeiler, Pye, Mateo, López, and Gutiérrez 2008), verb morphology (Brown, Pfeiler, de León, and Pye 2013), extended ergativity (Pye et al. 2013), status suffixes (Pye and Pfeiler 2014), and the poverty of the Mayan stimulus (Pye 2012). Pye, Pfeiler, and Mateo Pedro (2017) provide a comprehensive review of the Mayan acquisition research to date. This book provides an opportunity for an extended pre­sen­ta­tion of the comparative method of language acquisition research and demonstrates the way that the comparative method can be used to construct a comprehensive crosslinguistic analy­sis that shows how an analy­sis of one part of the grammar (lexical acquisition) informs the acquisition of verb inflection, which then informs the analy­sis of Mayan argument structure. I focus my pre­sen­ta­tion on how ­children acquire the Mayan languages K’iche’, Mam, and Ch’ol in order to avoid inundating readers with too many details about the Mayan languages. Now and again I compare ­these results with the results from previous research on other Mayan languages in order to provide a broader picture of Mayan language acquisition. It is useful at this point to define the terms “comparative” and “comparison” ­because I use t­ hese terms in a technical sense. I employ the term “comparative” in the technical sense that derives from a focus on contexts of use that defines the comparative method of acquisition research. Researchers commonly employ the term “comparative” in the nontechnical sense of comparing undefined linguistic units from randomly chosen languages without reference to their contexts of use. I reserve the term “crosslinguistic” for nontechnical comparisons between languages. In the following chapter, I show how this nontechnical approach to crosslinguistic research fails to control for language differences and misinterprets the results.

chapter two

A History of Crosslinguistic Research on Language Acquisition

I

n this chapter I review crosslinguistic research on language acquisition from a comparative perspective with a view ­toward establishing the limitations of the traditional concept of crosslinguistic research. ­Because most acquisition research has focused on Eu­ro­pean languages, it inadvertently satisfies the comparative requirement of investigating languages with a common history. Investigators have yet to acknowledge that results for Eu­ro­pean languages do not extend to languages with dif­fer­ent histories and structures. In many cases, claims for language universals are based on results from a few genet­ically related languages. Useful summaries of crosslinguistic research appear in Berman (2014), Bowerman (2011), Dressler (2005), Ferguson and Slobin (1973), Jakubowicz (1996), MacWhinney (2014), Norcliffe et al. (2015), Slobin (1985, 2014), and Stoll and Lieven (2014). Crosslinguistic research on language acquisition has progressed through three phases. Language acquisition research began with studies of ­children acquiring single languages with the goal of identifying a genet­ically determined path for ­human language acquisition. The second phase began with the idea that ­children begin with a universal language acquisition device. The generative linguistic theories of Chomsky (1965) motivated the search for linguistic similarities in the acquisition of dif­ fer­ent languages. A third phase began with the realization that c­ hildren might begin acquisition with dif­fer­ent pa­ram­e­ter settings and thus display early differences between languages. This phase was insightfully informed by Bowerman’s research demonstrating early semantic differences between ­children acquiring En­glish, Dutch, and Korean (1985; Bowerman and Choi 2001). T ­ hese phases are cumulative in the sense that

A History of Crosslinguistic Research on Language Acquisition

31

researchers still use techniques that w ­ ere pioneered by the first phase of investigation. Throughout the second two periods, researchers have experimented with c­ hildren acquiring dif­fer­ent languages in order to ascertain how the adult languages affect c­ hildren’s linguistic development.

2.1 The Period of Single Language Studies The modern era of research on child language acquisition began when researchers started recording observations of their c­ hildren’s language development (Darwin 1877; Taine 1876; Preyer 1889). Taine published observations of his d ­ aughter’s language development in the Revue Philosophique (1876), which ­were translated into En­glish and published in the second volume of Mind (1877). Taine drew attention to the parallel between his ­daughter’s exploration of motor gestures and her vocal gestures. He observes “example and education w ­ ere only of use in calling her attention to the sounds that she had already found out for herself, in calling forth their repetition and perfection, in directing her preference to them and in making them emerge and survive amid the crowd of similar sounds” (253). Taine concluded by urging other observers to test his results by observing other ­children (257). At the end of the article, he likens the child’s ­mental development to the physical changes seen in the development of ­human embryos. Taine made his observations shortly a­ fter the publication of Darwin’s book On the Descent of Man and Se­lection in Relation to Sex (1871). Darwin included some speculation about the origin of language, relying on his cousin Hensleigh Wedgwood’s book On the Origin of Language (1866). Taine’s observations provided Darwin with a new model for the origin of language and motivated Darwin to publish observations of his son’s language that he had recorded thirty-­seven years earlier. Darwin (1877:293) notes, “The interrogatory sound which my child gave to the word mum when asking for food is especially curious; for if anyone w ­ ill use a single word or a short sentence in this manner, he ­will find that the musical pitch of his voice rises considerably at the close. I did not then see that this fact bears on the view which I have elsewhere maintained that before man used articulate language, he uttered notes in a true musical scale as does the anthropoid ape Hylobates.” ­T hese investigators adapted the naturalist’s techniques for observing animal be­hav­ior to the observation of child language. Darwin’s theory of evolution guided their observations with the expectation of observing a

32 chapter 2

general unfolding of language ability that resembled the development of biological organisms. Darwin and Taine expressed their observations as generalizations about h ­ uman language development rather than the observation of the acquisition of specific languages. They did not link their observations to the structure of the adult language, although Darwin noted that his son in­ven­ted the compound black shu mum ‘black sugar food’ for licorice. L ­ ater investigators made more extensive observations using the same naturalist framework. The most extensive rec­ords from this period include Preyer’s observations of his son’s development (1889) and the Sterns’ rec­ord of their ­children’s language (1907). Ingram (1989) provides a valuable summary of the acquisition lit­er­a­ture from this period. The most influential study drawn from the early language acquisition research was Roman Jakobson’s conjecture about c­ hildren’s phonological development (1941/1968). Jakobson derived his theory of phonological development from the theory of phonemic contrasts in adult languages developed by the Prague Circle of Linguistics (de Saussure 1916). The structural theory of phonology grouped phonetic features together on the basis of their function in marking phonemic contrasts. Jakobson developed a markedness hierarchy of phonemic contrasts based on their frequency in world’s languages. He then applied this markedness hierarchy to propose an explanation for the development of sounds in ­children’s language and the loss of contrasts in adult aphasia. Jakobson’s research is noteworthy ­because it made use of a linguistic theory that was based on an investigation of the world’s languages. He cites Schmidt’s 1926 study, for example, of Australian, Tasmanian, Melonesian, Polynesian, African, and South American languages (51). Although the sample of languages available to Jakobson was limited by t­ oday’s standards, his study remains the leading example of an acquisition theory based on a large sample of the world’s languages. Jakobson (46) based his conjectures about phonological development on acquisition studies of French, Swedish, Norwegian, Danish, En­glish, Dutch, German, Rus­sian, Polish, Czech, Serbo-­Croatian, Bulgarian, Estonian, Indian [sic], Japa­nese, and Zuñi, the last from Kroeber (1916). He comments in several places that many of the language acquisition studies that ­were available to him at the time did not contain detailed phonetic descriptions of the ­children’s language. He most frequently cites examples of child language from Grégoire (1933, 1937), Grammont (1902), Preyer (1889), and Gvozdev (1927), and his examples of ­children’s first phonemes are almost entirely from the French studies. Jakobson would

A History of Crosslinguistic Research on Language Acquisition

33

not be the last researcher to m ­ istake child data from Eu­ro­pean languages for evidence of a universal pro­cess of language acquisition. Locke (1983) proposed that ­children begin with a universal phonetic inventory based on data that comes mainly from Eu­ro­pean languages.

2.2 The Search for Language Universals Dan Slobin initiated the modern era of crosslinguistic investigation by sending students to document the acquisition of Tzeltal (Stross 1969), Samoan (Kernan 1969), and Luo (Blount 1969). L ­ ater students continued to investigate the acquisition of dif­fer­ent languages. Slobin’s approach to crosslinguistic research is summarized in the field manual that he and his students compiled (1967). The introduction to the manual by Susan Ervin Tripp articulates an ethnographic approach to language acquisition research that emphasizes the documentation of the rules for language use as well as the ­children’s developing language. Ervin Tripp approaches crosslinguistic research as a natu­ral experiment that investigates the effects that language differences have on c­ hildren’s language acquisition. Despite its recognition of crosslinguistic differences, the manual focuses on the search for universals in language acquisition. The manual was the product of an era when Chomsky (1965) had begun to articulate his idea of the relationship between language universals and language acquisition. It was also the time when Greenberg (1963) had begun researching implicational universals in language. Braine (1963) had recently proposed a universal “pivot” grammar for c­ hildren’s first word combinations. An example of the monolingual approach to crosslinguistic investigation, the section of Slobin’s field manual devoted to grammar acquisition set the stage for crosslinguistic research in the following de­cades. This section begins with a review of findings on the acquisition of En­glish and derives a set of expectations for development in other languages. The general expectations listed in this section (1967:117–18) include: 1. An early two-­word pivot structure 2. Early overregularization of morphemes 3. Effects of frequency, semantic complexity, and markedness 4. A preference for word order over inflection (based on evidence from Rus­sian) 5. The belief that c­hildren’s language reflects linguistic universals of adult language

34 chapter 2

In hindsight, the En­g lish origin of t­hese expectations is apparent. Early two-­word structures are expected in analytic languages such as En­g lish and Chinese, but not in synthetic languages such as K’iche’ and Mohawk. Overregularization incorporates the En­g lish distinction between two inflectional classes (regular and irregular) rather than more complex distinctions between many inflectional classes. Frequency effects do not account for ­children’s omissions of highly frequent morphemes even in En­g lish (Brown 1973). A preference for word order over inflection does not extend to nonconfigurational languages. The expectation of language universals in ­children’s language does not recognize the profound differences between the structures of adult languages. In his paper “Cognitive Prerequisites for the Development of Grammar,” Slobin (1973) proposed a universal account of language development based on data derived from the acquisition studies then available. Slobin cited studies from forty languages belonging to fifteen major families, although most of his examples come from a bilingual child who acquired Hungarian and Serbo-­Croatian (Mikès 1967), as well as a child who acquired Rus­sian and Georgian (Imedadze 1960). Data from En­ glish, Finnish, German, Rus­sian, Polish, and Bulgarian are also cited frequently. Slobin believed that ­children followed a universal path of cognitive development that determined the ­children’s production of linguistic forms. He (1973:179) claims, “Everywhere language consists of utterances performing a universal set of communicative functions (such as asserting, denying, requesting, ordering, and so forth), expressing a universal set of under­lying semantic relations, and using a universal set of formal means (such as combinable units of meaning, made up of combinable units of sound, ­etc.).” Assuming a universal pro­cess of cognitive development, Slobin proposed using acquisition data as evidence for the relative linguistic complexity of forms in dif­fer­ent languages. Slobin, Bowerman, Brown, Eisenbeiss, and Narasimhan (2011) apply this approach to the acquisition of motion verbs. Slobin (1973) derived a set of universal operating princi­ples to account for the acquisition results that he observed. The princi­ples include “the use of grammatical markers should make semantic sense,” “avoid interruption or rearrangement of linguistic units,” and “pay attention to the ends of words.” Putting ­these princi­ples together predicts that ­children ­w ill f­ avor the production of single morphemes with clear meanings that occur at the ends of words. Bowerman (1985) criticized the operating princi­ples approach for not providing a comprehensive framework

A History of Crosslinguistic Research on Language Acquisition

35

for the princi­ples. The princi­ples operate in isolation and lead to the possibility that one or another princi­ple can be used to explain contradictory data. Another prob­lem Bowerman notes is that the operating princi­ples assume “­children have certain predispositions, in­de­pen­ dent of experience with a par­tic­u ­lar language, for relating meanings to forms in certain ways, and they draw on ­these predispositions in constructing their grammar” (1275). This approach ignores the evidence that ­children receive about the ways that the input language expresses meaning. For example, ­children’s initial word ­orders reflect the flexibility of word order in the adult language rather than a universal cognitive predisposition. Slobin did not recognize the ways in which his database guides his observations about the ­children’s language. For example, he quotes Imedadze’s observation that “the ease of acquisition and the simultaneous appearance of t­hese forms of the genitive and instrumental cases can only be attributed to the fact that ­these forms express the very same semantic relationships in analogous fashion [in Rus­sian and Georgian]” (1973:181). The qualification expressed in brackets shows that the observation applies to a child acquiring two specific languages with similar genitive and instrumental cases and may not apply to other cases or other languages. ­There is no reason to think that genitive case has the same contexts of use in e­ very language. Bowerman (1985) observed that the main prob­lem with the operating princi­ples is that they are based on the belief that the basic semantic ele­ ments are similar across languages. Bowerman is scrupulous in noting that Slobin hedged his assertions, but she observed that the claims could only be tested in their strong form. To that end, Bowerman reviewed the prob­lem where languages divide a semantic domain along orthogonally ­ hese cases force ­children to immediately deterdif­fer­ent dimensions. T mine the language-­specific meaning that is expressed in each language. Bowerman’s most famous examples of language-­specific meanings are the locative expressions in En­glish and Korean. En­glish divides locative expressions on the basis of inclusion (in) versus support (on). Korean distinguishes location partly on the basis of a tight fit (kkita) or vari­ous kinds of loose fits. Bowerman and Choi (2001) showed that ­children acquiring the two languages demonstrate a language-­specific understanding of locative expressions in each language. ­T here is no evidence of an initial period in which En­glish and Korean ­children express the same locative contrasts.

36 chapter 2

2.3 Pa­ram­e­ter Theory Beginning with Hyams’s influential study (1986), acquisition researchers in the generative tradition attempted to describe a set of par­a meters that could account for the differences between child and adult languages. Pa­ram­e­ter theory grew out of attempts to reconcile basic structural differences between En­glish and Italian (Chomsky 1982, Rizzi 1986). Chomsky suggested that Universal Grammar supplied ­children with a fixed set of par­a meters that they would set based on evidence available from their input language. A child exposed to En­g lish would learn that most sentences required an overt subject. En­g lish even requires a meaningless subject in such sentences as “It’s raining.” On the other hand, ­children acquiring Italian learn that often they can omit overt subjects due to the rich set of subject-­agreement inflections on Italian verbs. If Universal Grammar supplied ­children with a pro-­drop pa­ram­e­ter, ­children would quickly learn ­whether or not the adult language required subjects. One assumption of generative approaches to language acquisition is the idea that the sentences ­children produce are generated by the same princi­ples as adult language. In other words, the princi­ples that generate ­children’s language are continuous with the princi­ples that generate adult languages. The continuity assumption (Pinker 1984) constrains the types of rules and princi­ples that researchers can use to describe c­ hildren’s language, but it also creates the prob­lem of explaining why ­children’s sentences differ from the adult sentences in the language they are acquiring. Pa­ram­e­ter theory offers a con­ve­nient explanation for ­these differences by suggesting that any differences between the child and adult grammars should mirror the differences between the adult grammars of the world’s languages. Linguists linked par­ameters to several properties of languages. For example, Italian speakers can omit subjects ­because the language has a rich subject-­verb agreement system. Subject-­verb agreement is defective in En­ ­ ecause verbs with regular agreement only have an overt suffix in the glish b case of third-­person singular subjects, such as “It walks.” If ­children discovered that the adult language had a full set of subject-­agreement inflections on verbs, they could conclude that subjects ­were optional in the language. Hyams (1986) proposed that c­ hildren initially set the pro-­drop pa­ram­e­ter to the Italian setting and therefore frequently omit subjects even when they acquire languages such as En­glish where subjects are obligatory.

A History of Crosslinguistic Research on Language Acquisition

37

Linguists quickly found languages such as Chinese that lacked full subject-­agreement inflections and still allowed the omission of subjects (Huang 1984). Huang suggested restating the pro-­drop pa­ram­e­ter so that languages with full inflectional paradigms or no inflections for subject agreement allow subjects to be omitted, while languages with “defective” agreement paradigms require subjects. Jaeggli and Hyams (1988) suggested altering the pro-­drop pa­ram­e­ter to one of morphological uniformity. The uniformity pa­ram­e­ter would group Italian and Chinese together as inflectionally uniform languages and would predict that ­children acquiring En­glish would begin with the optional subject setting for this pa­ram­e­ter. Hyams (1991) ­later suggested that subject omission in En­glish could be attributed to topic drop along the lines of the discourse-­oriented languages Chinese and Korean. Hyams and Wexler (1993) suggested that subject omission in En­glish followed the constraints on topic drop in German. About this time, researchers began to note that ­children omitted subjects at far greater rates in nonfinite contexts than in finite contexts (Poeppel and Wexler 1993). The parameter-­setting theories at the time did not predict this correlation. Sano and Hyams (1994) suggested that some null subjects ­were linked to an underspecification of inflection in ­children’s grammars that licenses subjects realized by the null pronominal PRO. The pa­ram­e­ter approach to missing subjects has now split into two strands. The first strand refocused the investigation to account for missing tense inflection on verbs, which could be linked via the PRO hypothesis to missing subjects in nonfinite contexts. This strand proposed parametric differences between languages in which c­ hildren omitted verb inflection (e.g., En­glish, German) and languages in which c­ hildren produced verb inflection early (e.g., Italian, Spanish). Wexler (1998) proposed a unique checking pa­ram­e­ter to explain the difference in the production of inflected verbs. Hyams (2008) proposed a stem pa­ram­e­ter to account for this difference. The second strand continued to look for a pa­ram­e­ter that would ac­ hildren count for the c­ hildren’s omission of subjects in finite contexts. C acquiring En­g lish, French, and Danish also omit subjects in significant numbers of finite contexts (Hamann and Plunkett 1998). ­Here, a topic drop pa­ram­e­ter would still account for the missing subjects in ­children’s speech. Hyams (2011) suggests that extragrammatical f­ actors such as pragmatics might be part of the explanation for null subjects. She ends by

38 chapter 2

admitting “the jury is still out on the correct analy­sis of early null subjects, but it is clear that the phenomenon is vastly more complex than was initially assumed” (2011: 47). From the perspective of the comparative method, pa­ram­e­ter theory represents a retreat from the crosslinguistic investigation of language acquisition. Researchers continue to propose par­ameters on the basis of data from a small set of languages without recognizing that the use of the term “pa­ram­e­ter” in this way is synonymous with “difference” (Newmeyer 2005). ­T here is an inverse relation between the number of languages examined and the success of the parametric approach. Pa­ram­e­ter theory appears most promising when only two languages are analyzed, but it becomes distinctly less attractive as the number of languages increases. Proponents of pa­ram­e­ter theory have not tested the theory with a representative sample of the world’s languages. One risk of using a small number of languages to evaluate theoretical proposals is that the languages are chosen without regard to their ge­ne­tic relationships. It should come as no surprise that c­ hildren acquire Spanish and Catalan in a similar fashion, as do c­ hildren acquiring Dutch and German. ­T hese languages have similar structures ­because they recently diverged from common ancestors. ­C hildren acquire ­these languages in similar ways ­because they have similar structures. A description of the differences between the Germanic and Romance languages in terms of par­a meters simply restates the historical differences in dif­fer­ent terms and obscures the real reasons ­behind the similarities and differences in the c­ hildren’s acquisition of t­ hese languages. In this sense, pa­ram­e­ter theorists follow in the footsteps of Taine and Darwin in making universal claims about language acquisition on the basis of inadequate data.

2.4 Crosslinguistic Surveys Crosslinguistic surveys compose an impor­tant strand of crosslinguistic research. Such surveys explore how c­ hildren acquire specific features such as subject-­verb agreement or ergativity in dif­fer­ent languages. Crosslinguistic surveys may be based on comparisons of ­children’s language recorded in naturalistic settings or their responses in experimental settings. Crosslinguistic survey research attempts to identify features of the adult language that determine similarities or differences in ­children’s language

A History of Crosslinguistic Research on Language Acquisition

39

development. A major limitation of crosslinguistic survey research is the lack of attention given to the sample of languages used in the survey. In a classic experiment of its type, Bates et al. (1982) asked English-­and Italian-­speaking adults to interpret sentences that varied in word order, animacy contrasts, topicalization, and contrastive stress. The En­glish listeners demonstrated a greater reliance on word order, whereas Italian listeners relied more on animacy contrasts, topicalization, and stress. Bates et al. interpret ­these results as showing that speakers of En­glish and Italian rely on dif­fer­ent cues to interpret basic sentences. The listeners even demonstrated ­these effects when they listened to sentences with noncanonical word ­orders such as verb-­initial word o ­ rders. Although crosslinguistic survey studies include multiple languages, the results of such studies are limited by the surveyed languages in the same way that results from single languages limit findings. A survey of two languages has two pos­si­ble outcomes: ­either the ­children exhibit similar linguistic reactions or they exhibit dif­fer­ent linguistic reactions. T ­ here is no basis for extending results from studies that produce e­ ither outcome to other languages. In the case of the study by Bates et  al., the results derive from English-­and Italian-­specific grammatical features. En­glish has a rigid word order and does not license subject drop. Italian topicalization and stress are limited to Italian. Bates et al. do not discuss how the features of word order in En­g lish or the features of topicalization in Italian would generalize to other languages. The confusion of topicalization in Italian with topicalization in general limits the usefulness of the study and illustrates the lack of precision produced in nonsystematic crosslinguistic survey research. The results cannot be interpreted in the absence of a language-­general understanding of word order and topicalization. Perhaps the most ambitious crosslinguistic survey has been conducted by Wolfgang Dressler (1997) and his colleagues. The survey is partly based on a typology of inflection that Dressler (2005:7) based on “linguistic types as ideal constructs which natu­ral languages approach to vari­ous degrees.” Dressler’s goal is to show how the type of inflectional morphology determines how ­children acquire inflection. Using two scales based on isolating to fusional ideal types and fusional to agglutinating ideal types, ­ rders the verb morphologies for Eu­ro­pean languages as: he o English–­Dutch– ­German–­Spanish–­French–­Italian–­Slavic languages– ­Greek–­Lithuanian

40 chapter 2

It is not surprising to find that such ­orders reflect the shared history of t­ hese languages. Dividing t­ hese languages by ge­ne­tic relationship we find: Germanic Romance Slavic

Helenic Baltic

English Spanish Slavic

Greek Lithuanian

Dutch ­Italian

languages

German French

The ideal inflectional types that Dressler defines reflect language history rather than some inflectional ideal. Ge­ne­tic classification provides a better basis for acquisition research than speculative typologies. Based on this approach, Bittner et  al. (2003) published an analy­ sis of ­children’s verb forms in fourteen languages. The languages that they compared are members of the Germanic ­family (En­g lish, Dutch, ­German, Austrian), the Romance f­ amily (French, Italian, Spanish), the Slavic ­family (Rus­sian, Croatian), the Helenic ­family (Greek), the Mayan ­family (Yucatec), the Turkik ­family (Turkish), the Baltic ­family (Lithuanian), and the Uralic ­family (Finnish). The language sample is heavi­ly skewed ­toward Indo-­European languages (eleven of fourteen languages). An understanding of how this skewing affected their results can be gained by comparing the verb forms in the languages. The Indo-­European languages and Finnish have relatively ­little verb morphology, usually a single inflectional suffix. The Slavic languages add an aspectual prefix that can derive a dif­fer­ent verb meaning. Turkish has verb suffixes for negation, tense/aspect, and person, while Yucatec has verb markers for aspect, subject and object agreement, and verb transitivity. I provide verb schemas for the languages in (1).

(1)  Inflectional schemas for verbs in Bittner et al. (2003) a. Stem (En­glish, Dutch, German, Austrian, French) b. Stem + tense/subject (Italian, Spanish, Greek, Finnish, Lithuanian) + stem +  tense/subject (Rus­sian, Croatian) c. Aspect  d. Stem + negation + tense/aspect + subject

(Turkish)

e. Aspect + subject + stem + transitivity + object (Yucatec)

A History of Crosslinguistic Research on Language Acquisition

41

Bittner et al. found that c­ hildren acquire ­these dif­fer­ent inflectional systems in similar ways. It is not obvious that negation marking in Turkish or transitivity marking in Yucatec has anything in common with person marking in the Indo-­European languages. Any similarity in the ­children’s inflectional development would be at such a general level that it would not make precise predictions about inflectional development in the individual languages. For example, ­there are no observations about tense marking on transitive versus intransitive verbs. Another danger is that researchers ­will ­mistake structural similarities among the adult languages for general features of the ­children’s language. All of the languages have verb suffixes, and thus the sample does not test the effect of affix position on the acquisition of verb inflection. Any similarity that Bittner et al. observed can be ascribed to the suffixing morphology of the languages they investigated rather than to a generalization about the acquisition of inflection. Bittner et al. imposed a developmental schema on the ­children’s data. The investigators divided the ­children’s data into three developmental periods. The first period is the premorphology period in which ­children produce rote learned verb forms. This period is followed by the protomorphology period in which c­ hildren create new inflectional patterns on the basis of analogy. The protomorphology period is succeeded by the adult stage of morphology in which ­children make a division between derivation and inflection. The authors pres­ent ­these periods as overlapping stages in which ­children continue to produce rote-­learned forms in the latter periods. Overlapping developmental periods of this type have ­little predictive value in practice. Many toddlers talk comparatively l­ittle, and it is easy to ­mistake the lack of evidence for a lack of inflectional productivity. This situation is often made worse by parent-­child interaction styles that result in the production of uninflected verb stems by both the ­children and their parents. The main risk of imposing a developmental schema of this type is that they cannot be disconfirmed. If ­children begin by producing inflected verb forms, the schema ­will insist that the ­children’s verb forms are rote learned. The schema creates a puzzle for the editors who note that c­ hildren in some languages produced mini verb paradigms before the onset of protomorphology, and in other languages, the c­ hildren produced verb paradigms a­ fter the onset of protomorphology (xxv). This result shows that their protomorphology stage does not predict the production of mini paradigms; thus their developmental stages are not useful. This study provides an invaluable source of information on the development of verb inflection in fourteen languages. The results are obscured

42 chapter 2

by a lack of information about the frequency of use of auxiliary verbs, clitics, and verb affixes in the speech to c­ hildren in each language. The chapters do not provide detailed descriptions of the contexts in which adults and ­children use indicative, imperative, finite, and nonfinite verb forms. This lack of detail only allows the authors to make superficial comparisons between ­children’s verb inflections in t­ hese languages. I have contributed articles to several crosslinguistic surveys. For one of t­ hese surveys, Edith Bavin and Sabine Stoll (2013) gathered together a group of researchers who had investigated the acquisition of ergative languages. Linguists apply the term “ergative” to languages that align the subject of intransitive verbs with the object of transitive verbs. En­glish and most of the languages for which acquisition data are available have an accusative alignment system that marks the subject of transitive and intransitive verbs in the same way. The accusative alignment system in En­glish is the reason that En­glish uses nominative pronouns as subjects in sentences with intransitive verbs, such as “She is singing,” as well as in sentences with transitive verbs, such as “She hugged me.” Languages exhibit ergative features in syntax as well as in morphology. At the syntactic level, some languages restrict extraction in questions to the subjects of intransitive verbs (e.g., K’iche’). At the morphological level, languages can exhibit ergative marking on sentence arguments as case markers (e.g., Warlpiri) or on verbs as agreement markers (e.g., Q’anjob’al). Ergative marking in languages is often inconsistent. Warlpiri, for example, has ergative case markers on nouns but accusative agreement markers on auxiliary verbs. The term “ergative” tempts investigators to treat ergative alignment as a uniform concept that takes distinct realizations in dif­fer­ent languages. Baker (2001) proposed an ergative pa­ram­e­ter that ­children might set on exposure to a specific language. A unified view of ergativity predicts that ­children should display many examples in which they do not constrain the ergative features in the same way as an adult speaking the same language would (Pye 1990). The varied forms of ergativity found in the world’s languages suggest that ergative alignments do not have a single explanation. A variationist view of ergativity predicts that c­ hildren ­will quickly acquire any language-­specific constraints on ergativity that exist in the adult language. The chapters in Bavin and Stoll (2013) provide information on the acquisition of ergative marking in fifteen languages belonging to nine dif­

A History of Crosslinguistic Research on Language Acquisition

43

fer­ent language families. Only two of the languages described in this volume are Indo-­European languages (Kurmanji Kurdish and Hindi). Basque is the only language that is spoken in Eu­rope. Three of the languages (Ku Waru, Kaluli, and Duna) are spoken in New Guinea, and six of the languages (K’iche’, Mam, Q’anjob’al, Tzeltal, Tzotzil, and Yucatec) are Mayan languages spoken in Guatemala and Mexico. The languages manifest ergative alignment patterns in very dif­fer­ent ways. The six Mayan languages and Basque are the only languages in this survey that mark ergative agreement on the verb. They are also the only languages that have overt absolutive marking for the subjects of intransitive verbs. The other nine languages attach an ergative case marker to the subject of transitive verbs in a variety of dif­fer­ent contexts. Hindi and Kurmanji Kurdish restrict ergative case marking to sentences with perfective aspect. Ergative case marking in Chintang is only obligatory with noun phrases but is frequent with first-­and second-­person pronouns. Kaluli and Duna do not mark pronouns for ergative case. Ergative case marking is only obligatory in Kaluli for subject noun phrases in preverbal position. Inuktitut and Mam limit the use of transitive verbs, thus decreasing the opportunities that c­ hildren have to produce ergative marking for transitive verb subjects. The authors of ­these reports find that although the use of ergative morphology varies widely across the languages both in terms of overall frequency and in its contexts of use, ­children acquiring t­ hese languages follow the constraints on ergative marking in the adult languages. This result supports the variationist perspective and disconfirms the view that ­children would initially display a uniform use of ergative marking by restricting ergative markers to a specific tense, aspect, person, or verb transitivity (Pinker 1984). The variation between the contexts of ergative marking in the languages makes it impossible to derive more general conclusions that hold across all of the languages. What­ever ability that ­children have for acquiring language, they do not display any universal preconceptions about argument marking. The finding that c­hildren approach language acquisition without preconceptions is also the conclusion of Slobin et al. (2011). ­T hese authors surveyed the acquisition of placement expressions in eight languages (En­glish, Spanish, German, Rus­sian, Finnish, Hindi, Turkish, and Tzeltal). The eight languages encode placement information in dif­fer­ent combinations of verb, locative preposition, and locative case marking.

44 chapter 2

En­glish uses prepositions to express most locative information (e.g., in vs. on). Finnish, on the other hand, uses case markers on nouns (e.g., allative vs. illative). The ­children in the study used the placement forms of the adult languages. ­C hildren acquiring En­g lish used prepositions, whereas ­children acquiring Finnish used the locative case suffixes, and ­children acquiring Tzeltal made use of object-­specific positional verbs.

2.5 The Acquisition of Polysynthesis Polysynthetic languages have verb complexes that contain agreement markers for both subjects and objects. ­T hese agreement markers license the omission of both subjects and objects, and they allow the verb complex to express a complete proposition without additional sentence ele­ ments. Linguists have suggested that the verb complex acts as the basic clause in polysynthetic languages and obviates the need for structurally defined subjects and objects (Jelinek 1984). At first glance, polysynthesis provides an excellent typological basis for the crosslinguistic investigation of how ­children acquire verb complexes in historically unrelated languages. One difficulty is that polysynthetic languages differ in the degree to which the ele­ments of the verb complex approach the agglutinating or fusional morphological types. The degree of fusion is in­de­pen­dent of the degree to which the verb complex marks both subjects and objects. The verb complex in Turkish, for example, has an agglutinating morphological structure but does not mark agreement with the object. Eskimoan languages have verb complexes that mark agreement with both the subject and object, but they use a portmanteau suffix that fuses agreement for both the subject and object into a single morpheme (Fortescue and Olsen1992). T ­ here are many other f­ actors beyond the degree of fusion that make polysynthesis a poor choice for typological comparison, but I ­will use polysynthesis ­here to illustrate the prob­lem of typological comparison. Several studies exist that shed light on how ­children acquire verb complexes in polysynthetic languages. Researchers have documented the acquisition of verb complexes in K’iche’ (Maya; Pye 1983, 1992), Mohawk (Iroquioan; Mithun 1989), Inuktitut (Inuit; Crago and Allen 1998), Quechua and Navajo (Quechuan and Athabaskan; Courtney and Saville-­Troike 2002), Sesotho (Bantu; Demuth 1994), and West Greenlandic (Inuit;

A History of Crosslinguistic Research on Language Acquisition

45

Fortescue and Olsen 1992). I compare verb templates in K’iche’, Mohawk, Quechua, and Navajo in (2).

(2)  Verb templates in K’iche’, Mohawk, Quechua, and Navajo a. K’iche’ verb ­complex

aspect-­object-­motion-­subject-­ROOT-­mood



e.g., k-­at-­ee-­inw-­il-­a’. inc-­abs2-­go- ­erg1-­see- ­depTV

‘I am g­ oing to see you’. b. Mohawk verb complex (Mithun 1989:304)

translocative-­past-­agent/patient-­noun-­ROOT-­aspect



e.g., wa’-­hi-­ken-’. past-1.singular.agent/masculine.singular.patient-­see-­punctual ‘I saw him’. c. Navajo verb complex (Courtney and Saville-­Troike 2002:624)

0

I

II

III

IV

V

VI

VII

VIII

IX

X

Enc

Postposition: adverbial thematic

Iterative mode

Distributive plural

Direct object pronoun

Fourth person; impersonal subject pronoun

Thematic and adverbial ele­ments

Modal conjugation marker

Subject pronoun

Classifier

STEM

Enclitics (negative, relativizer, ­etc.)

Conjunct Prefixes

Object of postposition

Disjunct Prefixes



e.g., shí -­ áɬdo’ -­shá -­da -­’í -­0 -­ɬ -­tsóód.

0 -­I -­II -­III -­IV-­VIII -­IX -­­stem 1obj-­also-­for-­pl-­obj-­subj-­cl-­impf.stem:feed ‘They w ­ ere feeding it to me, too’.

46 chapter 2



Evidential, interrogative, contrastive, ­etc.

Conditional

Number

Subject marker

Tense

Object marker

Progressive

Derivational

Derivational

ROOT

d. Quechua verb complex (Courtney and Saville-­Troike 2002:624)

e.g., mikhu -­chi -­sha -­wa -­rqa -­n -­ku -­p ­ is.

eat- ­caus-­prog-1obj-­past-3subj-­pl-­add

‘They ­were feeding it to me, too’.

The complexity of the verb complex varies within each language. Imperative forms of intransitive verbs such as “Go!” do not have all of the morphemes of ditransitive verbs such as “They ­were feeding it to me.” Most K’iche’ verbs do not contain the incorporated motion verb, just as most Mohawk verbs to not contain the translocative prefix or an incorporated noun. The addition of derivational and adverbial affixes increases morphological complexity in all languages. The Navajo verb stem contains an abstract root morpheme and a thematic suffix that specifies the shape or animacy of the subject or object. The verb complexes in t­ hese four languages can potentially mark both the subject and object. Mohawk uses a portmanteau marker to indicate specific combinations of subjects and objects. ­T hese examples naturally invite the question of w ­ hether ­children acquire the verb complexes in polysynthetic languages in the same way. One possibility is that ­children follow a semantic strategy in accordance with Slobin’s operating princi­ple, “the use of grammatical markers should make semantic sense.” ­C hildren applying this princi­ple would initially produce the verb root in a polysynthetic verb complex. A second possibility is that ­children initially produce the final morpheme in the verb complex following Slobin’s operating princi­ple, “pay attention to the ends of words.” I show how t­hese two predictions apply to the four languages in (3).

A History of Crosslinguistic Research on Language Acquisition

47

(3)  Predicted acquisition of polysynthetic verb complexes

a. Produce the root

b. Produce the final ­morpheme

K’iche’ -il ‘see’

-­ a’  transitive ­ dependent

Mohawk -­ ken

-’   punctual

‘see’

Navajo -­ tsóód ­imperfective.feed -­tsóód ­imperfective.feed Quechua

mikhu-­

‘eat’

-­pis   additional

This ­simple thought experiment shows that even the most basic hypotheses such as the semantic strategy and the final morpheme strategy lead to very dif­fer­ent predictions about the acquisition of verb complexes in polysynthetic languages. The typological trait of polysynthesis is not sufficient to guarantee that ­children ­will acquire the verb complexes in the same way. The prediction for Navajo is not even accurate ­because the semantic strategy refers to the verb stem rather than the abstract root. Another prob­lem with the predictions in (3) is that they do not predict the ways in which the verb complexes ­will develop in the ­children’s speech. The complexity of verb complexes makes them ideal topics for research on language acquisition ­because c­ hildren acquiring ­these languages must eventually produce the entire verb complex. Thus, we need to add a developmental hypothesis to the strategies in (3) in order to account for the development of the verb complexes. One possibility is that development proceeds rightward from the initial morpheme; another possibility is that development proceeds leftward from the final morpheme. The rightward strategy ­favors ­children who begin producing Quechua verb roots ­because they can simply add suffixes to the verb root. The rightward strategy disfavors c­ hildren acquiring K’iche’, Mohawk, and Navajo b ­ ecause their verb roots follow most of the inflections in the verb complex. The existence of languages such as K’iche’, Mohawk, and Navajo demonstrates that a rightward acquisition pro­cess has a negligible effect on the eventual acquisition of the entire verb complex. What do ­children acquiring verb complexes in polysynthetic languages produce? The answer is that c­ hildren produce dif­fer­ent parts of the verb complexes in each of ­these languages. C ­ hildren acquiring K’iche’ and Mohawk first produce the stressed syllables regardless of w ­ hether stress falls on the verb root or on an affix. ­Children acquiring Navajo produce the verb stem rather than the abstract root, and c­ hildren acquiring Quechua produce a syllable of the verb root but not the complete root. Such dif­ fer­ent results demonstrate that s­imple grammatical typologies do not predict the development of the verb complex in polysynthetic languages.

48 chapter 2

2.6 Building a Comprehensive Description of Language Acquisition Crosslinguistic research on language acquisition now has data from more languages than ever before, but it continues to produce disjoint, unsystematic comparisons. Crosslinguistic studies draw data from an inadequate sample of the world’s languages and ignore the ge­ne­tic relationships between the languages they compare. The random se­lection of languages ensures that any conclusions ­will be limited to that se­lection of languages. No ­matter how many languages are included in the sample, the results of the studies do not generalize beyond that sample of languages. The field of crosslinguistic research lacks a method that would allow investigators to assem­ble all of the results into a coherent picture of how ­children acquire the world’s languages. While the Child Language Data Exchange System (MacWhinney and Snow 1990) supplies a database of child language samples, the field lacks a comprehensive rec­ord of the investigations that have been made along the lines of the World Atlas of Language Structures (Dryer and Haspelmath 2013). Crosslinguistic surveys based on linguistic typologies have additional prob­lems. One prob­lem is created by the criteria used to construct the typology. If the criteria are superficial or ill-­defined, the results of a typological survey based on ­these criteria w ­ ill not differ significantly from surveys not based on the criteria. A second prob­lem is w ­ hether the typology represents most languages of the world or only a subset of languages. Unrepresentative typologies ­will not improve our understanding of how ­children acquire all languages. A third prob­lem for linguistic typologies is that they are subject to confirmation bias. Investment in a typology can lead researchers to look for evidence supporting the typology and to overlook facts that disconfirm the typology. In the absence of a systematic method of crosslinguistic investigation, investigators ­will ignore the research of previous de­cades and continue producing disconnected observations of randomly selected languages. If we ­really want to know how ­children acquire language, we need detailed information about the interactions between the phonological and morphological features of languages that is not included in current typological descriptions. In the following chapters, I demonstrate the use of the comparative method to determine how such interactions affect the acquisition of the verb complexes in K’iche’, Mam, and Ch’ol.

chapter three

The Comparative Method of Language Acquisition Research

C

rosslinguistic research is invariably more difficult than the investigation of a single language b ­ ecause many dif­fer­ent ­factors combine to realize sentences in each language. Investigations of morphological or syntactic development in En­glish typically ignore prosodic, phonotactic, and discourse ­factors that lie outside the scope of the investigation. Subsequent studies of En­glish can be expected to yield the same results as long as they do not alter one of the uncontrolled ­factors. External ­factors become more apparent when En­glish data are compared with data from ­ ecause not all e­ lse is equal. In the absence of the a dif­fer­ent language b basic ceteris paribus condition on experimental replication, crosslinguistic investigation becomes unscientific. The current practice of crosslinguistic research on language acquisition is unsystematic in two fundamental ways. Crosslinguistic studies do not control the languages that are investigated or identify the contexts of use for the linguistic ele­ments in each language. The lack of attention to the language sample typically introduces a bias t­ oward data from Eu­ro­ pean languages that have obligatory subjects, accusative agreement, and verb suffixes that mark tense and agreement. The categories used to analyze ­children’s language (e.g., subject, tense, pronoun, verb) are derived from the investigation of Eu­ro­pean languages and lack equivalent units in other languages. Researchers continue to ­mistake the results derived from the investigation of a few languages for evidence of universal features of language development. In the absence of a systematic framework for crosslinguistic research, investigators cannot construct a comprehensive picture of language acquisition.

50 chapter 3

In this chapter, I outline the comparative method of crosslinguistic research that addresses t­hese concerns. The investigation of familiar languages ­will enable readers who lack a background in historical linguistics to understand the comparative method more easily. By focusing on a small feature of the languages, the number of extraneous ­factors can be reduced. The most impor­tant of ­these ­factors is the context of use for the linguistic ele­ments. Extensive investigation is often required to determine the contexts of use in each language, and few acquisition studies provide descriptions of t­ hese contexts. The goal of the comparative method is to illuminate how ­children acquire the complex symphony of the adult language rather than looking for a single universal feature or constraint. We need a full description of ­children’s linguistic accomplishments before we can begin to understand how they acquire a language.

3.1 The Comparative Method of Historical Linguistics Historical linguists use the comparative method to reconstruct the sounds, words, and grammar of an ancestral language from the linguistic features retained by the descendant languages (Campbell 1998; Paul 1889). In historical linguistics, the comparative method begins by assembling lists of words from genet­ically related languages. T ­ able  3.1 shows a classic example of the comparative method using the words for ‘house’ and ‘one’ in three Mayan languages. ­T hese words are similar enough to one another to infer that the Proto-­Mayan language had words for ‘house’ and ‘one’. The forms of the words in Proto-­Mayan can be reconstructed by comparing the sounds that occur in each position. The lexical positions of the phonemes constitute the contexts of use for each sound. T ­ able 3.2 shows the correspondence sets for t­ hese sounds. T ­ here is a complete correspondence for the vowels in both words, so we can infer that the Proto-­Mayan words had the vowels *a and *u (historical linguists use asterisks to in­table 3.1 ​Comparison of the words for ‘house’ and ‘one’ in three Mayan languages

‘house’ ‘one’

K’iche’

Q’anjob’al

ja jun

na jun

Source: ­England (1994).

Popti’ nha jun

The Comparative Method of Language Acquisition Research

51

­table 3.2 ​Correspondence sets for the Mayan words for ‘house’ and ‘one’ K’iche’ j a j u n

Q’anjob’al

Popti’

Proto-­Mayan

n a j u n

nh a j u n

*nh *a *j *u *n

dicate a reconstructed form). The consonants for the word jun ‘one’ are also the same in the three languages and show that Proto-­Mayan had the consonants *j and *n. The initial consonants in the word for ‘house’ have a correspondence that differs from the consonants in the word for ‘one’. Historical linguists use discrepancies between correspondence sets to infer that the Proto-­Mayan consonant in the word for ‘house’ was dif­fer­ent from the consonants in the word for ‘one’. Since we already have total correspondence sets for *j and *n, one option in the case of the word for ‘one’ is to assume that the original consonant was *nh. Reconstructing the sounds for ­these words enables us to infer that the Proto-­Mayan word for ‘house’ was *nha and the Proto-­Mayan word for ‘one’ was *jun. While historical linguists use the comparative method to reconstruct linguistic forms in a protolanguage, the comparative method also reveals the contexts of use for each linguistic form in the modern languages. From this example, we learn that historical changes produced a difference in the frequency of the consonants /j/ and /n/ in modern K’iche’ and Q’anjob’al. The /j/ is more frequent in K’iche’ than in Q’anjob’al due to the historical change of *nh > j in K’iche’. By the same token, /n/ is more frequent in Q’anjob’al due to the historical change of *nh > n. T ­ hese historical changes resulted in a natu­ral experiment in which acquisition researchers can analyze the effect of a difference in the contexts of use on the acquisition of /j/ and /n/ in K’iche’ and Q’anjob’al. When applied to research on language acquisition, the comparative method has three basic steps: 1. Identify cognate forms across a ­family of genet­ically related languages 2. Identify the contexts of use for the forms in each language 3. Analyze the acquisition of the forms in their contexts of use

A comparative investigation of language acquisition can examine linguistic features at e­ very level of the grammar from sound to discourse.

52 chapter 3

A comparative study of phonological development would investigate how ­children acquire sounds in a ­family of related languages. Historical changes in the languages would produce differences in the distribution of the sounds and their place in the syllable structures of the words. A comparative study of lexical development would investigate how ­children acquire words in a ­family of related languages. Historical changes in the languages would result in differences in the contexts of use of the cognate words in dif­fer­ent sentence constructions. A comparative study of inflectional development would investigate how ­children acquire inflections in a ­family of related languages. Historical changes would produce dif­fer­ent contexts of use for the cognate inflections. A comparative study of focus constructions would investigate how ­children acquire the use of focus in a variety of discourse contexts. Historical changes would result in dif­fer­ent contexts of use and dif­fer­ent syntactic constraints on focus constructions in a ­family of related languages. The key step in a comparative investigation is to identify and compare the contexts in which languages use each linguistic feature. In this book, I pres­ent a series of comparative studies of lexical, inflectional, and syntactic development in order to demonstrate the scope of the comparative method. Before turning to the comparative studies of how c­ hildren acquire three Mayan languages, I w ­ ill demonstrate how the comparative method can be applied to study the acquisition of two linguistic features in the Germanic languages.

3.2 The Acquisition of Negation in the Germanic Languages The acquisition of negation provides a good place to demonstrate the comparative method ­because ­there are relatively few forms of negation and their contexts of use are fairly clear (Horn 1989). En­glish uses the word no as a form of discourse negation. Discourse negation occurs in contexts when someone replies to a previous yes/no question or command, or contradicts a previous statement (1). (1)  En­glish discourse negation speaker: Did you remember to take out the dog? hearer: No.

The Comparative Method of Language Acquisition Research

53

En­glish also uses no as a form of term negation (Drozd 2002). In this context, no is used as a negative determiner to negate a noun phrase, for example, “Yes, we have no bananas” and “You are in no position to argue.” En­glish uses the form not to negate predicates (2). Some va­ri­e­ties of En­glish use not as a marker of discourse negation, but restrict this use to contexts in which it is an elided form of the response is not (3). En­glish also employs morphological (e.g., un-) and lexical (e.g., “lack,” “reject,” “deny”) forms of negation in addition to no and not, but I limit this demonstration to markers of discourse, term, and predicate negation. (2)  En­glish predicate negation I do not want to eat that. (3)  Marked discourse negation in En­glish speaker: That is the best cake you w ­ ill ever eat. hearer: Is not/Not.

To acquire negation marking in En­glish, c­ hildren must determine the forms that negation takes in each of ­these contexts. The comparative method begins by establishing the link between forms and contexts for each language. As ­simple as the En­glish system of negation is, ­children exhibit some difficulty in separating the discourse and predicate forms of negation. Many ­children initially use the discourse form no as a marker of predicate negation. For example, a child named Brian produced the utterances in (4) at age 2;3. (4)  Brian’s (2;3) negative utterances (Cameron-­Faulkner, Lieven, and Theakston 2007:261) a. No move. b. No man. c. No ­there. d. No work.

Klima and Bellugi (1966) ­were the first researchers to note this phenomenon, and they proposed an initial stage of En­glish acquisition in which ­children added no as an external negation marker to the utterance.

54 chapter 3

If true, negation would be one area in which c­ hildren’s grammar is markedly dif­fer­ent from the adult grammar. ­Children usually deviate from the adult grammar by omitting morphemes in contexts where they are required by the adult grammar. ­Children’s omission of subjects in En­glish is a well-­ established example of an omission error. ­Children also misuse lexical items, such as when they label a ­horse a dog or confuse yellow with blue. Cameron-­Faulkner et  al. noted several mismatches between Brian’s grammar of negation and that of his m ­ other. They found that both no and not ­were the most frequent negators in the input, but that no emerged earlier in Brian’s speech than not (263–64). As the examples in (4) show, Brian extended no to predicate contexts where no did not occur in the input. Cameron-­Faulkner et al. also observed a mismatch between the input and Brian’s use of the negators ­can’t and ­don’t. While ­don’t was more frequent in the input than ­can’t, Brian used ­can’t more frequently than ­don’t (264). Cameron-­Faulkner et al. analyzed Brian’s production of negation in multiword utterances, but they included single-­word negation in their analy­sis of the input. This decision separated the discourse and predicate contexts of use for Brian but not for the input. Cameron-­Faulkner et al. state, “This decision is based on the hypothesis that all negators in the input, ­whether they occur in isolation or embedded within multiword utterances, ­will be used to shape the linguistic system of the child” (260). Unfortunately this decision also ignores the contexts of use for the negators and minimizes the mismatch between Brian’s grammar of negation and the input. The focus on Brian’s multiword negation eliminates the analy­sis of Brian’s use of discourse negation. The focus on Brian’s use of negation with verbs also excludes Brian’s use of negators with nouns, although Cameron-­Faulkner et al., include examples of noun negation as rejections, such as “no apple” (266). They divided Brian’s forms of predicate negation according to the contexts of use for ­don’t (prohibition and rejection), ­can’t (inability), and ­won’t (failure). Cameron-­Faulkner et  al.’s study illustrates the lack of attention to contexts of use that typifies acquisition research on single languages and impedes crosslinguistic research. The use of functional categories such as prohibition and rejection would appear to be language neutral, but they are difficult to apply in a uniform manner across languages. Cameron-­ Faulkner et  al. (258) modified the functional distinctions used by Choi (1988), thus diminishing the utility of such functional categories in ­future studies.

The Comparative Method of Language Acquisition Research

55

Cameron-­Faulkner et al. intended to identify the extent to which the development of negation mirrors input frequencies. Despite identifying significant mismatches between Brian’s use of negation and the input, they conclude, “The findings support a usage-­based approach to language development in which the child’s linguistic system is s­ haped by experience” (276). They reach this conclusion by ignoring the contexts of use for the forms of negation. Their study replicates earlier studies of negation acquisition in En­glish that show the ­children acquiring En­glish use negation forms that depart in a significant way from their use in the input. Drozd (2002) suggested that c­ hildren’s misuse of no could be explained by assuming that ­children acquiring En­glish w ­ ere using no as a marker of term negation rather than predicate negation. He claimed that most uses of no in combination with other words in ­children’s language have the same distribution as determiners in combination with noun phrases. Brian’s example in (4b) might be an example of term negation in which the rest of the sentence was omitted. Drozd’s hypothesis does not account for Brian’s other examples. The acquisition of En­glish negation suggests that c­ hildren ­will extend markers of discourse or term negation to contexts of predicate negation. Before we can investigate ­whether ­children acquiring other languages extend markers of discourse negation in the En­glish fashion we need to define the terms “negation,” “discourse negation,” “predicate negation,” and “term negation” in ways that are language neutral. The terms as I have used them to this point derive from an investigation of En­glish grammar and carry En­glish traits. For example, the form not frequently appears as the clitic + n’t. Predicate negation in En­glish requires the use of an auxiliary verb. En­glish introduces the proverb do to support nega­ hese considerations warn tion in contexts that lack an auxiliary verb. T us to be careful how we use the En­glish results to predict how ­children mark predicate negation in other languages. ­Until this point, I have been following the monolingual method of language acquisition research. We can turn to the comparative method of language acquisition research by investigating how c­ hildren acquire negation in other Germanic languages. This step is made easier by the description of negation and its acquisition in Scandinavian languages by Plunkett and Strömqvist (1992). Negation in the Scandinavian languages differs from negation in En­glish in small, but in­ter­est­ing ways. ­Table 3.3 compares the forms of negation in En­glish with ­those in Danish, Norwegian, and Swedish.

56 chapter 3 ­table 3.3 ​Forms of negation in En­g lish, Danish, Norwegian, and Swedish Context of Use

En­g lish

Danish

Norwegian

Swedish

Discourse Term: common Term: neuter Predicate

no no no not

nej ingen intet ikke

nei ingen intet ikke

nej ingen inget inte

Like En­g lish, the Scandinavian languages employ dif­fer­ent forms of negation in discourse and predicate contexts. Unlike En­g lish, they have distinct forms for term negation. One form is used with common nouns and the other is used with neuter nouns. An alternative form of term negation in the three Scandinavian languages uses the form of predicate negation with an indefinite pronoun that translates into En­ glish as ‘not any’. The three-­way distinction in negation forms makes it pos­si­ble to investigate ­whether ­children acquiring Scandinavian languages extend the discourse or term form of negation to mark predicate negation. Before looking at the acquisition results, we need to investigate other aspects of Scandinavian grammar that interact with negation and that differ from En­glish. Predicate negation occurs a­ fter the verb in the main clause and precedes the verb in subordinate clauses as well as in admonitive clauses (5d). The sentence-­fi nal position of the negation marker in main clause negation (5a) as well as the sentence-­initial position of the negation marker in admonitive clauses (5d) enhance the saliency of predicate negation in Scandinavian. (5)  Negation placement in Swedish a. Main clause negation

han komm er inte.



he come pres neg



‘He is not coming’. b. Subordinate clause with a finite verb

 . . . ​att han inte komm er.  . . . ​that he neg come pres

‘. . . that he is not coming’.

The Comparative Method of Language Acquisition Research

57

c. Subordinate clause with a nonfinite verb

Han vill inte komm a.



He wants neg come inf



‘He wants not to come’. d. Negation in admonitive clauses



inte rör-­a!



neg touch-­inf



‘­Don’t touch’!

Scandinavian frequently uses a cleft construction for emphasis. The cleft construction, like impersonal constructions, begins with the expletive pronoun det ‘it’ and the copula verb (6). ­T hese constructions provide an idiomatic phrase that highlights the position of predicate negation in the main clause. (6)  Swedish cleft construction det är inte HAN som är problemet. it is not HE that is prob­lem ‘HE’s not the prob­lem’.

In general, ­children acquiring the Scandinavian languages produce sporadic tokens of discourse negation between one and two years of age. They begin producing predicate negation around twenty-­two months (five months before Cameron-­Faulkner et  al.’s [2007] subject Brian). Their use of predicate negation rises steeply between twenty-­three and twenty-­ four months. Plunkett and Strömqvist (1992) did not find any of the six ­children they studied extending discourse forms of negation in predicate contexts. They report, instead, that the Danish child Anne made limited use the predicate form ikke in discourse contexts in sessions with frequent contexts of discourse negation. The Scandinavian results provide an impor­tant comparative base for evaluating the En­glish results. The Scandinavian results rule out a universal interpretation of the no for not extension seen in En­glish. A crucial difference between En­glish and the Scandinavian languages is the placement of predicate negation. Predicate negation occurs a­ fter the auxiliary verb in En­glish, whereas it occurs a­ fter the main verb in the Scandinavian

58 chapter 3 ­table 3.4 ​Forms of negation in En­g lish, German, Danish, Norwegian, and Swedish Context of Use

En­g lish

German

Danish

Norwegian

Swedish

Discourse Term: common Term: neuter Predicate

no no no not

nein keine keine nicht

nej ingen intet ikke

nei ingen intet ikke

nej ingen inget inte

languages. If word order was the source of the extension in En­glish, we would not expect to find the extension in German, which has the same placement of negation as the Scandinavian languages. T ­ able 3.4 compares the negation forms of German to ­those of En­glish and the Scandinavian languages. Interestingly, Mills (1985:154) reports an early stage in which ­children acquiring German extend the discourse form to predicate contexts and cites the example nein trinken ‘(I’m) not drinking’. The comparative method enables us to explore the source of the En­ glish c­ hildren’s extension in ­g reat detail. The five Germanic languages have similar forms of negation with similar contexts of use. What­ever the source of the extension in En­g lish and German, we can rule out semantics and syntax as c­ auses of the extension. C ­ hildren produce discourse negation earlier than predicate negation in all five languages, but only extend the discourse form to predicate contexts in En­g lish and German. The comparative method reveals the shortcomings of analyses based on the En­glish data alone. Contrary to Bloom (1970) and Klima and Belugi (1966), we see that Scandinavian c­ hildren do not begin with an external form of predicate negation. Contrary to Hyams (2011), a restriction on verb movement ­will not apply to the Scandinavian data. Contrary to Drozd (2002), ­there is no evidence that ­children acquiring German and Scandinavian languages f­ avor the use of term negation. And contrary to the claims of Cameron-­Faulkner et al. (2007), t­here is no evidence that their observations for En­glish carry over to German and the Scandinavian languages. The comparative analy­sis provides a precise description of the contexts for discourse, term, and predicate negation in the Germanic languages, and it shows the details of how predicate negation changes position in main and subordinate clauses. Moreover, the comparative method shows precisely where large gaps exist in the documentation of the acquisition of negation in the Germanic languages.

The Comparative Method of Language Acquisition Research

59

Restricting the analy­sis to the acquisition of negation forms in Germanic languages enables a systematic analy­sis of ­factors such as lexical contrasts, phonology, syntax, semantics, and pragmatics, ­factors that in combination determine ­children’s acquisition of negation. The similarities between the Germanic forms of negation and their contexts of use enable investigators to rule out many irrelevant ­factors. Comparing the acquisition of negation in Germanic languages with the acquisition of negation in Japa­nese brings out the advantages of the comparative method by showing how im­mense differences in language structure fail to yield significant generalizations even as they render the comparisons less precise. Clancy (1985) describes the systems of negation marking in Japa­nese and their acquisition by c­ hildren (­Table 3.5). The grammar of Japa­nese negation differs from the grammar of Germanic negation along many dimensions. Japa­nese has a verb-­fi nal word order, whereas the Germanic languages put verbs in the second position of the main clause. Japa­nese has contrasting forms of discourse negation for rejection, denial, and prohibition. The adult language extends the form (i)nai for existential negation to verbal predicates, but it also uses the existential form for prohibition. The evidence for the acquisition of negation in Germanic languages predicts that ­children produce the adult forms appropriately in their contexts of use apart from the tendency of En­glish and German ­children to extend discourse forms to mark predicate negation. C ­ hildren acquiring Japa­nese exhibit dif­fer­ent extensions including a noticeable tendency to extend the existential form (i)nai to discourse contexts. The c­ hildren also use the rejection form iya in denial contexts. Fi­nally, Japa­nese c­ hildren interchange the iya rejection and dame prohibition forms. None of t­ hese extensions have been documented for ­children acquiring Germanic languages ­because the Germanic languages do not use dif­fer­ent forms of negation in t­ hese contexts.

­table 3.5 ​Contexts of use for negation marking in Japa­nese

Discourse Existential Predicate

Rejection

Denial

iya

chigau

Declarative

Prohibition (i)nai/dame

(i)nai (i)nai

(i)nai/dame

60 chapter 3

Clancy attributes the early use of existential negation to its frequent use in the adult language. Frequency does not account for the extension of discourse negation in En­glish and German, or the absence of extension in the Scandinavian languages. The c­ hildren’s interchangeable use of the forms iya and dame is difficult to evaluate ­because this use reflects adult usage. Clancy does not discuss the use of dame with verbs. The Japa­ nese results do not contribute to a better understanding of the acquisition of negation in Germanic languages b ­ ecause the systems of negation differ along too many dimensions. The absence of comparative contexts of use for negation in Japa­nese and Germanic limits the investigation of language acquisition to exploring general f­ actors that apply to all of the languages. The typical language-­ independent ­factors that researchers explore are the effects of frequency, position, and meaning. I label ­ these language-­ i ndependent ­ factors ­because they apply to all languages regardless of their structure. If we are interested in determining how structural features of language affect language acquisition, then we should redirect our attention to the grammatical ­factors that affect ­children’s language. The comparative method brings grammar back into the forefront of the crosslinguistic investigation of language acquisition. I have refrained from addressing the issue of how the ­children use negation for dif­fer­ent semantic functions. This issue was first addressed by Lois Bloom (1970), who analyzed how c­ hildren acquiring En­glish used negation to mark nonexistence, rejection, and denial. Choi (1988) l­ater divided Bloom’s categories into in­de­pen­dent and syntactic categories and divided the syntactic forms into general and specific categories. Choi’s specific categories of negation included nonexistence, inability, prohibition, rejection, and ignorance. Plunkett and Strömqvist (1992) separated the negative forms in Scandinavian into the alethic, epistemic, deontic, and boulemaic categories. Choi, Drozd, and Plunkett and Strömqvist also employed an “other” category for tokens that did not fit any of their preestablished categories. The functional analy­sis of c­ hildren’s negation obscures crosslinguistic comparison in several ways. Bloom and Clancy did not distinguish between discourse, term, and predicate contexts of negation, which makes it all but impossible to know in the case of Bloom’s analy­sis how frequently her subjects used the form no in place of not. Another difficulty for functional analy­sis is that each investigator uses her own set of semantic contrasts, which makes it impossible to compare results between dif­fer­ent investigators. A final prob­lem for functional analyses is that they impose

The Comparative Method of Language Acquisition Research

61

a set of categories that are insensitive to the distinctions that operate in specific languages. For example, none of ­these investigations note the difference between prohibition (e.g., “­Don’t touch that!”) and admonition (e.g., “­Don’t let me down!”). Semantic contrasts cannot be defined in a language-­neutral manner, and they obscure the analy­sis of how ­children acquire language-­specific contrasts in forms of negation. I ­will end my discussion of negation forms by presenting the contexts of use for negation forms in three Mayan languages: Ch’ol, Q’anjob’al, and Mam. ­Table 3.6 references contexts of use for negation that are significantly dif­fer­ent from the contexts of use that I used for the Germanic languages. The contexts of use that are needed for Mayan languages reference the differences among the incompletive and potential verb aspects, the imperative mood, the existential verb, nonverbal stative predicates, and discourse contexts (Pye 2016). All three Mayan languages extend forms of existential negation to negate verbs in the incompletive aspect. Ch’ol and Mam use the same forms of negation for verbs in the potential aspect and the imperative mood. All three languages have distinct negation forms for stative predicates (e.g., “It is not a dog”). Stative and existential predicates in ­these languages do not have a copula verb and are therefore nonverbal predicates. The Mayan languages, like Japa­ nese, use multiple forms of negation in some contexts of negation. The stark differences between the forms and contexts of use for negation in the Germanic and Mayan languages underscore the difficulty of

­table 3.6 ​Contexts of use for negation marking in three Mayan languages

Context of Use

Ch’ol (Vázquez Álvarez, 2011)

Q’anjob’al (Mateo Pedro, 2010)

Mam (­England, 1983)

Incompletive

ma’añ Verb

k’am, toq Verb

miti’ Verb

Potential

mach + ik Verb ame Verb + ik ame mach + ik Verb

maj, toq Verb

mii’n Verb

Imperative

mach Verb

manchaq Verb

mii’n Verb

Existential

ma’añ(+ik)

k’am toq

miti’ [nonhuman] mi’aal [­human]

Stative

mach(+ik) Noun

man Noun + oq

miyaa’ Noun

Discourse

ma’añ

k’am + aq manchaq maj

mii’n

Source: Pye (2016).

62 chapter 3

deriving significant generalizations about language acquisition from the study of languages that lack a common history. The contexts of use for negation share many features between the Mayan languages that are irrelevant to the analy­sis of negation in Germanic languages. The stative forms of negation occur with nouns and adjectives in the Mayan languages, whereas their translation into En­glish requires the copula be and thereby becomes a verbal rather than a stative context of negation in En­glish. In this section, I surveyed several studies of the acquisition of negation. The studies focus on the acquisition of negation in single languages, apart from the Scandinavian research, and many do not discuss the contexts of use of the negation markers. The authors would like to generalize their results to other languages, but none survey the forms of negation in the world’s languages. The En­glish results do not extend directly to the Scandinavian languages. Research on the acquisition of negation in individual languages ­will not lead to a general understanding of how ­children acquire negation in all languages. The comparative method of acquisition research provides the framework that is necessary to make meaningful generalizations about the acquisition of negation within language families. Research on the acquisition of negation in En­glish and German can compare the c­ hildren’s use of negation in similar contexts of use, whereas comparing ­children’s negation in En­glish and Mam ignores the extensive differences between the number and contexts of use of negation forms in the two languages. The comparative method of language acquisition research provides the framework that is necessary to realize Berman’s goal of an explicit and generally applicable articulation of what is universal and what is par­tic­u­ lar in first language acquisition.

3.3 The Acquisition of Verb Inflection in the Germanic Languages The analy­sis of negation demonstrated how the comparative method provides a framework for the systematic crosslinguistic investigation of language acquisition by comparing c­ hildren’s forms in similar contexts of use. This focus leads to a better understanding of how ­children extend their forms to contexts that are unique to each language. Constructing a ­table for the contexts of use shows where gaps exist in the existing lit­er­a­ture. Much work remains to identify the forms of negation that c­ hildren produce in

The Comparative Method of Language Acquisition Research

63

specific contexts of use in all branches of the Indo-­European language ­family. Inflection, like negation, is an area of the grammar with significant differences between the forms of child and adult sentences. Two-­year-­old ­children acquiring En­g lish and other languages frequently omit inflections that are essential parts of the adult language. Wilson (2003) cites the examples shown in (7) of child utterances from En­glish with missing morphemes. The utterance in (7a) is missing the copula be, the utterance in (7b) is missing the auxiliary be, and the utterance in (7c) is missing the third-­person pres­ent tense suffix -­s on the verb need. (7)  Morpheme omission in English (Suppes 1974, cited in MacWhinney 2000) a. I at the beach. (Nina 2;5) b. A lady dancing. (Nina 1;11) c. The big doll need the ­bottle. (Nina 2;3)

Brown (1973) described the phenomenon of missing morphemes as “telegraphic speech” and thought that it characterized the second stage of language acquisition. The examples in (7) show that while Nina did not produce the copula and auxiliary be as well as the third-­person verb suffix, she did produce other grammatical morphemes such as the first-­person pronoun I, the determiners a and the, and the preposition at. The challenge for language acquisition research is to explain the patterns of morpheme omission that characterize a two-­year-­old’s utterances. Children acquiring other languages omit dif­ ­ fer­ ent morphemes in their utterances. The pattern of morpheme omission differs between languages. The examples in (8) show examples of morpheme omission in the speech of a two-­year-­old K’iche’ Mayan speaker (Pye 1983). In (8a), the verb is missing the incompletive aspect and third-­person plural subject prefixes. In (8b), the verb is also missing the incompletive aspect prefix. The two utterances contain the final consonant of the verb root and the indicative status suffix for intransitive verbs. (8)  Morpheme omission in K’iche’ (TIY 2;1.30)

a. nik.

=  k-­e-­b’in-ik

b. ­lik.   = k-­ø -­war-­ik

  inc-­abs6-­walk-­ind IV     inc-­abs3-­sleep-­i ndIV   ‘They walk’.    ‘She sleeps’.

64 chapter 3

The omission of grammatical morphemes is a fundamental issue in acquisition research ­because morpheme omission is irrefutable evidence that ­children do not simply copy what they hear. The theoretical challenge is to explain why ­children produce some low-­frequency morphemes and omit grammatical morphemes with much higher frequencies in adult speech. Wilson (2003:83) lists the usual suspects: “­there are many f­ actors leading to function words being the ones to go, including relative lack of informativeness (Greenfield and Smith 1976), greater semantic and grammatical complexity (Brown 1973) and, prob­ably less importantly, lack of acoustic salience (Gleitman and Wanner 1982).” The K’iche’ examples in (8) rule out the first two ­factors ­because the indicative status suffix that TIY produced lacks informativeness and is semantically and grammatically complex (Pye 1983). Research on languages with synthetic morphologies reveals aspects of language acquisition that are not vis­i­ble in research on languages with ­little morphology. In this section, I demonstrate how the comparative method can be used to analyze the acquisition of person marking in the Germanic languages. The acquisition of person marking has been the subject of intense interest ­because the acquisition of person markers provides a clear indication of ­children’s pro­gress in acquiring the grammar of the adult language. The investigation of person marking, like the investigation of pro-­d rop, has gradually become more sophisticated as researchers have learned to distinguish the contexts of use for person markers in dif­fer­ent languages. The comparative method provides the framework that is necessary for the systematic investigation of person marker acquisition. The first step in the investigation of person marking is to identify the unit of comparison. This step requires some care ­because “person marking” has not been adequately defined in the acquisition lit­er­a­ture. The main prob­lem is that Eu­ro­pean languages use dif­fer­ent linguistic ele­ments to mark person. Romance languages, with the exception of French, use verb suffixes to mark the combination of person and tense. Germanic languages and French use pronouns to mark person. Thus pronouns are obligatory in the Germanic languages and French in the absence of an overt noun phrase. The difference in person marking is also apparent in the inflectional paradigms for verbs in the Romance and Germanic languages. As seen in T ­ able  3.7, most Germanic languages have defective inflectional paradigms for person, whereas Romance languages such as Spanish have distinct suffixes for each person. Verb suffixes in the Scandinavian lan-

The Comparative Method of Language Acquisition Research

65

­table 3.7 ​Infinitive and pres­ent tense verb forms in five Eu­ro­pean languages

Verb Form

Pronoun (En­g lish)

En­g lish

Swedish

Dutch

German

Spanish

Infinitive First singular Second singular Third singular First plural Second plural Third plural

I You He/she/it We You They

play play play plays play play play

leka leker leker leker leker leker leker

spelen speel speelt speelt spelen spelen spelen

spielen spiele spielst spielt spielen spielt spielen

jugar juego juegas juega jugamos jugáis juegan

guages do not mark person, and En­glish verbs only mark third-­person singular forms with the suffix -­s . The difference between person marking by pronoun and person marking by pronominal suffix shows that investigating the acquisition of person marking in the Romance and Germanic languages requires a coordinated investigation of ­children’s use of pronouns and verb affixes. Unfortunately, most investigations in this domain e­ ither focus on ­children’s pronouns or c­ hildren’s verb affixes, but not the two together. Adding pronouns to the study of person marking also makes it pos­si­ble to investigate how c­ hildren acquire person marking for the direct objects of verbs and w ­ hether they acquire person marking for subjects and objects in a coordinated fashion. Care must be taken to determine the verb form that adults actually use in speech to ­children. Spanish contrasts informal second-­person forms (shown in ­Table 3.6) with more formal usted second-­person forms that are the same as the third-­person forms. C ­ hildren are more likely to be addressed with the informal verb forms than with the formal verb forms, but their use must be checked. In her study of the acquisition of Latvian, Rūķe-­Draviņa (1959) noted that the third-­person form was the most frequent form in adult conversations as well as the form used in “baby talk” addressed to c­ hildren, no m ­ atter which person number was being referred to. Identifying the form of linguistic ele­ments is only the first step in the comparative method. The next step requires identifying the contexts in which the forms are used in each language. The Germanic languages and French use pronouns to mark first and second person and to mark third person in the absence of an overt noun phrase. Verbs in the imperative mood can be considered tenseless and therefore appear without pronominal subjects. Pronominal subjects are also not required in infinitive clauses.

66 chapter 3

The link between pronominal subjects and tense led Ken Wexler and his colleagues to research the coordinated development of pronouns and verb inflection in ­children. Wexler proposed the Agreement/Tense Omission Model (or ATOM) to explain the forms of subject pronouns that ­children acquiring En­glish produce with verbs that lack tense and agreement markers (Schütze and Wexler 1996, Wexler 1998). The ATOM predicts that ­children produce “default” pronoun forms with verbs that have tense but not agreement as defined by the theory. ­Children acquiring En­glish produce the accusative form of pronouns as the default, such as “Him play,” whereas ­children acquiring German produce the nominative form of pronouns as the default, for example, “er spielen.” In both of ­these examples, the ­children used an infinitive verb form. According to ATOM, it is also pos­si­ble for c­ hildren to produce pronominal subjects with verbs that are marked for agreement but not tense. In this case, ­children acquiring En­glish are predicted to produce the nominative form of the pronoun, but not the tense marker, such as “He play.” While ATOM does not account for all of the acquisition data (cf. Ambridge and Lieven 2011), it succeeded in focusing attention on the coordinated development of pronominal subjects and verb inflection. I compared the contexts of use of pres­ent tense verb forms in En­glish and Spanish in Chapter 1 (­Table 1.3). T ­ able 3.8 adds the pres­ent tense forms for Swedish to that ­table. Swedish, like Spanish, uses pres­ent tense verb forms in contexts where En­glish uses the progressive form. The supine verb form in Swedish is similar to the En­g lish pres­ent perfect. A common prob­lem in crosslinguistic comparison is the use of dif­fer­ent terms to label similar grammatical functions. The contexts of use listed in T ­ able 3.8 specify the types of events where the pres­ent tense is used. The pres­ent tense is also marked on dif­fer­ent types of verbs in En­glish. The pres­ent tense is marked on the copula be in sentences with predicate nominals and predicate adjectives (e.g., “He’s a good boy”). Pres­ent tense is also marked on some auxiliary verbs (e.g., “She’s ­r unning”) and regular verbs (e.g., “It floats”). The type of verb that is marked for pres­ent tense defines another dimension of the context of use for the pres­ent tense. The addition of the lexical dimension to the contexts of use for the pres­ent tense creates another divide between En­g lish and Spanish ­because Spanish does not have auxiliary verbs. The En­glish examples “He’s a good boy” and “She’s ­running” illustrate ­ hese yet another dimension of the context of use for the pres­ent tense. T

The Comparative Method of Language Acquisition Research

67

­table 3.8 ​Contexts of use for pres­ent tense verb forms in En­g lish, Swedish, and Spanish Context of Use

En­g lish

Swedish

Spanish

Progressing events Immediate ­f uture States Habitual events Generic states Past events with current  relevance

Progressive aspect Pres­ent tense Pres­ent tense Pres­ent tense Pres­ent tense Pres­ent perfect

Pres­ent tense Pres­ent tense Pres­ent tense Pres­ent tense Pres­ent tense Supine

Pres­ent tense Pres­ent tense Pres­ent tense Pres­ent tense Pres­ent tense Pres­ent tense

examples have contracted forms of copula and auxiliary be. The contracted forms of be are clitics that attach phonetically to the preceding word. ­T hese phonetic changes mark a context of use that is distinct from the uncontracted forms of copula and auxiliary be. T ­ hese considerations show that the contexts of use for pres­ent tense marking in En­glish have three dimensions. A semantic dimension lists the types of events that are marked for pres­ent tense. A lexical dimension lists the types of words that are marked for pres­ent tense, and a phonetic dimension lists the phonetic forms of pres­ent tense marking. An acquisition study of pres­ent tense forms in En­glish is not complete ­until we learn how ­children control ­these three dimensions of pres­ent tense usage. I began my discussion with an analy­sis of person marking in Eu­ro­pean languages and ended with a discussion of the contexts of use of tense marking in En­glish. We can return to the analy­sis of person marking by noting that the contracted and uncontracted forms of copula and auxiliary be interact with and change the forms of pronouns that they cliticize with. Thus, the contracted and uncontracted forms of the copula and auxiliary verbs define separate contexts of use for the pronouns. The study of pronoun acquisition in En­glish should treat the contracted and uncontracted copula and auxiliary verbs as distinct contexts of use for pronouns. The main point of my discussion is to illustrate the power of the concept of context of use. Far from being a ­simple association between person and verb form, when the concept is applied to the analy­sis of person marking in En­glish it results in a detailed understanding of the semantic, morphological, and phonetic dimensions of person marking. The contexts of use define the space of the investigation and counteract the tendency to collapse distinctions in one or another dimension. This leads to the question of what is known about ­children’s expression of person and tense marking.

68 chapter 3

No existing research has probed all of ­these dimensions of person and tense marking in En­glish, although Wilson’s study (2003) approaches this level of detail. Wilson analyzed five En­glish child corpora on the Child Language Data Exchange System (CHILDES) to determine ­whether the ­children produced copula be, auxiliary be, and the third-­person pres­ent tense suffix -­s at similar rates in their obligatory contexts. A key advance in Wilson’s study is the focus on the use of tense inflection with dif­fer­ ent types of subjects, in other words, in specific contexts of use. Wilson compared the ­children’s production of the tense inflections with subjects that w ­ ere pronouns (e.g., it’s, that’s) and noun phrases (“the truck’s”). He found that four of the five c­ hildren displayed significant differences between their use of copula and auxiliary be with pronouns and noun phrases. The child who did not display this pattern of use, Eve, was also the child who had the lowest overall production of copula and auxiliary be in their obligatory contexts. ­T hese results show that the ­children acquired pres­ent tense markers in specific contexts of use. ­Table 3.9 shows Wilson’s results for the ­children’s production of copula and auxiliary be following pronominal and noun phrase subjects. Wilson concluded that the context of use affected the production of copula and auxiliary be over a prolonged period of time for four of the five ­children. Moreover, Wilson reports the ­children’s production of copula and auxiliary be also varied depending on the ­children’s use of the individual pronouns. The c­ hildren produced copula be more frequently with the pronoun it than with you. Wilson argued that t­ hese results support a construction-­based account of the acquisition of tense markers in En­g lish. I became interested in ­table 3.9 ​Production of copula and auxiliary be following pronominal and noun phrase subjects Copula Be Use Pronoun

Adam Eve Naomi Nina Sarah

Auxiliary Be Use

Noun Phrase

Pronoun

Noun Phrase

n

Percentage

n

Percentage

n

Percentage

n

Percentage

469 102 238 967 225

52 19 89 88 58

23 12 22 73 5

18 14 42 42 19

97 5 24 134 13

41 9 83 77 30

14 5 38 42 3

12 5 41 27 23

Source: Wilson (2003).

The Comparative Method of Language Acquisition Research

69

Wilson’s study b ­ ecause of its meticulous attention to distinguishing the contexts of use for tense markers in En­glish. The detailed description of the contexts of use that Wilson provides are needed to compare the acquisition of tense markers in En­glish with the acquisition of tense markers in other languages. A comparison of tense marker use in c­ hildren acquiring En­glish and Swedish, for example, would need to determine whether the contexts of use that Wilson analyzed for En­ ­ glish have counter­parts in Swedish. The focus on contexts of use in the comparative method opens a door to many new lines of investigation. I would be interested in knowing ­whether the pattern of copula use that Wilson observed for ­children acquiring En­glish is also observed for ­children acquiring German, Dutch, and Swedish. This example demonstrates the level of precision that the comparative method brings to the crosslinguistic study of language acquisition. Precise comparison naturally leads to new ave­nues of research, but it also builds on the results of previous studies. I would predict that a comparative study of copula acquisition in En­glish, German, and Swedish would result in new insights on the results for En­glish. Unfortunately, the equivalent analyses do not yet exist for the other Germanic languages. Plunkett and Strömqvist (1992) report that Danish c­ hildren began producing the pres­ent inflection between twenty-­two and twenty-­six months before producing verbs with the perfect and past inflections. Their data for one Swedish child is similar. They did not comment on the ­children’s production of the infinitive and imperative verb forms. They state that Scandinavian ­children have considerable difficulty acquiring the combination of suffix-­and stem-­change verb forms. They claim that c­ hildren first acquire the suffixed forms following Vanvik (1971:317) who observed that for a Norwegian child “most of the . . . ​‘­mistakes’ show lack of vowel change (‘Ablaut’) in the past tense. The root vowel of the infinitive form is being kept and the suffixes of the weak (regular) verbs are generally used.” From a comparative perspective, Plunkett and Strömqvist’s report leaves many questions unanswered. To be sure, they only intended to provide a sketch of how ­children acquire the Scandinavian languages rather than a detailed study of inflectional development. Swedish c­ hildren first produce the pres­ent tense verb form, whereas ­children learning En­glish produce the progressive verb form. Plunkett and Strömqvist also found that the ­children produced participle verb forms but omitted the auxiliary

70 chapter 3

verbs that are required by the adult language. This last observation suggests that the Scandinavian ­children might have a pattern of auxiliary use that is similar to the pattern that Wilson found for En­glish, but unfortunately we lack the details necessary to test this hypothesis for the Scandinavian languages. I cannot take the comparison between the acquisition of En­glish and the Germanic languages further due to limitations in the way researchers have reported the data on verb inflection. Neglecting a detailed analy­sis of the contexts of use, investigators report the overall frequency of person marking that averages across dif­fer­ent contexts of use. Data on ­children’s use of stem changes in verb forms is not readily available. Few investigators report ­children’s production of imperative verb forms. The main advantage of the comparative method is that it focuses attention on the contexts in which the languages use dif­fer­ent forms. The absence of information about the Scandinavian c­ hildren’s production of progressive verb forms suggests that Plunkett and Strömqvist did not find enough information about the progressive form to discuss it. The En­glish data show how En­glish restricted the use of the pres­ent tense form to the description of states and expanded the function of the progressive to describe ongoing events. The difference between the Scandinavian and En­glish contexts of use of the progressive verb form underlines the point that “progressive” verb forms do not encode the same concept across languages.

3.4 Conclusion I introduced the comparative method of language acquisition in this chapter by applying the method to the analy­sis of negation and verb inflection in several Germanic languages. The comparative method exploits similarities between genet­ically related languages to make systematic analyses of ­children’s language. The comparative method provides a template for assembling child data from dif­fer­ent languages to gain an understanding of how varied contexts of use affect language acquisition. The acquisition data for negation show that Scandinavian ­children do not extend discourse negation to predicate contexts as ­children acquiring En­glish and German do. The acquisition data for verb inflection show that Scandinavian ­children have an early production of pres­ent tense forms of verbs. I only referred to current theories of language acquisition in passing ­because my concern is developing a method for assembling a compara-

The Comparative Method of Language Acquisition Research

71

tive database rather than using the results to test one or another theory. Acquisition theories tend to focus on narrow aspects of c­ hildren’s language rather than viewing the language data in its totality. One example of this tendency is the imposition of idiosyncratic semantic contrasts to analyze the acquisition of negation. Theoretical constructions typically distort data when they are applied to dif­fer­ent languages. The comparative method provides a theory-­neutral framework for the analy­sis of ­children’s language data. In the following chapters, I apply the comparative method to acquisition data for Mayan languages. ­These chapters demonstrate how the comparative method builds a comprehensive picture of how c­ hildren acquire a complete grammar in multiple Mayan languages.

chapter four

The Structure of Mayan Languages

T

his chapter introduces an alien linguistic landscape unlike En­glish. Mayan languages are structured along radically dif­fer­ent lines from Eu­ro­pean languages. Basic linguistic features such as tense, pronouns, and subjects do not have Mayan equivalents. Mayan languages have antipassive, applicative, and existential constructions that lack direct equivalents in Eu­ro­pean languages. Mayan languages make a fundamental division between transitive and intransitive verbs that is unmarked in Eu­ro­pean languages. Mayan verbs form complete sentences by themselves. This chapter outlines the central features of Mayan grammars and shows how ­these features vary across three Mayan languages. The variation in the structure of ­these languages leads to distinct developmental pathways among the c­ hildren acquiring t­ hese languages. Kaufman (1990), E ­ ngland (1994), Bennett (2016), Coon (2016), and Henderson (2016) provide overviews of the Mayan languages. The Mayan language f­ amily contains some thirty separate languages with over seven million living speakers. Figure 4.1 shows the five main historical subdivisions for the Mayan language ­family: 1) Wastekan, 2) Yucatecan, 3) Greater Q’anjob’alan, 4) Greater Tzeltalan, and 5) Eastern Mayan (Campbell and Kaufman 1985; Brown and Wichmann 2004). The Ch’olan languages serve as a vital connection between the Yucatecan languages and the highland Mayan languages of Guatemala. Speakers of a Ch’olan precursor originated the Classic Mayan civilization and heavi­ly influenced the Yucatecan and Tzeltalan languages. The Q’anjob’alan languages connect the languages spoken in Mexico with ­those in Guatemala. ­T here is evidence of considerable borrowing between Q’anjob’al and Mam. Mam serves as a bridge between the Q’anjob’alan group in the west and the K’iche’an languages to the east.

The Structure of Mayan Languages

73

figure 4.1. ​Ge­ne­tic classification of Mayan languages (Kaufman 1976, 1990).

I focus the pre­sen­ta­tion in this chapter on the structure of three languages: K’iche’, Mam, and Ch’ol. T ­ hese languages vary enough to demonstrate how the comparative method can be used with divergent languages while not overwhelming readers with too many divergent features. At times I refer to results from other Mayan languages in order to provide a wider perspective for the results from K’iche’, Mam, and Ch’ol. K’iche’ preserves much of the Proto-­Mayan structure, while Mam and Ch’ol depart from the Proto-­Mayan structure in dif­fer­ent ways. My ultimate goal is to produce a systematic comparison that includes acquisition data for all of the Mayan languages.

4.1 The Synthetic Structure of Mayan Languages Eu­ro­pean languages have an analytic structure based on putting words together to form syntactic constituents. The analytic structure gives the syntactic relations of subject and object a privileged status in a sentence. Mayan languages have a synthetic structure that is based on putting morphemes together to form complex lexical units. Synthetic languages primarily rely on the morphological structure of complex words to express the equivalent of a complete sentence in En­glish. The Mam verb complex shown in (1) illustrates the synthetic structure that is typical of Mayan languages. (1)  Verb complex in Mam Mayan ma chin ku’-ts

t-­tsyu-’n-­a.

rec abs1 down-­toward erg2-­grab-­dep-­erg2 ‘You grabbed me’. (lit., ‘You grabbed down ­toward me recently’.)

74

chapter 4

The Mam verb complex in (1) begins with a verb marker that indicates the recent past, that is, earlier t­oday as opposed to yesterday. The first-­ person singular absolutive marker chin references the direct object. The following two morphemes, ku’ and ts, indicate the direction of the action. They are followed by a discontinuous ergative subject marker made up of the prefix t-­and an enclitic -­a that in combination indicate the subject is second-­person singular. The verb root -­tsyu ‘grab’ is followed by the dependent suffix -’n that appears on transitive verbs that have directional prefixes. All transitive verbs in Mam, with three exceptions, require directional prefixes so the dependent suffix is largely redundant. The dependent suffix preserves evidence that the transitive verb once formed a clause that was dependent on the directional verbs. The Mam verb complex contains one word, whereas the En­glish gloss has three words (the literal gloss has six words). The En­glish gloss has a syntactic subject and object, whereas the Mam verb complex has subject and object person markers. Such differences are typical of the divide between synthetic and analytic languages. Linguists continue to grapple with the theoretical implications inherent in the structure of synthetic languages. One of t­ hese implications concerns the degree to which all languages make use of the same analytic syntactic relations. A configurational language makes a fundamental structural distinction between the syntactic relations for subjects and objects. The subject of a sentence occupies a syntactic position that is external to the verb phrase, whereas the object is internal to the verb phrase. This syntactic structure works well for analytic languages, but it does not extend very easily to synthetic languages. If a single word in a synthetic language corresponds to an entire sentence in an analytic language, then the syntactic position for the subject is missing in the sentences of synthetic languages. The debate over the existence of nonconfigurational languages boils down to ­whether and how syntactic relations of analytic languages can be extended to synthetic languages at some level of the grammar (cf. Jelinek 1984). A related theoretical difficulty concerns the status of the person markers on verbs. Verbs in synthetic languages use person markers to reference the subject and object of the sentence. Linguists generally classify this manner of cross-­referencing as agreement, and the person marker is analyzed as a morphological object with no syntactic standing. Person markers may also be analyzed as syntactic objects, in which case they may be classified as clitics. As clitics, the person markers are thought

The Structure of Mayan Languages

75

to originate in the usual syntactic positions of subjects and objects, and then move to a host for the clitic. In the absence of a general understanding of the distinction between clitics and agreement markers, the analy­sis of person marking in synthetic languages remains unresolved (cf. Corbett 2006; Kramer 2014; Spencer and Luís 2012). The distinction between clitics and agreement markers has serious implications for the analy­sis of pronouns. Pronouns are syntactic objects that take the place of a noun phrase in a syntactic configuration. Linguists have observed that pronouns in analytic languages cannot reference other noun phrases in the same sentence (Chomsky 1982). For example, the pronoun “she” in the sentence “She saw Doris” does not refer to Doris. In synthetic languages, the person markers on verbs commonly reference noun phrases in the same clause. The ability to reference noun phrases in the same clause is evidence that the person markers do not correspond to En­glish pronouns. On the other hand, clitic person markers can be used in place of noun phrases in the same way that pronouns are used in place of noun phrases in analytic languages. The ambiguity between pronominal clitics and agreement markers in synthetic languages poses a fundamental prob­lem of identity for the theory of pronouns. The acquisition pro­c ess is dif­fer­ent for analytic and synthetic languages. ­Children acquire analytic languages by building a vocabulary of basic words and discovering how to combine the words into sentences (O’Grady 1997). ­C hildren acquire synthetic languages by adding morphemes to construct complex words. ­Children’s first words in synthetic languages may correspond to complete propositions but lack verb inflections. ­Children’s first words in analytic languages form incomplete sentences that lack subjects and verbs. A basic question in acquisition ­ hether ­children acquiring synthetic languages ­will initially research is w resort to using pronouns as syntactic arguments. Comparative research on the acquisition of Mayan languages provides the first systematic study of how c­hildren build complex morphological structures in synthetic languages.

4.2 The Mayan Lexicon The lexical categories in Mayan languages can be identified by their morphological and syntactic properties (Kaufman 1990). ­Table 4.1 shows the major lexical classes for Ch’ol, Mam, and K’iche’.

76

chapter 4

­table 4.1 ​Major lexical classes in Ch’ol, Mam, and K’iche’

Lexical Class Pronoun Noun classifier Noun Relational noun Transitive verb Intransitive verb Positional Affect Existential Adjective Adverb Preposition Particle

Ch’ol (Vázquez Álvarez 2011) Focus X X X X X X X X X X X

Mam (­England 1983)

K’iche’ (Larsen 1988)

Emphatic X X X X X X X X X X

X

X

X X X X X

X X X X

K’iche’ is the only one of ­these three languages that has a set of in­de­ pen­dent pronouns. Ch’ol and Mam have a set of pronouns that are only used for the purpose of focusing on a participant (­England 1983:157; Vázquez Álvarez 2011:153). Focused constituents appear in a preverbal position in Mayan languages. The focus component distinguishes the pronouns in Ch’ol and Mam from the in­de­pen­dent pronouns in K’iche’. Mam is the only one of the three languages that has a set of noun classifiers that it uses for pronominal reference. Nouns in all three languages take ergative possessive prefixes. The nouns can be divided into alienable and inalienable subclasses based on w ­ hether they take a suffix when possessed or when unpossessed. A special subclass of nouns, the relational nouns, are used to express locative and syntactic relations. Verbs in the three languages have aspect markers as shown in (1). The three languages divide verbs into the transitive and intransitive classes. Transitive verbs have ergative subject markers and absolutive object markers in most contexts. Intransitive verbs have absolutive subject markers in the completive aspect. Verbs in Ch’ol and K’iche’, but not Mam, have status suffixes that signal mood and transitivity. Positional roots require a distinct derivational suffix to form a verb stem. Positionals identify the position, shape, quality, or condition of an object. Ch’ol and Mam have a distinct class of affect words. Ch’ol

The Structure of Mayan Languages

77

and Mam also have an existential word that expresses the location or possession of an object. K’iche’ uses the positional stem k’oo as an existential. The existential predicates are not marked for the incompletive aspect. All three languages have adjectives, adverbs, and particles. The adjective class is smaller in Mayan languages than in En­g lish ­because Mayan languages use intransitive verbs to express adjectival concepts such as hungry and tired. Only Ch’ol and K’iche’ have prepositions; Ch’ol has ­ hese languages generally combine one preposition and K’iche’ has two. T the prepositions with dif­fer­ent relational nouns to distinguish dif­fer­ent locative and syntactic relations. Mam uses relational nouns without prepositions. Mayan languages have a large class of particles, many of which have adverbial functions. E ­ ngland defines the particles as words that do not have inflected or derived forms (1983:86). Vázquez Álvarez notes that many enclitic particles in Ch’ol have aspectual and modal interpretations (2011:172). Researchers have not investigated how Mayan c­ hildren acquire the particles, other than the directionals (Brown 1994; de León 1994), and I also ­will put aside an investigation of the particles for a f­ uture time. In this book I focus my investigation on how the c­ hildren acquire the pronouns, nouns, verbs, and stative words that form the nucleus of predication in Mayan languages.

4.3 The Mayan Verb Complex The verb complex is the heart of each Mayan language (Robertson 1992). The verb complex has morphemes that express aspect and mood as well as person markers that cross reference the subject and object separately. The verb complex defines the synthetic character of the Mayan languages and makes the languages “verb friendly” in the sense that a single verb complex in a Mayan language expresses a complete sentence in En­glish (Brown 1998). The inflectional features of the Mayan verb complex differentiate it from the lexical status of a s­ imple verb. Mayan verb complexes contain morphemes for aspect, direction, subject, object, and status. The status markers on verbs mark dif­fer­ent combinations of transitivity, de­pen­dency, mood, and aspect in individual languages. Examples of underived transitive verbs in K’iche’, Mam, and Ch’ol are shown in (2), (3), and (4), respectively.

78

chapter 4

(2)  K’iche’ Template: aspect-­object-­motion-­subject-­verb_root-­status x-­in-­e-­a- ­chap-­a’. cmp-­abs1-­go- ­erg2-­grab- ­depTV ‘You went to grab me’. (3)  Mam Template: aspect-­object-­motion-­motion-­subject-­verb_root-­dependent ­enclitic ma chin ku’-ts

t-­tsyu-’n-­a.

rec abs1 down-­toward erg2-­grab-­dep-­erg2 ‘You grabbed me’. (lit., ‘You grabbed down ­toward me recently’.) (4)  Ch’ol Template: aspect motion subject-­verb_root-­status-­object tyi  ​ma  cmp 

go 

a-­chuk-­uy-­oñ. erg2-­grab-­indTV-­abs1

‘You went to grab me’.

The individual Mayan languages have reshaped the verb complex in surprising ways. The K’iche’, Mam, and Ch’ol examples show that the absolutive object marker follows the aspect marker in K’iche’ and Mam, but it comes last in Ch’ol. Mam allows from one to three motion verbs to occur between the absolutive object marker and the ergative subject marker, whereas K’iche’ and Ch’ol only allow one motion verb. The orthographic traditions for ­these three languages indicate that the morphemes in the K’iche’ verb complex are more integrated phonetically than the morphemes in the Mam and Ch’ol verb complexes. The K’iche’ example ends with the dependent status suffix for underived transitive verbs b ­ ecause the K’iche’ verb complex incorporates a motion verb. Mam also adds a dependent marker to transitive verbs with incorporated motion verbs, but the Mam suffix is not a status suffix. The Ch’ol verb complex with a motion verb has the indicative status suffix that adds an epenthetic glide when it is followed by a vowel-­initial suffix. ­These examples of transitive verb complexes in K’iche’, Mam, and Ch’ol illustrate the ways in which the Mayan languages have reconfigured their

The Structure of Mayan Languages

79

basic grammatical structures over time. Such changes hold many implications for how ­children acquire the individual languages. ­Children acquiring K’iche’ and Mam must acquire an absolutive marker that precedes the verb, whereas ­children acquiring Ch’ol acquire an absolutive marker that follows the verb. C ­ hildren acquiring K’iche’ and Ch’ol acquire an ergative marker that precedes the verb, whereas ­children acquiring Mam acquire a discontinuous ergative marker that includes a postverbal enclitic. ­Children acquiring K’iche’ and Ch’ol ­will only hear transitive verbs with one motion verb, whereas c­ hildren acquiring Mam hear transitive verbs with two or three motion verbs. The use of motion verbs is nearly obligatory in Mam, whereas the use of motion verbs in K’iche’ and Ch’ol is much less frequent. The transitive verbs in all three languages have a suffix; however, the suffix in Mam only indicates the presence of a motion verb. The status suffixes in K’iche’ and Ch’ol mark transitivity, mood, and derivational status. Understanding the variation in the verb complex across the Mayan languages is essential to understanding the options that are available to ­children acquiring each language. Two-­year-­old ­children acquiring Mayan languages have difficulty producing all of the pieces of the verb complex in a coordinated fashion. We might imagine that the ­children’s only option would be to omit the parts of the verb complex that they did not fully control and just produce the verb root. The variation seen in the adult languages suggests that the c­ hildren have a basic choice between the analytic and synthetic options. The analytic structure of the motion verbs in Ch’ol may be more difficult to acquire than the synthetic structure of the motion verbs in K’iche’ and Mam. C ­ hildren could acquire the absolutive suffixes in Ch’ol more easily than the absolutive prefixes in K’iche’ and Mam. ­Children acquiring K’iche’, Mam, and Ch’ol could omit the use of the verb suffixes due to their complex functions. 4.3.1 Mayan Person Marking One of the glories of the Mayan verb complex is its ergative-­absolutive system of person marking. En­glish has a nominative-­accusative system of person marking that is clearly marked in its pronouns. The nominative pronouns I and she are distinct from the accusative pronouns me and her. En­glish uses the nominative pronouns as subjects and uses the accusative pronouns as objects (5).

80

chapter 4

(5)  She saw me. nom acc

The Mayan verb complex uses ergative morphemes to indicate the subject of transitive verbs and absolutive morphemes to indicate the subject of intransitive verbs as well as the object of transitive verbs. A sentence with a transitive verb in an ergative-­absolutive language would also have contrasting subject and object markers as shown in (6). (6)  She saw me. erg abs

The difference between the two systems becomes apparent when we examine the way that the languages mark the subjects of intransitive verbs. Nominative-­accusative languages use the nominative form for the subjects of intransitive verbs. Ergative-­absolutive languages use the absolutive form for the subjects of intransitive verbs. An example of ergative person marking in En­glish would result in the use of the accusative pronouns to mark the subjects of intransitive verbs as in (7). (7)  Me go. abs

A nominative-­accusative language unites the subjects of transitive verbs with the subjects of intransitive verbs. An ergative-­absolutive language divides the subjects of transitive verbs from the subjects of intransitive verbs. The ergative-­absolutive system of person marking challenges the assumption that the subjects of transitive and intransitive verbs are essentially the same linguistic ele­ment. Ergative-­absolutive languages show that a single subject category is not necessary for linguistic communication. Linguists have long debated the theoretical implications of languages with ergative alignment systems. This debate boils down to looking for ways to maintain the unity of the subject relation despite the dif­fer­ent treatment of ergative and absolutive subjects. The basic theoretical issue is w ­ hether the ergative-­absolutive system is a superficial feature of the language’s morphology or an indication of a more profound difference in syntactic organ­i zation (Baker 2015; Johns, Massam, and Ndayiragije 2006; Plank 1979; Schuchardt 1895; Woolford 2000).

The Structure of Mayan Languages

81

The scope of ergativity in the Mayan languages is still not fully understood or appreciated. The examples of the Mayan verb complex in (1), (2), (3), and (4) contain ergative and absolutive person markers in Mam, K’iche’, and Ch’ol. T ­ hese examples have transitive verbs in which the ergative markers reference the subject and the absolutive markers reference the object. Examples of intransitive verb complexes with absolutive markers referencing the subject are shown in (8). Note that the absolutive subject markers in (8) are identical to the absolutive object markers in (2)– (4). The K’iche’ absolutive person marker in (8b) is historically related to the Ch’ol absolutive person marker in (8c). (8)  Intransitive Mayan verb complexes a. Mam ma chin tunk-­a. rec abs1 fall-­enc ‘I ­fell’. b. K’iche’ x-­in-­tzaq-­ik. cmp-­abs1-­fall-­ind IV ‘I fell’. c. Ch’ol (Vázquez Álvarez 2002:55–56) tyi

yajl-­iy-­oñ.

cmp fall-­ind IV-­abs1 ‘I fell’.

The Mayan languages have maintained an ergative-­absolutive system of person marking for over four thousand years. The ergative and absolutive person markers have resisted the same forces that have made radical changes to the other features of the verb complex. This re­sis­tance to change indicates the centrality of ergative-­absolutive person marking in Mayan languages and demonstrates that the ergative-­absolutive person markers are far from a superficial feature of the languages’ morphology. An impor­tant feature of Mayan person marking is that the absolutive person markers are obligatory on all predicates. You cannot produce a complete sentence in a Mayan language without an absolutive person marker. The obligatory nature of the ergative-­absolutive markers

82

chapter 4

­table 4.2 ​Set A—­preconsonantal ergative ­m arkers Singular

PMayan1 K’iche’ Mam Ch’ol

Plural

First

Second

Third

First

Second

Third

**nu-­ in-­ n-­ . . . ​-­a j-­/ k-­

**aa-­ a-­ t-­ . . . ​-­a a-­

**u-­ u-­ t-­ i-­

**qa-­ qa-­ q-­ . . . ​(-­a) j-/k-­ . . . ​lojon

**ee-­ i-­ ky-­ . . . ​-­a la’

**ki-­ ki-­ ky-­ i-­ . . . ​- ob’

1. Kaufman and Norman (1984).

­table 4.3 ​Set B—­a bsolutive ­m arkers Singular

PMayan 2 K’iche’ Mam Ch’ol

Plural

First

Second

Third

First

Second

Third

**iin in-­ chin-­ . . . ​-­a -on

**at at-­ -­ . . . ​-­a -et

** -­ -­/ts-­/ts’-­/ k-­ -­

**oʔñ uj-­ qo-­ . . . ​(-­a) -on ­lojon

**ix/**ex ix-­ chi-­ . . . ​-­a - ­etla

**eb’ ee-­ chi-­ -ob’

2. Kaufman and Norman (1984).

confronts ­children acquiring the languages from the beginning, and the ­children show no hesitation in their use. ­Table 4.2 lists the preconsonantal forms of the ergative markers for K’iche’, Mam, and Ch’ol along with the form reconstructed for Proto-­ Mayan. ­Table 4.3 lists the forms of the absolutive markers for the same languages as well as their reconstructed forms in Proto-­Mayan. In a section labeled “Mam oddities,” ­England and Martin (2003:153) observe, “Mam is the only Mayan language that has an incomplete set of person prefixes, ­either absolutive or ergative, in which second-­person markers have dis­appeared and third-­person markers have taken on both functions.” Mam added a person enclitic to mark the distinction between the second and third person, but the same enclitic is used to distinguish person for both the ergative and absolutive markers. The person enclitic can create an ambiguous interpretation between a second-­person subject or object on transitive verbs that can only be resolved by the context. Another notable difference between the person markers is that some of the languages lost the contrasting plural person markers and replaced them by adding a separate plural number marker to the singular markers.

The Structure of Mayan Languages

83

Ch’ol, for example, uses the marker -­ob’ to mark a plural number with both the absolutive and ergative third-­person markers. A further difference between the absolutive markers is seen in their place of attachment. I use hyphens to indicate which markers precede the verb stem and which markers follow the verb stem. The absolutive markers precede the verb stem in K’iche’ and Mam, but follow the verb stem in Ch’ol. The dif­fer­ent positions of the absolutive markers as well as the presence or absence of a separate plural marker create a natu­ral experiment that enables investigators to determine what effect the position of the absolutive markers or the use of plural suffixes has on the c­ hildren’s acquisition of person marking. Mayan languages do not consistently use the ergative and absolutive person markers in their canonical roles. For this reason, Mayan linguists refer to the ergative person markers as “Set A” and to the absolutive person markers as “Set B.” Mam and Ch’ol extend the Set A (ergative) markers to contexts where K’iche’ uses the Set B (absolutive) markers. ­T hese extensions generally occur in aspectless clauses that are complements to adverbs and auxiliary verbs (Larsen and Norman 1979). T ­ able 4.4 shows some contexts of the extended use of ergative subject marking on intransitive verbs in five Mayan languages. The blank cells in the ­table indicate the contexts in which the languages follow the canonical use of absolutive subject marking. ­T here is a considerable difference between ­these contexts in their frequency of use (Pye et  al. 2013). The adverbial contexts are infrequent relative to the progressive and incompletive contexts. K’iche’ allows extended ergative marking in progressive contexts, but the adult speakers that I recorded always used indicative verb forms with the progressive. Mam lacks a distinct progressive construction. It uses the same aspect marker in both incompletive and progressive aspects. Ergative marking is extended to intransitive verbs so frequently in Yucatec that some

­table 4.4 ​Extended ergative contexts in K’iche’, Mam, Q’anjob’al, Ch’ol, and Yucatec Context of Use Temporal adverb Manner adverb Desiderative Progressive aspect Incompletive aspect

K’iche’

Mam Extended Extended Extended

Q’anjob’al

Extended Extended Extended

Ch’ol

Yucatec

Extended Extended Extended

Extended Extended Extended Extended

84

chapter 4

linguists have analyzed Yucatec as a nominative-­accusative language (Bricker 1981). The progressive context provides a good example of the way in which extended ergative marking interacts with Mayan structures of complementation. The basic structure of the Mayan progressive construction contains a verb in a subordinate clause in ­either the indicative or nominalized form (9). The intransitive verb complements in K’iche’ and Mam have markers for both aspect and person that occur in indicative clauses. The intransitive verb complement in Ch’ol lacks aspect markers and has ergative subject markers and nominalizing verb suffixes. (9)  Mayan progressive verb forms a. K’iche’ tajin k-­in-­tse’n-­ik. prog inc-­abs1-­laugh-­indIV ‘I am laughing’. b. Mam (­England 2001:71) n   chin tse’ne’. prog abs1 laugh ‘I am laughing’. c. Ch’ol (Gutiérrez 2004:46) chonkol k-­maxl-­el. prog   erg1-­go-­n m IV ‘I am g­ oing’.

The progressive construction illustrates how person marking in Mayan languages interacts with the contexts of complementation. The progressive verbs have under­gone the same cyclic pro­cess of grammaticalization as the other aspect markers (Pye 2009). The progressive verb in the Mayan languages K’iche’ and Q’anjob’al may still be inflected as a regular intransitive verb with its own aspect and person markers. Although K’iche’ and Q’anjob’al speakers recognize the fully inflected progressive verbs, they usually produce only the uninflected progressive verb root. The progressive verb is no longer inflected as an intransitive verb in Yucatec and Ch’ol. Yucatec speakers often reduce the progressive verb to /t/, and Ch’ol speakers reduce the progressive to chon. The weakening

The Structure of Mayan Languages

85

of the progressive verb marks a change from an analytic construction to a synthetic construction that is in keeping with the synthetic character of Mayan languages. The change to the synthetic construction obscures the origin of the complement as a nominalized verb form. This change leads to the reinterpretation of the nominalizing verb suffixes as s­ imple markers of incompletive aspect in Ch’ol and Yucatec. This is a good place to weave together the vari­ous strands of the Mayan verb complex. The four main strands of the verb complex are aspect marking, ergative marking, absolutive marking, and the status suffixes, in which I include the nominalizing suffixes. The absolutive markers are closely connected to the aspect markers. The loss of aspectual prefixes in some Mayan languages is linked to the postverbal position of the absolutive markers in ­these languages. Aspect marking is also absent in some contexts of complementation. ­T hese aspectless contexts vary from language to language, but where they occur both the aspect markers and the absolutive markers are absent. Mayan languages use the ergative markers as possessive prefixes on nouns to indicate the person of the possessor. When they are attached to nominalized verbs, the ergative markers indicate the person of the possessor of the action, in other words, the subject. This structure is unstable in that nominalized verbs still refer to actions and languages tend to use verbs to refer to actions. The nominalized verbs have been reinterpreted in modern Ch’ol and Yucatec as plain verbs even though they retain morphological evidence of nominalization. In dif­fer­ent combinations, t­ hese strands result in four types of intransitive verb complexes to be found in the Mayan languages (10). (10)  Four types of Mayan intransitive verb complexes Type I: Aspect prefix

aspect absolutive verb

K’iche’, Mam,

Q’anjob’al Type II: Aspect suffix

absolutive verb aspect

Teenek

Type III: Nominalized

ergative verb nominalizer

Ch’ol, Yucatec

Type IV: Absolutive suffix

aspect verb absolutive Tzeltal, Ch’ol, Yucatec

The contrast between the aspect marked verb complements and aspectless verb complements has a significant implication for acquisition theories that tie c­ hildren’s production of subject markers to tense (Wexler 1998). If one accepts an equivalence between the nominalized verb

86

chapter 4

complements of Mayan languages and the infinitival verb complements in Eu­ro­pean languages, Wexler’s theory predicts that Mayan ­children initially produce nominalized intransitive verbs with ergative subject markers and nominalizing verb suffixes (Pye 2001). 4.3.2 Mayan Verb Suffixes I have already mentioned the role that the verb suffixes play in marking status in K’iche’ and Ch’ol. The status suffixes derive from the Proto-­ Mayan portmanteau suffixes that marked verb status as plain, dependent, imperative, or perfect (Kaufman 1990). Kaufman and Norman (1984:92) state “plain status corresponded to verbs in the indicative mood in ­either completive or incompletive aspect, dependent status corresponded to verbs in dependent clauses . . . ​, while imperative and perfect status had the functions that their names imply.” The encoding of multiple semantic contrasts seen in the Mayan status suffixes is out of character with the generally agglutinating morphology that assigns a single function to each morpheme. ­Table 4.5 shows the changes for the intransitive verb status suffixes from Proto-­Mayan to Greater Tzeltalan and on to the modern languages Ch’ol and K’iche’ (cf. Kaufman and Norman 1984). K’iche’ preserves most of the Proto-­Mayan status suffixes, but it innovated a contrast between phrase-­medial and phrase-­fi nal forms for the plain and dependent status suffixes. K’iche’ omits the plain status suffixes in phrase-­medial positions and also uses the /-­a / form of the dependent status suffix in medial position. The Ch’olan languages, including Ch’ol, made more extensive changes to the status suffixes on intransitive verbs. The Ch’olan languages restrict the original indicative status suffix to the completive aspect. Kaufman and Norman (1984:93) trace the /-el/ status suffix in Proto-­Ch’olan and Ch’ol

­table 4.5 ​Mayan status suffixes for intransitive v­ erbs

Indicative Nominalized Dependent Imperative Perfect

Proto-­Mayan

Greater Tzeltalan

Proto-­Ch’olan

Ch’ol

K’iche’

**-­i(k)

**-­i

*-­i *-el

-­i -el

**-oq **- ­een **-­i-­naq

**-­u k/**- ­eel **- ­een **-em

*-en *-em

-en -em

(-­i k) -­i ik/-­eem -­a /-­oq -­a /-­oq -­i naq

The Structure of Mayan Languages

87

back to the Greater Tzeltalan nominalizing suffix /*-­eel/. The incompletive context is precisely the context in which the Ch’olan languages and Yucatec extended the ergative person markers to the intransitive verbs as seen in (9). The nominalizing suffix has now been reinterpreted as an aspect marker in the Ch’olan and Yucatecan languages. Greater Tzeltalan also extended the perfect participle marker /**-em/ to mark the perfect form on intransitive verbs. Kaufman and Norman (93) note that the dependent status is used for verbs in dependent clauses or “other­w ise subordinated to some higher verb.” Mam and K’iche’ use the dependent suffix on verbs with an incorporated motion verb as shown in (1) and (2). K’iche’ has also extended the dependent status suffixes to verbs in the imperative mood.

4.4 Stative Predicates Mayan languages have nonverbal or stative predicates as well as predicates with a verb complex. Words from any lexical category can form stative predicates, but nouns and adjectives are the most frequent. Mayan stative predicates lack the affixes for aspect and status that define the core features of the Mayan verb complex (Bohnemeyer 1998:231; Dayley 1985:294; ­England 1983:238; Furbee-­L osee 1976:204). At a minimum, Mayan stative predicates only contain the state predicate and an argument (11). Their very simplicity makes it pos­si­ble to investigate fundamental properties of predication. (11)  Mayan stative predicates (Pye 2011) a. Q’anjob’al mexhtol 

b. Mam hin.

c. Ch’ol

aj xnaq’tzal   q-­in-­a.

teacher   abs1

cl teacher  

erg1-­r n-­enc

‘I am a teacher’.

‘I am a teacher’.

ixpäs oñ. teacher abs1 ‘I am a teacher’.

Stative predicates appear in the same sentence initial position as the verb complex. The stative predicates in Q’anjob’al (11a) and Ch’ol (11c) take an absolutive person marker to reference the subject of the predication in the same way that intransitive verbs canonically use the absolutive person markers to reference the subject. Mam uses a relational noun construction with stative predicates to reference the subject.

88

chapter 4

Many linguistic theories make tense marking the foundation of predication, but the Mayan stative predicates show that tense marking is unnecessary for predication. Tense, or as I suggest in the preceding section, aspect marking, marks the main distinction between finite and nonfinite clauses in Mayan languages. Finite clauses have a tense marker and nonfinite clauses such as infinitive clauses in En­glish lack tense marking. Mayan stative predicates are not marked for tense or aspect and have an atemporal interpretation in some of the languages (e.g., Ch’ol; Coon 2013). More fundamentally, basically any word—­noun, adjective, adverb, and even verb—­can serve as a stative predicate in Mayan languages. Mayan stative predicates are finite to the same extent that aspect marked verb complexes are finite. Mayan languages have verbs that select for finite complements. In the following example, the Q’anjob’al verb - ­oche ‘want’ requires a finite complement clause introduced by the complimentizer tol (12a). When the same verb is followed by a verbal complement, the verb must be inflected for aspect and person (12b). Thus, Mayan stative predicates can appear by themselves as ordinary clauses or as complements to verbs that select finite complements.

(12)  Q’anjob’al finite complement constructions (Santa Eulalia dialect; Pedro Mateo, pc 2010) a. Stative ­complement

ch-­ ø -­w-­oche-­x



inc-­abs3-­erg1-­want-­derTV that good cl dog

tol 

watx’ no ­tx’i’.

‘I want the dog to be good’. b. Verb ­complement



ch-­ ø -­w-­oche-­x

(tol) ch-­in-­lo-­w-­i.



inc-­abs3-­erg1-­want-­derTV that inc-­abs1-­eat-­ap-­indIV



‘I want to eat’.

Ch’ol provides further evidence for finiteness marking on stative predicates. The example in (13a) shows a stative predicate modified by a temporal adverbial suffix ix ‘now’ and that in (13b) shows a stative predicate with the subjunctive suffix. ­T hese examples demonstrate that stative predicates can take temporal and modal modifiers even though they lack the aspectual markers found on verbs.

The Structure of Mayan Languages

89

(13)  Ch’ol adverbial marking of stative predicates (Vázquez Álvarez 2011:229–30) a. 

Temporal ­adverb wiñik-­ø = ix

li  k-­alo’bil.

man-­abs3  = now the erg1-­son ‘My son is now a man’. b. 

Subjunctive ­modifier wiñik-­ø =  ik

aj ­wañ.

man-­abs3  = subjunctive cl Juan ‘If Juan was a man’.

Stative reference is temporally unbounded, but pragmatically restricted by discourse and real world knowledge. The type of state defines its duration. For example, world knowledge informs us that a ­house is apt to remain white longer than a child ­will remain content. The division between stative and nonstative predicates in Mayan languages is fluid. Some “states” are realized as verbs in K’iche’ (14a) and (14b), and some are realized as ­either stative predicates (14c) or as verbs (14d). Mayan languages have a productive inchoative derivation that derives verbs from adjectives (15), and a perfect aspect that derives states from verbs (16). Comparing across the Mayan languages reveals another dimension of variation in which notions are expressed as stative or nonstative predicates. The predicate ‘full’ is realized as a verb in K’iche’ and Mam, and as an adjective in Q’anjob’al (17). (14)  State realization in K’iche’ a. 

c. 

k-­in-­kikot-ik.

b. k-­in-­num-­ik.

inc-­abs1-­content-­indIV  

inc-­abs1-­hungry-­ind IV

‘I’m happy’.

‘I’m hungry’.

in 

in  

yawab’.

d. k-­in-­yawab’-­ik.

abs1 abs1 ­sick

inc-­abs1-­sick-­i nd IV

‘I’m sick’.

‘I’m sick’.

90

chapter 4

(15)  K’iche’ inchoative d ­ erivation a. x-­ ø -­utz-­ir-ik.

b. x-­ø -­saq-­ir-­ik.

cmp-­abs3-­good-­inch-­ind IV

cmp-­abs3-­light-­inch-­ind IV

‘S/he became good’.

‘It became light’.

(16)  K’iche’ ­perfect a. war-­inaq

b. il-­oom

sleep-­perf IV

see-­perf TV

‘asleep’ ‘seen’ (17)  The sentence ‘I am full’ in K’iche’, Mam, and Q’anjob’al a. K’iche’

b. Mam

c. Q’anjob’al



x-­in-­noj-ik.

ma 



cmp-­abs1-­f ull-­indIV

cmp abs1 full-enc

chin noj-­a.

now full erg1-­stomach

mal ​noj in-­qul.



‘I’m full.’

‘I’m full.’

‘My stomach is full.’

Nouns and adjectives provide prototypical examples of stative predicates in Mayan grammars. The question of what other lexical categories form stative predicates deserves further attention. For example, some linguists analyze existential predicates (18) as stative predicates (­England 1983:238). Existential predicates express existence, location, and possession. Existentials are stative in that they lack the aspectual prefixes and status suffixes typically found on verbal predicates. The K’iche’ existential is exceptional in that it is derived from a positional verb stem. (18)  The sentence ‘There is a dog’ in K’iche’, Mam, and Ch’ol a.  K’iche’

b. Mam

c. Ch’ol



k’oo jun tz’i’

at   junt tx’i’

añ  jun ts’i’



exist one dog

exist one dog

exist one dog



‘­T here is a dog’.

‘­T here is a dog’.

‘­T here is a dog’.

Propositional negation in Mayan languages also has the form of a stative predicate. Mam and Ch’ol add a marker for propositional ­negation

The Structure of Mayan Languages

91

to the beginning of the sentence consistent with the placement of a stative predicate (19). Mam and Ch’ol also use negated existential verbs as negation markers for verbal predicates (Pye 2016). (19)  Stative negation in Mam and Ch’ol a. Mam

b. Ch’ol

nya’ aj  ​xnaq’tzal qina.

mach ixpäs oñ.

neg ​agt teacher  abs1

neg  teacher abs1

‘I am not a teacher’.

‘I am not a teacher’.

(lit., ‘It is not the case that I am

(lit., ‘It is not the case that I am

   a teacher’.)    a teacher’.)

Stative negation in Q’anjob’al takes another form that reveals more details of the stative clause structure (20). Negation in Q’anjob’al introduces a dependent marker that follows the stative predicate. I analyze -oq as a dependent marker that indicates the stative predicate is dependent on the negation predicate. Q’anjob’al attaches the predicate adverb -­xa to the negation marker, providing further evidence that the negation marker is a stative predicate. (20)  Stative negation in Q’anjob’al (Mateo Pedro, pc 2010) man-xa mexhtol-oq naq hin-­k’ajol. neg-­now teacher-­dep cl  erg1-­son ‘My son is not a teacher now’.

4.5 Mayan Nominalization The investigation of the Mayan verb complex is not complete without an analy­sis of verb nominalization. The Yucatec and Ch’ol complements to the progressive verb are nominalized verbs. T ­ here is, of course, a wrinkle to Mayan verb nominalization, a wrinkle originally investigated by James Mondloch (1981) for K’iche’. Mondloch observed that although intransitive verbs can be nominalized directly, as in (21a), transitive verbs cannot be nominalized directly. They must first be converted to intransitive verb stems by adding a passive (21b) or antipassive (21c) suffix. Nominalized forms of antipassivized verbs cannot be possessed to agree with their subjects.

92

chapter 4

(21)  K’iche’ nominalization a. Intransitive verb complex (Mondloch 1981:188) x-­ø -­pee

nu-­num-­iik.

cmp-­abs3-­come 

erg1-­be_hungry-­n m IV

‘I am hungry’. (lit., ‘My hunger came’.) b. Transitive verb—­passive (Mondloch 1981:354) x-­ø -­maji-­x

nu-­kuna-­x-­iik.

cmp-­abs3-­begin-­pas  erg1-­cure-­pas-­n m IV ‘They began curing me’. (lit., ‘the act of curing me was begun’.) c. Transitive verb—­antipassive (Mondloch 1981:501) x-­im-­pee

pa kuna-­n-ik

iwiir.

cmp-­abs1- ­come to ​cure-­ap-­n m IV yesterday ‘I came to cure yesterday’.

Essentially, verb nominalization in K’iche’ is restricted to intransitive verbs. Transitive verbs must be passivized or antipassivized before they can be nominalized. The ergative agreement markers on nominalized verbs in K’iche’ can only reference absolutive arguments, that is, the subjects of intransitive verbs and the objects of transitive verbs. This restriction is evidence that ergativity governs both person marking and syntactic pro­cesses in K’iche’. Nominalization in Yucatec is complicated by the dif­fer­ent lexical categories that occur in Yucatec. Yucatec makes a distinction between active and inactive intransitive verbs. Active intransitive verbs have a semantic agent as subject; inactive intransitive verbs have a semantic patient as subject. Inactive intransitive verbs have the nominalizing suffix -­V1l, while nominalized active intransitive verbs are unmarked and are referred to as verbal nouns. Dayley (1981) attributes the extended ergative marking in Yucatec to the use of possessive ergative prefixes on verbal nouns in the incompletive aspect. Most verbal nouns have a CV`VC shape, which is identical to the shape of antipassive stems. The verbal nouns can be possessed, in which case the possessive prefix refers to the agent (22).

The Structure of Mayan Languages

93

(22)  Possessed verbal nouns in Yucatec (Bricker, Poʔot Yah, and Dzul de Poʔot 1998:362) im b’ìil ‘my hem’ [hemmed by me] in ch’àak ‘my cut’ [cut by me] in k’àay ‘my song’ [sung by me]

Comparing nominalization in K’iche’ and Yucatec reveals in­ter­est­ ing similarities and differences. K’iche’ and Yucatec make similar use of nominalization as a primary mode of verb complementation. Both languages have nominalizations based on the passive and antipassive forms of transitive verbs. The Yucatec verbal nouns allow possessive prefixes, whereas the antipassive nominalizations of K’iche’ do not take possessive prefixes. Nominalization is more advanced in Yucatec than in K’iche’ in that the nominalizing morphemes in Yucatec have been reinterpreted in the synchronic grammar as incompletive aspect markers. Nominalization led to the extension of ergative markers on intransitive verbs in incompletive contexts, but the nominalized verbs now have the status of verbs rather than nouns.

4.6 Summary Comparison of the dif­fer­ent types of predication across the Mayan languages shows the many ways that the individual languages have come to rely on one or another predicate type. The languages have made the most changes to the verb complex. The languages balance the loss of aspect markers in the verb complex by reinterpreting the function of the verb suffixes (Teenek) or person markers (Chorti’). Some languages focus on the direction of movement (Mam); o ­ thers do not (Q’anjob’al). The languages use absolutive prefixes (K’iche’), suffixes (Tzeltal), or both prefixes and suffixes (Tzotzil). The languages ­either extend the use of aspectless complements (Yucatec), or they do not (K’iche’). ­T hese variations are just the most prominent changes that the languages have made to the original verb complex. A structural account of language acquisition should not be based on  superficial crosslinguistic studies. Rather than researching what similarities exist between the acquisition of person markers in K’iche’ and Spanish, linguists can glean more information by examining what

94

chapter 4

similarities exist between the acquisition of the absolutive person markers in K’iche’ and in Teenek. The preceding discussion of the structure of Mayan predication reveals the many interconnections between aspect marking, person marking, complementation, and nominalization. It is precisely this comparative Mayan structure that informs the systematic study of Mayan language acquisition. The synthetic nature of the Mayan verb complex requires an understanding of morphological development that is outside the scope of research based on analytic languages.

4.7 Mayan Syntax Mayan languages rely on the agreement markers on verbs rather than noun phrases to express the subject and object in sentences. They only add noun phrases to communicate additional information about the sentence arguments or to introduce new arguments (Du Bois 1987). Two-­ year-­old ­children acquiring the K’iche’ language omit phrasal subjects in 90 ­percent of their utterances and omit phrasal objects in 67 ­percent of their utterances (Pye 1992). In comparison, c­ hildren acquiring En­glish initially omit subjects in 55 ­percent of their utterances and omit objects in only 9 ­percent of their utterances (Bloom 1990). Word order in Mayan languages is determined by many f­ actors including the introduction of a topic, focus on one of the arguments, and the definiteness and animacy of the subject and object. The ergative and absolutive person markers on the verbs allow the frequent omission of subject and object noun phrases. On the rare occasions in which sentences contain both subject and objects, Ch’ol and K’iche’ sentences have a verb-­object-­subject word order, while Mam sentences have a verb-­ subject-­object word order (­England 1994). Complex object noun phrases are typically produced in sentence-­fi nal position. The basic word order in Q’anjob’al is verb-­subject-­object (­England 1994), while the word order in Yucatec is uncertain (Durbin and Ojeda 1978). The use of pronouns varies widely in the Mayan languages. K’iche’ uses in­ de­ pen­ dent pronouns in the postverbal position for emphasis (Mondloch 1978). Pronouns, like other noun phrases, are used in the preverbal position to indicate the topic or focus. Most Mayan languages have an agent focus construction that is used when the subject of a transitive verb is the focused constituent. Mam and Ch’ol only have pronouns that are used for focus. ­T hese languages do not use pronouns in the K’iche’

The Structure of Mayan Languages

95

manner for emphasis. Mam uses noun classifiers instead of pronouns (­England 1983:158). Its classifiers include jal ‘nonhuman’, nu’xh ‘baby’, xhlaaq’ ‘child’, b’ixh ‘person of the same status, fondly’, q’a ‘young man’, and txin ‘young ­woman’. Mam uses the classifiers frequently to identify the argument that is cross-­referenced on the verb. In many cases, differences in semantic constraints lead to differences in the productivity of syntactic constructions across the Mayan languages. The applicative construction promotes indirect or secondary objects to direct or primary objects and demotes the original direct object to a secondary object or an adjunct phrase (Baker 1988; Dryer 1986). Mayan verbs only cross-­reference a maximum of two arguments—­the subject and direct object. The languages typically use a relational noun phrase to express an indirect object. An example of the K’iche’ applicative construction is shown in (23). (23)  K’iche’ applicative ­construction (Dayley 1981:28) ch’iich’  ​x-­ø -­i n-­sok-­b’ee-­j

aw-­eech.

machete cmp-­abs3-­erg1-­wound-­apl-­derTV  erg2-­of ‘It was a machete that I wounded you with’.

The Eastern Mayan languages, including K’iche’, use the applicative suffix as a means to focus on instrument or locative phrases except in some frozen forms. The Tzeltalan languages extend the applicative to dative, benefactive, malefactive, and patient possessors, as well as to instruments in some frozen constructions. As a result of t­hese dif­fer­ent uses, the applicative suffix is more productive in the Tzeltalan languages than in the Eastern Mayan languages. In order to acquire the applicative suffix, Mayan ­children must determine the contexts in which the applicative is used in contrast to the contexts in which the relational noun is appropriate. Mayan languages have more than one type of passive construction, some of which can be augmented with a relational noun phrase to refer to the agent. An example from K’iche’ is shown in (24). (24)  K’iche’ passive ­construction (Mondloch 1978:58) x-­ø -­kuna-­x      lee yawaab’  r-­u mal  lee ­ajq’iij. cmp-­abs2-­cure-­pas1 the ­sick    erg3-by the diviner ‘The sick one was cured by the diviner’.

96

chapter 4

Many Mayan languages also allow the agent phrase to be used with intransitive verbs to produce an intransitive sentence that expresses a transitive event. An example of this construction from K’iche’ is shown in (25). (25)  K’iche’ intransitive construction with agent ­phrase x-­ø -ul

lee wuuj  r-­u mal lee a­ lih.

cmp-­abs3-­arrive the letter  erg3-by the girl ‘The girl delivered the letter’. (lit., ‘The letter arrived by the girl’.)

The use of agentive phrases with intransitive verbs extends the use of intransitive verbs to reference transitive events. In Mam, this use of intransitive verbs considerably reduces the use of transitive verbs. A comparison of ­children acquiring dif­fer­ent Mayan languages allows investigators to learn how quickly ­children learn the use of such intransitive verb constructions. Each of ­these features bears on fundamental points in theories of linguistics and language acquisition. Ergative languages have long posed significant prob­lems for theories of syntax that assume a distinguished subject relation (Dixon 1979, 1994). No current linguistic theory successfully accounts for the full range of ergative phenomena found in the Mayan languages (cf. Bittner and Hale 1996; Bobaljik 1993; Chomsky 1995; Manning 1996; Woolford 2000). Acquisition theories that assume a distinguished subject relation face similar difficulties (Bowerman 1990; Pye 1990). Maturational accounts of syntactic development (Wexler and Manzini 1987) must account for the early use of passives and antipassives in K’iche’ (Pye and Quixtan Poz 1988). Theories that predict the early use of root infinitives (Wexler 1998; Rizzi 1993/1994) must account for the early use of verb roots in Tzotzil (de León 1999a, 2001) and verb suffixes in K’iche’ (Pye 1983). Fi­nally, theories of cognitive development that assume nouns are easier to acquire than verbs (Gentner 1982; Gentner and Boroditsky 2001) must account for the high frequency of verbs found in early samples of Tzeltal (Brown 1998, 2001, 2008).

4.8 The Mayan Communities The Mayan communities where we collected our language samples are small, agricultural communities that depend on the harvest from mi-

The Structure of Mayan Languages

97

croscale plots of land. The crops depend on local conditions, which are largely determined by elevation. Mayan communities are divided roughly between highland and lowland towns, but in many cases ­people living in the highlands own land in the lowlands. The highland communities raise subsistence crops of corn, beans, and squash, while the lowland communities also grow coffee, sugar, and a wide range of fruits and vegetables. The average landholding is only one-­half to one acre in extent and too small to support a ­family with many c­ hildren. F ­ amily members are forced to find other sources of income such as washing vegetables, working for larger landowners, or working in tourist h ­ otels. In all cases, they receive only a subsistence wage for their ­labor (­little more than a dollar a day plus meals). Many families receive remittances from f­ amily members working in the United States. A typical Mayan h ­ ouse compound has a kitchen and a living area that serves as bedroom, workroom and storage space. Larger compounds add extra bedrooms as space in the compound permits; small ­houses combine all of ­these functions in one room. Mayan ­house compounds w ­ ere traditionally single-­story constructions, but remittances from relatives who have gone to the United States to work have allowed families to build up as well as out. The traditional Mayan h ­ ouse had thatched roofs, dirt floors, and stick or adobe walls. T ­ hese h ­ ouses have largely been replaced by ­houses with corrugated metal roofs and concrete floors and walls. The new ­houses stand up to hurricanes and earthquakes better than the traditional homes, but are less comfortable in hot, humid weather. The last de­cade has brought large changes to many Mayan communities. Many homes now have electricity and some have r­unning ­water. Some ­houses have large cisterns that fill up when the rains come. When ­ ater has to be carried in by hand or by truck. Rural elec­there is no rain, w trification has brought along the dubious benefits of modernity. Many homes now have tele­vi­sion sets, and more than a few subscribe to a cable tele­vi­sion ser­vice. Appliance stores are known to sell tele­vi­sion sets on installment plans, and then take the ­family’s ­house and land when the ­family misses the installment payments.

4.9 The Acquisition Database for the Mayan Languages Longitudinal language samples have been collected for ­children acquiring nine of the thirty Mayan languages: Teenek and Yukatek (Pfeiler

98

chapter 4

2003; Pfeiler and Martín Briceño 1997); Ch’ol, Mam, and K’iche’ (Pye 1992, this volume); Tzeltal (Brown 1994, 1997); Tzotzil (de León 1994, 1999b); and Chuj and Q’anjob’al (Mateo Pedro 2015). We now have acquisition data from all six of the major subgroups of the Mayan language ­family and understand how the adult languages deploy the characteristic features of Mayan languages in distinct ways. Most importantly, we can study the effect t­hese differences have on the c­ hildren’s linguistic development. To this end, I pres­ent the general features of the language samples for K’iche’, Mam, and Ch’ol upon which I ­will focus the analyses in the following chapters. 4.9.1 The K’iche’ Language Samples I recorded six c­ hildren acquiring K’iche’ in the town of Zunil, Guatemala (Pye 1980, 1992). Each recording lasted approximately an hour and took place in and around the c­hildren’s homes. Participants included the ­children, vari­ous members of their families, the investigators, and visitors to the home. The ­mothers and siblings ­were generally pres­ent during the recordings, but the ­fathers only participated occasionally. The families live in a rural village, and the ­children spend most of their day within the ­family compound. The K’iche’ investigators ­were native speakers of the language who interacted with the ­children to dif­fer­ent degrees. The sessions included play with toys, natu­ral objects, and picture books. The data ­were transcribed in the field by native speaker transcribers; transcripts ­were annotated by the researchers with contextual and cultural notes. ­Table 4.6 provides general mea­sures for the K’iche’ language samples.

­table 4.6 ​Ages, number of utterances, and mean length of utterances (MLU) for K’iche’ language samples TIY—­Female

CHA—­Female

CAR—­Male

Sample

Age

n

MLU

Age

n

MLU

Age

n

MLU

1–3 4–6 7–9 10–12 13–15 16–18 19–21

2;1.17 2;2.6 2;3.19 2;7.21 2;10.5

732 1,069 1,155 844 1,026

1.2 1.4 1.8 2.1 2.8

2;9.8 2;10.6 2;10.27 3;0.16 3;1.5 3;2.28 3;4.10

945 1,348 1,160 1,197 1,159 1,103 794

1.6 2.1 2.2 2.7 2.7 3.0 3.2

3;1.5 3;1.25 3;4.2 3;4.23 3;6.26 3;8.5

735 963 1,760 1,272 1,333 1,508

1.8 2.4 2.8 2.8 3.1 3.3

Source: Pye (1980).

The Structure of Mayan Languages

99

In addition to ­these recordings, we also made several recordings with three other c­ hildren. I included two recordings with one of the three, a boy named LIN in the analyses. LIN was 2;0 when we recorded him and produced 501 utterances and a total of 159 verbal utterances. 4.9.2 The Mam Language Samples I recorded eleven ­children acquiring Mam in the town of San Ildefonso Ixtahuacán, Guatemala. The c­ hildren ­were being raised in monolingual Mam h ­ ouse­holds, although the use of Spanish is widespread outside of the home. The most extensive data sets ­were provided by two girls WEN and CRU for the initial stages of Mam production, and the boy JOS for a more advanced developmental stage of Mam. The other eight Mam ­table 4.7 ​Ages, number of utterances, and the number of verbal utterances for the Mam language samples WEN—­Female Sample 1–3 4–6 7–9 10–12 13–15 16–18 19–21 22–24

CRU—­Female

JOS—­Male

Age

n

Verbal

Age

n

Verbal

Age

n

Verbal

1;9.2 1;10.2 2;0.25 2;2.2 2;6

1,300 1,513 3,023 3,456 1,483

109 290 546 1,018 181

2;5.26 2;7.16 2;8.30 2;10.6 2;11.20 3;1.21 3;3.1 3;6.5

1,665 2,619 2,893 3,016 3,296

176 300 500 714 763

2;7 2;8.20 2;10.3 2;11.10 3;0.26 3;2.12 3;3.16

2,213 3,484 1,865 3,298 3,224

642 909 385 982 992

­table 4.8 ​Ages, number of utterances, and number of verbal utterances for the Ch’ol language samples EMA—­Male Sample 1–3 4–6 7–9 10–12 13–15 16–18 19–21 22–24 25–27 28–30

MAR—­Female

MA—­Female

Age

n

Verbal

Age

n

Verbal

Age

n

Verbal

2;0.17 2;2.13 2;4.1 2;6.18 2;9.9 2;11.3 3;1.23 3;4.8 3;6.30 3;8.16

1,115 1,752 1,902 1,558 1,848

173 393 450 556 696

2;0.21 2;6.22 2;9 2;11.23 3;1.20 3;3.16 3;5.24 3;8.2 3;9.27 3;11.12

590 1,742 607 1,323 356

60 148 186 413 114

1;5 1;11.18 2;3.12 2;7.3 2;8.20 2;10.6 2;11.19 3;0.21

546 633 1,212 336 309

97 151 315 80 51

100

chapter 4

c­ hildren provide additional information about the range of variation in the acquisition of Mam. I counted the number of utterances and the number of verbal utterances that the three primary subjects produced in order to provide a general mea­sure of their linguistic development. I defined a verbal utterance as one that contains a verb complex that is marked for aspect in the adult language or that occurs in an unmarked complement clause in the adult language. The distinction between a verbal and nonverbal predicate is often unclear in the speech of young ­children, who reduce the verb complex to a single syllable. I relied on the interpretations of the Mam investigators to make the final determination. I did not include child utterances with the existential predicate or the evidential verb “say” as verbal utterances ­because ­these predicates are typically unmarked for aspect and agreement. T ­ able 4.7 provides basic statistics for the Mam recordings. 4.9.3 The Ch’ol Language Samples The Ch’ol analyses are based on a set of longitudinal recordings that w ­ ere made in Tila in Chiapas, Mexico, between 2005 and 2010 by native Ch’ol speakers. The investigators recorded five c­ hildren living in a small neighborhood who ­were acquiring Ch’ol as their first language. The most extensive recordings ­were made with the boy EMA and the girls MAR and MA. I counted the number of utterances and the number of verbal utterances that the three primary Ch’ol subjects produced in the same way that I did for the Mam c­ hildren. T ­ able 4.8 provides basic statistics for the three primary Ch’ol subjects.

chapter five

The Acquisition of the Mayan Lexicon

L

exical categories are the foundation of grammar as they determine the basic structure of phrases and sentences. ­Children have to determine how their caretakers translate ideas into sequences of words, morphemes, and clitics. In this chapter, I w ­ ill use the comparative method to examine the lexical categories that ­children produce in Mayan languages. Examining lexical categories across a set of Mayan languages reveals the intricate details of the categories that Mayan ­children produce as well as the crosslinguistic differences in how the languages deploy ­these categories to express similar concepts. ­T hese differences are best seen in the verb complexes that constitute the foundation of Mayan grammars. Mayan grammar is based on a fundamental distinction between transitive and intransitive roots, but within ­these two categories, Mayan languages distinguish subcategories of root and derived verbs as well as positional, stative, and existential predicates. Mayan languages exhibit in­ter­est­ing differences in how they deploy ­these distinctions. C ­ hildren must acquire t­hese language-­specific lexical categories in order to become fluent speakers of each language. The comparative method allows researchers to understand the real nature of the c­ hildren’s lexical accomplishments. The acquisition of lexical categories has long been the subject of intense research (Nelson 1973; Bloom 1973). The Mayan languages have become a topic of interest in this area in that Brown (1998) and de León (1999b) demonstrated that ­children acquiring Tzeltal and Tzotzil, respectively, produce a large number of verbs. The Mayan evidence contradicts the claim that Gentner (1982) and ­later Gentner and Boroditsky

102 chapter 5

(2001) made that c­ hildren acquire noun referents more easily than verb referents. Brown (1998:745) suggested that the preponderance of verbs in Tzeltal was due to the rampant ellipsis of verb arguments in the language that is licensed by the agreement morphology on verbs as well as cultural differences between object-­rich cultures and object-­poor cultures (746). Both of t­hese ­factors predict that ­children acquiring other Mayan languages would produce verbs more frequently than nouns. I explore this issue, among ­others, in this chapter.

5.1 Mayan Lexical Categories Mayan languages have six classes of inflectional stems: noun, adjective, transitive verb, intransitive verb, positional, and particle. Except for the particles, each stem class has its own characteristic set of inflections. Each stem class contains both root forms of that class as well as forms derived from other stem classes. Mayan languages typically use overt affixes to derive stems in one category from stems in other categories. 5.1.1 Nouns Nouns use an ergative prefix to mark possession. The prefix agrees in number and person with the possessor. The possessor may be deleted if it is clear from the context. ­T here is a basic division between nouns depending on ­whether they require a suffix in their possessed or unpossessed forms. Kaufman (1971:106) first devised a classification for nouns in Tzeltal based on the way that the nominal inflections interact with possession. Most nouns do not require a suffix. Nouns that require a suffix in the possessed form typically refer to body parts, kinship relations, and intimate possessions. ­Table 5.1 compares possessed and unpossessed forms for three noun classes in K’iche’, Mam, and Ch’ol. While the forms are similar, the nouns that belong to each class differ between the languages. 5.1.2 Relational Nouns One impor­tant subclass of nouns in the Mayan languages are the relational nouns. Relational nouns indicate a relation of some sort: ­either the case relation of an oblique noun phrase (including reflexives) or the location

The Acquisition of the Mayan Lexicon

103

­table 5.1 ​Noun classes in K’iche’, Mam, and Ch’ol K’iche’1 Unpossessed Class 1

Class 2

Class 3

Mam 2

Possessed

Ch’ol 3

Unpossessed

Possessed

Unpossessed

Possessed

sii’ ‘firewood’

nu-­sii’ ‘my firewood’

jaa ‘house’

n-­jaa-ya ‘my ­house’

wex ‘pants’

k-­wex ‘my pants’

aj ‘ear of ­c orn’

w-aj ‘my ear’

k’ooj ‘mask’

n-­k’ooj-­a ‘my mask’

k’äb ‘hand’

j-­k’äb ‘my hand’

ixoq ‘­woman’

w-­i xoq-­i il ‘my wife’

xu’j ‘­woman’

n-­x u’j-­a l-­a ‘my wife’

ixik ‘­woman’

k-­i xik’al ‘my ­daughter’

b’aaq ‘bone’

nu-­b’aaq-­i il ‘my bone’

xiinaq ‘man’

n-­x inaq-­ iil-­a ‘my man’

bak ‘bone’

k-­bäk-el ‘my bone’

aqan-­aaj ‘foot’

w-­aqan ‘my f­ oot’

qam-­b’aj ‘foot’

n-­qan-­a ‘my ­foot’

chich(-­ä l) ‘older ­sister’

k- ­chich ‘my older ­sister’

q’ab’-­aaj ‘hand’

nu-­q’ab’ ‘my ­hand’

aam-­j ‘skirt’

w-­aam-­a ‘my ­skirt’

uskuñ (-­ä l) ‘older ­brother’

k-­uskuñ ‘my older ­brother’

1. Larsen (1988:102–113). ­2. England (1983:66–69). 3. Vázquez Álvarez (2011:115–16).

of a noun phrase. Location is fixed with re­spect to a meta­phorical extension of the ­human body (cf. MacLaury 1989, for discussion of a similar system in Zapotec). The relational noun agrees in person with the head of the noun phrase that it relates to the verb. Agreement is indicated by a possessive prefix on the relational noun, which permits nonemphatic pronouns to be omitted. Examples of locative uses of relational noun phrases in K’iche’, Mam, and Ch’ol are shown in (1). Examples of syntactic uses of relational noun phrases in K’iche’, Mam, and Ch’ol are shown in (2). (1)  Locative relational noun phrases

(2) Syntactic relational noun phrases

a. K’iche’

a. K’iche’

chi-­r-­iij     lee ­jah

w-­u maal

at-­erg3-­back 

erg1-­because

‘on the h ­ ouse’

the ­house

‘­because of ­me’

104 chapter 5

b. Mam

b. Mam

t-­w itz    jah

w-­u’n-­a

erg3-­head ­house

erg1-­because-­enclitic

‘on the h ­ ouse’

‘­because of me’

c. Ch’ol (Vázquez Álvarez 2011:147)

c. Ch’ol

tyi  i-­jol    otyoty

tyi ­bajläm

at ​erg3-­head ­house

at  jaguar

‘on the h ­ ouse’

‘­because of the jaguar’

The K’iche’ locative relational noun phrase has the preposition chi ‘at’; the Ch’ol relational noun phrase has the preposition tyi ‘at’. Mam does not have prepositions. All of the locative examples refer to something on a ­house. Mam and Ch’ol use a relational noun with the meaning ‘head’ while K’iche’ uses a relational noun with the meaning ‘back’. The K’iche’ phrase can refer to something that is on top of the ­house or to something b ­ ehind the h ­ ouse. The examples of syntactic uses of relational noun phrases in (2) show that K’iche’ and Mam have distinct relational nouns for syntactic relations, whereas Ch’ol uses the preposition tyi ‘at’ without a relational noun and its accompanying ergative possessive prefix. 5.1.3 Adjectives Semantic concepts that are expressed as adjectives in En­glish translate into lexical adjectives or intransitive verbs in Mayan languages. Root adjectives in K’iche’ include terms for dimensions (nim ‘big’), tastes (kii ‘sweet’), colors (saq ‘white’, rax ‘blue/green’), developmental stages (riij ‘old’), and other properties (utz ‘good’, latz’ ‘crowded’). Adjectival concepts expressed as intransitive verbs in K’iche’ include transitory properties: num ‘hungry’, noj ‘full’, kikot ‘happy’, and kos ‘tired’. T ­ hese two classes are grammatically distinct, b ­ ecause all verbs require aspect, subject, and termination markers in K’iche’. Nouns and adjectives only take subject markers when they are used as predicates. K’iche’ does not use a copula with predicate nominals and a­ djectives, so ­these sentences resemble sentences with verbs in En­glish (3).

The Acquisition of the Mayan Lexicon

105

(3)  K’iche’ adjectival and verbal predicates a. Predicate adjective

in   utz.



abs1  good



‘I am good’. b. Verbal ­predicate k-­in-­kikot-­ik.



inc-­abs1-­happy-­ind IV

‘I am happy’.

5.1.4 Verbs The previous chapter presented the basic structure of the Mayan verb complex and subsequent chapters ­will pres­ent further details about the verb complexes. H ­ ere I ­will provide examples of the indicative verb complexes in K’iche’, Mam, and Ch’ol and pres­ent some information about the dif­fer­ent moods. Examples of the indicative intransitive verb complexes are shown in (4), while examples of the indicative transitive verb complexes are shown in (5). (4)  Indicative intransitive verbs a. K’iche’

(5)  Indicative transitive v­ erbs a. K’iche’

x-­at-­b’in-ik.

x-­in-­aw-­il-­oh.

cmp-­abs2-­walk-­ind IV

cmp-­abs1-­erg2-­see-­indTV

‘You walked’.

‘You saw me’.

b. Mam

b. Mam

ma chin b’eet-­a.

ma chin tzaj t-­tzyu-’n-­a.



rec abs1 walk-­enc

rec abs1 to  erg2-­grab-­dep-­enc



‘I walked’.

‘You grabbed ­me’.

c. Ch’ol tyi 

yajl-­iy-­ety.

c. Ch’ol tyi  aw-­il-­äy-­oñ.

cmp fall-­ind IV-­abs2

cmp erg2-­see- ­derTV-­abs1

‘You fell’.

‘You saw me’.

106 chapter 5

­These examples illustrate the morphological distinctions between the transitive and intransitive verbs in the three languages. ­These differences illustrate the fundamental split between transitive and intransitive verbs that occurs throughout the grammars of Mayan languages. Note that K’iche’ and Ch’ol use distinct suffixes on transitive and intransitive verbs to indicate indicative and derived status. Mam lacks status suffixes, but adds a dependent marker to transitive verbs with incorporated motion verbs. The examples in (4) and (5) contain verbs in the completive aspect. ­There are five general aspect categories: incompletive, completive, potential, volitive, and perfect. The incompletive aspect marks the noncompletion of the action indicated by the verb; it is noncommittal as to pres­ent, past, or f­uture time. The completive aspect marks the completion of the verb’s action; the potential marks a pos­si­ble, probable, or hy­po­thet­i­cal ­future truth; and the volitive marks the imperative, optative, and hortative moods. The perfect has much the same interpretation in K’iche’ as in En­glish. Each aspect category is associated with a status suffix. Examples of imperative forms of intransitive (6) and transitive (7) verbs in the three languages show how the suffixes change with changes in aspect and/or mood. (6)  Imperative intransitive verbs a. K’iche’ ch-­at-­b’in-oq!

(7)  Imperative transitive verbs a. K’iche’ chi-­in-­a-­r iq-­a’!

imp-­abs2-­walk- ­depIV

imp-­abs1-­erg2-­fi nd-­depTV

‘Walk’!

‘Find me’!

b. Mam b’eet-­a!

b. Mam b’ii-­m-­a!

walk-­enc

ask-­impTV-­enc

‘Walk’!

‘Ask about it’!

c. Ch’ol

c. Ch’ol

wäy-­eñ! mäñ-­ä! sleep-­impIV

buy-­i mpTV

‘Sleep’!

‘Buy it’!

While K’iche’ verbs preserve the aspect and person-­marking prefixes in the imperative mood, imperative verbs in Mam and Ch’ol drop the prefixes but add imperative status suffixes that maintain the distinction be-

The Acquisition of the Mayan Lexicon

107

tween transitive and intransitive verbs. Four distinct f­actors govern the form of the status suffixes: 1) its aspectual/mood category, 2) the transitive versus intransitive distinction, 3) the root transitive versus derived transitive distinction, and 4) the clause-­medial versus clause-­fi nal distinction. The examples (4)–(7) illustrate the effect of the first three ­factors. K’iche’, Mam, and Ch’ol make distinctions between derived and underived (root) transitive verbs. Nonderived verbs typically have a root consisting of a single CVC syllable. Derived transitive verbs may also have roots of the form CVVC and CV’C. A transitivizing affix follows the root if the verb is derived. Derived transitive verbs in K’iche’ have the status suffix -­V Vj in which the vowels harmonize with the vowel in the verb root. Derived transitive verbs in Ch’ol have distinct vowel suffixes. The examples in (5a) and (5c) show that the verb il ‘see’ is a root transitive verb in K’iche’, but a derived transitive verb in Ch’ol. The discussion of the passive forms in Chapter 1 referenced the differences between root and derived transitive verbs in K’iche’ and Mam. I ­will add more details about the root/derived distinction in ­later chapters. 5.1.5 Positionals The positionals form a distinct inflectional class in Mayan languages. The positionals refer to vari­ous physical properties such as shape (round, oval, square), position (seated, standing, lying down), or state (loose, tight). Positional roots are always inflected. K’iche’ adds the suffix - ­e’ to positional roots to form intransitive verb stems. It adds the suffix -­V l to positional roots to form predicates with a stative meaning. The intransitive termination -­ik is added to this stem in clause-­final position. The positional stem functions like an adjective, with a meaning that is similar to that of the perfect participle of the intransitive verb. The most frequent positional stem in K’iche’ is the existential positional k’oolik (k’oo-­l-ik, exist-posindIV), which is used to indicate existence, location, or possession. Examples (8) and (9) provide indicative and imperative forms of intransitive positional verbs for K’iche’, Mam, and Ch’ol. (8)  Indicative positional verbs a. K’iche’

(9)  Imperative positional verbs a. K’iche’

x-­at-­sep-­e’-ik.

chi-­at-­sep-­el-­oq!

cmp-­abs2-­kneel-­pos-­ind IV

imp-­abs2-­sit-­pos- ­depIV

‘You knelt’.

‘Kneel’!

108 chapter 5

b. Mam

b. Mam

ma tutz’-­ee’-­a.

tutz’-­ee’-­a!

rec sit-­pos-­enc

sit-­pos-­enc

‘You sat down’.

‘Sit down’!

c. Ch’ol

c. Ch’ol

tyi  buch-­ley-­ety.

buch-­i’!

cmp sit-­ind POS -­abs2

sit-­impPOS

‘You sat down’.

‘Sit down’!

5.1.6 Particles The particles are the final lexical class I ­will discuss in detail. Kaufman (1990) lists the following types: interrogative and demonstrative words, aspect markers, particles found in the predicate, noun phrase particles, coordinators, and subordinators. He states that t­ here are up to one hundred dif­fer­ent particles in all Mayan languages. The particles that occur in predicates are the most numerous in my K’iche’ transcripts. ­T hese function as verb phrase adverbs. Two of ­these particles, the negative marker ta(j) and the proadverb wi(h), have a special syntactic significance. T ­ hese may be followed by another impor­tant class of verb phrase particles, the directionals. Directionals are semantically similar to adverbial particles of location or motion (up, down, away) found in En­glish and other Germanic languages. They refer to the literal or meta­phorical change of location of an affected object.

­table 5.2 ​Number and proportion of K’iche’ lexical types Intransitive Verbs

TON 0;10 TIY 2;1.7 TIY 2;1.17 TIY 2;1.22 LIN 2;0 CHA 2;9.3 CHA 2;9.8 CHA 2;9.16 CHA 3;0.8

Transitive Verbs

Common Nouns

n

Percentage

n

Percentage

n

Percentage

3 7 9 6 11 8 8 10 11

13.6 10 8 7 7 4 4 7 7.8

1 2 5 7 9 14 15 16 20

4.9 3 4 8 6 7 7 11 14.1

8 17 36 26 32 76 62 48 57

36.4 25 31 29 22 39 28 33 40.1

The Acquisition of the Mayan Lexicon

109

5.2 The Production of Lexical Categories in K’iche’ I analyzed the words that K’iche’ ­children produced in their language samples. The ­children varied in age between ten months and three years. The data from the youn­gest K’iche’ child, TON, was based on a parent report about the words he was producing at that time. The data from the three other ­children derive from one-­hour recordings of their speech. I grouped the ­children’s words into the categories intransitive verb, transitive verb, positional verb, existential, common noun, proper noun, pronoun, relational noun, adjective, demonstrative, and particle. Excluded from the analy­sis are uninterpretable sounds and exclamations. I counted the words for ‘yes’ and ‘no’ as particles. I put the existential word in K’iche’ in a separate category. I counted words such as ‘mama’ and ‘baby’ as proper nouns ­because the c­ hildren use ­these words as names for specific individuals. T ­ able 5.2 shows the number and percentage of lexical types the K’iche’ c­ hildren produced for their frequent categories. The K’iche’ results show that the proportion of common noun, relational noun, and demonstrative types do not change significantly for ­children between ten months and three years of age. K’iche’ has closed classes of relational nouns and demonstratives, so it is not surprising that ­children only produce a limited number of ­these lexical types. Common nouns constitute the largest number of lexical types and average 40 ­percent of the ­children’s lexical types. The proportion of transitive verb types that the ­children produced increased between ten months and three years of age. The common nouns constituted the largest proportion of the ­children’s lexicon at all ages.

Proper Nouns

Relational Nouns

Demonstratives

n

Percentage

n

Percentage

n

Percentage

4 5 4 6 9 11 11 9 8

18.2 7 3 7 6 6 5 6 5.6

3 1 1 2 5 9 12 7 5

13.6 1 1 2 3 5 5 5 3.5

1 4 6 6 6 5 6 6 2

4.6 6 5 7 4 3 3 4 1.4

110 chapter 5

The proportion of lexical types that ­children produce reflects the structure of the language that they are acquiring. Figure 5.1 pres­ents the results in a graphical form for the first three recording sessions for TIY and CHA, as well as for LIN. Such graphs show the range of variation that occurs between recording sessions for the same child as well as between dif­fer­ent K’iche’ ­children. Figure  5.1 also shows that the K’iche’ ­children produced many adjectives and particles. A chi-­s quare test of the number of lexical types for the language samples in Figure  5.1 supports the conclusion that the K’iche’ ­children produce similar numbers of verbs, nouns, adjectives, and particles (χ2 = 20.24672, ns).

figure 5.1. ​Proportion of K’iche’ ­children’s lexical types

­table 5.3 ​Number and proportion of Mam lexical types Intransitive Verbs n WEN 1;10.2 WEN 2;0.2 WEN 2;0.25 MAR 2;5.12 MAR 2;5.26 MAR 2;6.10 JOS 2;6.16

42 28 20 28 11 25 49

Percentage 19 11 8 13 14 11 16

Transitive Verbs

Common Nouns

n

Percentage

n

Percentage

16 19 12 11 3 10 25

7 8 5 5 4 5 8

40 76 82 75 22 92 88

18 30 33 35 28 42 29

The Acquisition of the Mayan Lexicon

111

5.3 The Production of Lexical Categories in Mam I analyzed the words that Mam ­children produced in their language samples following the same procedure that I used for the K’iche’ ­children. The Mam ­children varied in age between 1;10 and 2;6. The data for the  three Mam ­children derive from one-­hour recordings of their speech. ­Table 5.3 shows the number and percentage of lexical types the Mam ­children produced for their frequent categories. The lexical production for the Mam ­children shows that common nouns accounted for the largest proportion of lexical types that the Mam ­children produced. The Mam ­children produced twice the number of intransitive verb types as transitive verb types in five of the seven sessions. This result adds to the findings of E ­ ngland and Martin (2003) who reported a relatively low production of transitive verbs in texts collected from adult Mam speakers. The Mam c­ hildren also produced a significant number of relational nouns. Figure 5.2 pres­ents the results for the three Mam ­children in a graphical form. The results for WEN at 1;10.2 for intransitive verbs and common nouns are a statistical outlier from the results from her other sessions and from the other ­children. We saw that the results from the youn­gest K’iche’ child also differed from the results for the other K’iche’ ­children. ­These two results indicate that the c­ hildren’s lexicon undergoes significant developmental changes between one and two years of age, but a­ fter two years of age, the c­ hildren’s lexicon has a more stable character. CRU’s result at 2;5.26 for common nouns is another outlier. CRU only produced a total of eighty lexical types in this session, which is far less than the more than two hundred lexical types that the ­children produced in the other sessions.

Proper Nouns

Relational Nouns

Demonstratives

n

Percentage

n

Percentage

n

Percentage

11 12 9 16 5 11 22

5 5 4 7 6 5 7

11 12 12 8 4 9 17

5 5 5 4 5 4 6

2 4 12 6 2 4 8

1 2 5 3 3 2 3

112 chapter 5

For t­ hese reasons, I excluded WEN’s session at 1;10.2 as well as CRU’s data at 2;5.26 from a chi-­square test that examined the similarity of the number of lexical types the Mam c­ hildren produced. At 2;5.26 CRU did not produce enough types to meet the requirements of the chi-­square test. The chi-­square test showed that the number of the Mam ­children’s lexical types in the five remaining sessions w ­ ere statistically similar (χ2 = 29.6049, ns). The chi-­square results support the conclusion that ­after two years of age, the lexical types of Mam ­children fall within a stable range of variation.

figure 5.2. ​Proportion of Mam ­children’s lexical types

­table 5.4 ​Number and proportion of Ch’ol lexical types Intransitive Verbs

MA 0;9.8 MAR 2;0.21 MAR 2;5.27 MA 2;3.12 MA 2;4 MA 2;4.20 EMA 2;1.14 EMA 2;1.30 EMA 2;2.13

Transitive Verbs

Common Nouns

n

Percentage

n

Percentage

n

Percentage

2 3 4 15 19 7 10 23 17

13.3 5 11 9 13 12 8 9 8

2 6 3 40 28 13 18 65 36

13.3 11 8 25 20 22 14 24 17

5 18 5 55 33 17 18 45 64

33.3 32 13 34 23 29 14 17 30

The Acquisition of the Mayan Lexicon

113

5.4 The Production of Lexical Categories in Ch’ol I analyzed the words that Ch’ol c­ hildren produced in their language samples following the same procedure that I used for the K’iche’ and Mam ­children. The Ch’ol ­children varied in age between nine months and 2;4. The data for the three Ch’ol ­children derive from one-­hour recordings of their speech. T ­ able 5.4 shows the number and percentage of lexical types the Ch’ol ­children produced for their frequent categories. The Ch’ol results hold two surprises. The Ch’ol c­ hildren did not produce a higher proportion of common nouns than verbs. The two oldest Ch’ol c­ hildren produced a higher proportion of verbs than common nouns. De León (2007) also reported that a Ch’ol child who was 1;10 produced twice as many verb types as noun types. The second surprise is that the oldest ­children also produced a greater proportion of transitive verbs than intransitive verbs. The two language samples from the child MA indicate that c­ hildren begin with a smaller proportion of transitive verbs and produce more transitive verbs ­after two years of age. The Ch’ol ­children also produced a low proportion of relational nouns. Figure 5.3 pres­ents the results for seven sessions of the Ch’ol ­children in a graphical form.

5.5 Comparing Lexical Production in K’iche’, Mam, and Ch’ol The results indicate the Mayan ­children’s lexical production reflects both developmental trends as well as the structure of the adult languages. The lexical types of the ten-­month-­old K’iche’ and Ch’ol c­ hildren are similar as

Proper Nouns n

Percentage

3 7 3 8 8 1 9 12 10

20 12 8 5 6 2 7 4 5

Relational Nouns n

Percentage

2 4 1 3 1

4 11 1 2 2

2 2

1 1

Demonstratives n

Percentage

1 9 2 5 3 5 4 22 8

6.7 16 5 3 2 8 3 8 4

114 chapter 5

shown in ­Table 5.5. Some differences are beginning to emerge at this age as seen by the difference between the ­children’s production of relational nouns, but the small number of lexical types produced by ten-­month-­old ­children precludes a more extensive analy­sis of their data. The effect of grammatical structure on lexical production is more evident by the time the c­ hildren are two years old. T ­ here are clear differences between the relative proportion of intransitive and transitive verbs among the ­children. The K’iche’ ­children produced similar proportions of intransitive and transitive verb types, whereas the Mam ­children produced fewer transitive verb types and the Ch’ol c­ hildren produced fewer intransitive verb types. The relative proportions are consistent for the Mam and Ch’ol ­children, whereas the K’iche’ child TIY produced more intransitive verb types while the child CHA produced more transitive verb types. This trend is clearly vis­i­ble in Figure 5.4.

figure 5.3. ​Percentage of Ch’ol ­children’s lexical types

­table 5.5 ​Lexical production of the youn­gest K’iche’, Mam, and Ch’ol ­c hildren Intransitive Verbs

Transitive Verbs

Common Nouns

n

Percentage

n

Percentage

n

Percentage

K’iche’ TON 0;10

3

13.6

1

4.9

8

36.4

Ch’ol MA 0;9.8

2

13.3

2

13.3

5

33.3

The Acquisition of the Mayan Lexicon

115

The relative proportion of transitive verbs and relational nouns reveals another in­ter­est­ing difference among the lexical production of K’iche’, Mam, and Ch’ol ­children. As shown in ­Table 5.6, the Mam ­children produced a relatively low proportion of transitive verb types and a high proportion of relational noun types. The Ch’ol c­ hildren produced a relatively high proportion of transitive verb types and a relatively low proportion of relational nouns. The K’iche’ ­children’s proportion of transitive verb types and relational noun types was between the Mam and Ch’ol c­ hildren’s production. A developmental trend in the proportion of relational noun types is evident in K’iche’ where the older child CHA produces more relational noun types. The results show that Mam is a low-­transitivity language, while Ch’ol is a high-­transitivity language; transitivity in K’iche’ falls between the transitivity of Mam and Ch’ol.

figure 5.4. ​Proportion of intransitive and transitive verb types

Proper Nouns

Relational Nouns

Demonstratives

n

Percentage

n

Percentage

n

Percentage

4

18.2

3

13.6

1

4.6

3

20

1

6.7

116 chapter 5 ­table 5.6 ​Number and proportion of transitive verb and relational noun types Transitive Verbs

Relational Nouns

n

Percentage

n

Percentage

K’iche’

TIY 2;1.7 TIY 2;1.17 TIY 2;1.22 LIN 2;0 CHA 2;9.3 CHA 2;9.8 CHA 2;9.16

2 5 7 9 14 15 16

3 4 8 6 7 7 11

1 1 2 5 9 12 7

1 1 2 3 5 5 5

Mam

WEN 1;10.2 WEN 2;0.2 WEN 2;0.25 CRU 2;5.12 CRU 2;5.26 CRU 2;6.10 JOS 2;6.16

16 19 12 11 3 10 25

7 8 5 5 4 5 8

11 12 12 8 4 9 17

5 5 5 4 5 4 6

Ch’ol

MAR 2;0.21 MA 2;3.12 MA 2;4 MA 2;4.20 EMA 2;1.14 EMA 2;1.30 EMA 2;2.13

6 40 28 13 18 65 36

11 25 20 22 14 23 17

2 1 3 1

4 1 2 2 0 1 1

2 2

The low transitivity in Mam is related to the relatively high proportion of relational nouns in the language. Mam speakers frequently use relational nouns to express syntactic arguments that are expressed as arguments of transitive verbs in K’iche’ and Ch’ol. The early production of relational nouns by ­c hildren acquiring Mam indicates that they have acquired the propensity to express subjects and objects indirectly by means of relational nouns. I provide examples of WEN’s utterances with and without relational nouns from her recording at 2;0.2 in (10). (10)  WEN’s utterances with and without relational nouns at 2;0.2 a. we’ An. =  q’an-­tz-­a   t-­e    w-­e-­ky’a    give-­to-­enc erg3-­for erg1-­poss-­enc  ‘Give it for mine Ana’!

Ana! Ana

The Acquisition of the Mayan Lexicon

117

b. kink ­tee! =  ki-­n-tz

ch’in t-­ee!

look-­i mp-to ­l ittle erg3-­at ‘Look a l­ ittle at it’! c. ye ’a. =  taa  t-­ xee   ja. exist 

erg3-­root  house

‘It is in the h ­ ouse’. d. axh ­kul. = n-­ø

jax

jal t-­jaq’

k’ul.

inc-­abs3  climb  nh erg3-on mountain ‘It climbs on the mountain’.

WEN’s utterance in (10a) omits the verb and one relational noun, but she produced the possessive relational noun -­e with the first person ergative possessive prefix w-. All of ­children acquiring K’iche’, Mam, and Ch’ol produced versions of the relational noun of possession. WEN’s production in (10b) contains the same relational noun that she omitted in (10a). This is an all-­purpose relational noun that marks dative, possessive, patient, and benefactive relations. It has the same root -­e(e) as the possessive relational noun that she produced in (10a), but serves a dif­fer­ent function and was produced with a dif­fer­ent ergative prefix in (10b). The relational noun -­xee ‘­u nder’ in (10c) is minimally distinct from -­e(e), but WEN’s production shows how she marked the contrast in a nonadult manner. She substituted a glide for the retroflexive fricative in the adult relational noun. She omitted the relational noun -­jaq’ ‘on’ in (10d). The K’iche’ and Ch’ol ­children did not produce relational nouns as frequently as the Mam ­children did. This was partly ­because the K’iche’ and Ch’ol ­children frequently omitted the relational nouns. The K’iche’ dialogue in (11) illustrates one of TIY’s omissions of a preposition. SEP, who is a year older than TIY, produced the preposition in her utterance.

118 chapter 5

(11)  TIY’s (2;1.22) omission of a preposition in K’iche’ TIY chi’ch. = x-­ø -­b’ee    pa ­ch’ich’. cmp-­abs3-go  in car. ‘She went in a car’. C ch’ich’? ‘car’? SEP  eh x’ee pa chi’ch chi. eh x-­ø -­ b’ee   pa ch’ich’ chi. eh cmp-­ abs3-go  in car   she.said. ‘Eh, she said she went in a car’.

In this example, TIY was telling me about her neighbor, but I did not understand what she was trying to say. TIY’s s­ ister SEP helped me by filling in the information that was missing from TIY’s utterance. Likewise the Ch’ol ­children also omitted relational nouns from obligatory contexts. In the following dialogue, EMA tells us about g­ oing in the ­water. Ch’ol uses the all-­purpose preposition tyi to express both locative and syntactic relations. The many uses of tyi give it a high token frequency in Ch’ol. Nevertheless, EMA omits the preposition in (12) as well as the homonymic completive aspect marker tyi. (12)  EMA’s (2;1.14) omission of relational noun in Ch’ol maji ­jä’. =  tyi cmp

majl-­i-­ø

tyi ja’

go-­ind IV-­abs3 in ­water

‘It went in the ­water’.

The ­children’s production of relational nouns is a sensitive marker of the language they w ­ ere acquiring. I used a single f­actor analy­sis of variation to examine the differences between the numbers of tokens of relational nouns that the ­children produced. The result showed a significant language effect for the ­children’s production of relational nouns (F = 84.29; a = .05). Figure 5.5 provides a comparison of the number of relational noun types the ­children produced.

The Acquisition of the Mayan Lexicon

119

figure 5.5. ​Proportion of relational noun types in K’iche’, Mam, and Ch’ol

­ hese results show that while ­children acquiring the same language T ­will display some variation in the types of words that they produce, the adult language also exerts pressure on ­children to exploit areas of the lexicon that reflect the language-­specific structure of the lexicon. Comparative research is necessary to explore the degree to which the variation between ­children acquiring the same language is similar to the variation between c­ hildren acquiring dif­fer­ent languages. Comparison of genet­ically related languages shows the dif­fer­ent ways that languages exploit the same lexical categories. C ­ hildren latch on to t­hese differences by the time that they are two years old even though they omit many words in their utterances. ­T hese lexical differences effect the ­children’s acquisition of all areas of the grammar. The number of transitive verbs the ­children produce is tied to the number of times they produce the ergative subject markers on transitive verbs. A language with high transitivity such as Ch’ol w ­ ill give ­children more opportunities to produce ergative person markers on transitive verbs. ­Children acquiring Mam, on the other hand, w ­ ill need to produce ergative markers on the relational nouns that are frequent in Mam. I w ­ ill explore how lexical differences affect other aspects of the ­children’s grammars in the following chapters. I explore the ­children’s production of pronouns in the final section of this chapter as another example of language-­specific lexical learning.

120 chapter 5

5.6 Mayan Pronouns Pronoun production provides a sensitive mea­sure of c­hildren’s language development in that pronouns have intimate connections to other parts of the grammar. ­Children produce in­de­pen­dent pronouns less frequently in ­ ecause Mayan languages than in En­glish and other Germanic languages b the pronouns serve dif­fer­ent functions in the two language families. Even though it is pos­si­ble to translate the pronouns directly between the Mayan and Germanic languages, speakers use pronouns in dif­fer­ent contexts in the two families. All Mayan languages have robust agreement systems that license the omission of pronouns as sentence arguments and nominal possessors. However, ­there are striking differences between the Mayan languages in pronoun function. Ch’ol and Tzeltal limit the use of pronouns to focus constructions, and Mam uses noun classifiers in place of pronouns. K’iche’ uses pronouns for emphasis as well as focus. Differences in pronoun use between Mayan languages become apparent when specific contexts are compared (13). (13)  Nominative predicates in four Mayan languages a. Ch’ol  (Coon 2013:102) wiñik-­oñ. man-­abs1 ‘I am a man’. b. Tzeltal  (Brown 1998:717) antz-­on. woman-­abs1 ‘I am a ­woman’. c. Mam  xu’j

(­England 1983:238) qiin-­a.

­woman abs1-­enc ‘I am a ­woman’. d. K’iche’  (Mondloch 1978:15) in   in  achi. abs1 abs1 man ‘I am a man’.

The Acquisition of the Mayan Lexicon

121

The Ch’ol and Tzeltal examples show that t­hese languages add the absolutive inflectional suffixes to nouns as well as verbs. In ­these languages, the addition of the absolutive suffixes converts the nouns into nominative predicates. Mam employs a special stative form of the absolutive suffixes for stative predicates. The first person form qiin differs from the usual first-­ person absolutive prefix chin. K’iche’ uses a reduplicated form of the pronouns in stative predicates. The first-­and second-­person K’iche’ pronouns are identical to the absolutive prefixes. The example in (13d) shows that K’iche’ is the only one of the four languages that uses in­de­pen­dent pronouns instead of bound forms in stative predicates. The comparative method relies on the comparison of such contexts to expose differences in the ways that languages deploy their lexical resources. The use of cover terms such as “pronoun” obscures the fundamental differences between the contexts of use for “pronouns” in languages. A detailed description of the contexts of use is necessary to understand how languages use pronouns and what ­children must learn to use “pronouns” correctly. The following paragraphs provide a brief description of the contexts of pronoun use in ­these languages. Ch’ol and Tzeltal rely on agreement markers rather than pronouns to express person as shown in (13). Pronouns in Tzeltal are derived from the combination of the focus demonstrative ja’ and the absolutive person markers (Polian 2013:143). The first-­person pronoun jo’on is formed by adding the first-­person absolutive suffix - ­on to the focus demonstrative. Mayan languages use a cleft construction in preverbal position for focus. The pronoun jo’on is essentially a nominative predicate like (13b) that translates as ‘I am the one who . . .’. Tzeltal pronouns used as focus markers occur in a preverbal focus clause. The first-­and second-­person pronouns, but not the third-­person pronoun, can also appear as topics bounded by the determiner te . . . ​e . The pronouns also appear ­after relational nouns. The first-­and second-­person pronouns in Ch’ol have the same derivation as the Tzeltal pronouns. The constraint on the use of the third-­person form in the Tzeltal determiner te . . . ​e indicates that the third-­person form is more of a demonstrative pronoun than a focus pronoun. The third-­person pronoun in Ch’ol is a demonstrative with the meaning ‘that’ (Aulie and de Aulie 1978). The demonstratives have a wider context of use than the focus pronouns. I include the third-­person demonstrative forms in this analy­sis even though, strictly speaking, they should be considered demonstratives rather than pronouns. The third-­person demonstratives function as pronouns in the sense that they replace full noun phrases in argument positions.

122 chapter 5

­England (1983:155) states that Mam does not have in­de­pen­dent pronouns and generally relies on the absolutive and ergative person markers. Mam does have a set of emphatic pronominal suffixes. ­These suffixes are used to focus on one of the verb arguments. Mam also has a set of noun classifiers that can take the place of third-­person noun phrases. Many of the noun classifiers are derived from common nouns. The noun classifiers include jal ‘nonhuman’, nu’xh ‘baby’, xhlaaq’ ‘child’, q’a ‘young man’, txin ‘young ­woman’, xu’j ‘­woman’, and ma ‘man’. The classifiers can be used to disambiguate the distinction between the second-­and third-­ person emphatic suffixes. ­England provides the example of the classifier txin used with a verb in (14). (14)  Mam classifier use  (­England 1983:159) ma-ø-­tzaj

t-­tzyu-­‘n

rec-abs3-­toward 

erg3-­grab-­dep cl.young_woman

txin.

‘She grabbed him’.

Mam also has a special set of absolutive suffixes that are used to form stative predicates such as the one in (13c). The stative absolutive suffixes have the root aa that is omitted in some contexts. The person markers attached to the stative predicate take the place of pronouns in other languages. The in­de­pen­dent pronouns in K’iche’ are mostly used as stative predicates. Mondloch (1978:15) provides the example in (13d). The reduplication is optional. The K’iche’ use of pronouns in stative predicates contrasts with person marking in stative predicates in other Mayan languages. The K’iche’ pronouns are also used in focus constructions and to emphasize the person of one of the verb arguments. K’iche’ has a third-­person pronoun aree’ that contrasts with the demonstratives lee ‘that’ and rii’ ‘this’. K’iche’, like the other Mayan languages, primarily relies on the absolutive and ergative person markers on verbs to cross-­reference arguments.

5.7 The Acquisition of Mayan Pronouns This survey shows that ­there is no ­simple equivalent between pronominal expressions in the Mayan languages and pronouns in Germanic languages. ­T here is also not a ­simple equivalence between pronominal expressions in Mayan languages. The absence of pronouns in Mam r­ eflects

The Acquisition of the Mayan Lexicon

123

the use of noun classifiers and emphatic suffixes to express crucial person distinctions. The pronouns in Ch’ol, Tzeltal, and K’iche’ have marked uses that indicate focus, topicality, and emphasis. The question remains of how c­ hildren acquiring Mayan languages use ­these pronominal forms. Brown (1998:n23) states that Tzeltal ­children use in­de­pen­dent pronouns “almost exclusively when the person marking is missing” (cp. on nouns and verbs). She adds that the c­ hildren use the in­de­pen­dent pronouns “to clarify what participant is being referred to” (738). Brown does not state how frequently the ­children used pronouns in place of the ergative and absolutive agreement markers. She provides examples of the ­children’s nonadult usage of the pronouns shown in (15). (15)  Pronoun substitution by the Tzeltal child Mik 2;3–2;5  (Brown 1998:738) a. Pronoun substitution for ergative possessive marker on noun patz ­jo’on  (  =  j-­patz, erg1-­food) food I ‘my food’ b. Pronoun substitution for ergative person marker on transitive verb k’an jo’on.  ( = ya j-­k’an, inc erg1-­want) want I ‘I want it’. c. Pronoun substitution for absolutive person marker on intransitive verb ban ja’at. ( =  ban-at, go-­abs2) go you ‘You go’.

Brown states that the c­ hildren’s use of the pronouns is not modeled by the adults. Brown’s statement is supported by Polian’s (2013) observation that the pronouns are mainly used by adults in sentence-­initial focus clauses. The examples that Brown provides show that Tzeltal c­ hildren use the focus forms as s­ imple pronouns in nonfocus contexts. Brown also provides examples of the c­ hildren’s appropriate use of the focus particle ja’ with nouns in focus (16) as well as with the demonstrative ja’-­ni “this” (17).

124 chapter 5

(16)  Tzeltal focus  (Brown 1998:136) ja’ waj. foc tortilla ‘It (is) tortilla’ (that I want)’. (17)  Demonstrative use by Tzeltal child Lus 2;7  (Brown 1998:138) b -en      to xan ja’-­ ini. k’ej-­ put_away-­app-­abs1  again  foc-­this ‘Put this away for me again’.

­ hese examples show that Tzeltal ­children are using the focus particle T ja’ appropriately in focus contexts and with the demonstrative even while they use the pronouns in nonfocus contexts. 5.7.1 The Acquisition of Pronouns in Ch’ol ­Children acquiring Ch’ol are more attentive to the discourse constraints on the use of pronouns than are Tzeltal ­children. The Ch’ol ­children I recorded did not produce pronouns very frequently in accordance with the frequency of pronoun production by adult Ch’ol speakers. The ­children initially produce pronouns almost entirely in one-­word utterances that accord with the focus constraints on the pronouns. When the ­children produce pronouns in two-­word utterances, they put the pronoun in the sentence-­initial focus position. The context supports a focus reading for the ­children’s pronouns (18). (18)  Focus pronoun production in Ch’ol c­ hildren a. EMA (2;1.30) EMA

tyex! =  tyech-­e take_it-­impTV ‘Take it’!

­Mother jä? ‘Huh’? EMA

je’e tye’ex! =  jatyety you

tyech-­e take_it-­i mpTV

‘You take it’!

The Acquisition of the Mayan Lexicon

125

b. EMA (2;2.13) ­Mother mi’  ​mäñ-la   a-­cha’añ che’bä ili. cmp 

buy-­abs2  erg2-­poss  like 

this

‘He bought you yours like this.’ EMA joñ jañ. = joñoñ añ I exist ‘I have one’. (lit., ‘As for me it exists’.)

The Ch’ol ­children did occasionally produce pronouns in a nonfocus context. T ­ hese utterances are sometimes difficult to interpret, ­because the c­ hildren produced them out of the blue without a discourse context to support them. T ­ hese productions show that Brown’s observations of nonfocus pronoun use in Tzeltal extend to Ch’ol (19). (19)  Nonfocus pronoun production in Ch’ol ­children a. EMA (2;3.10) EMA juño’ chi’. = joñoñ k-­ts’i’. I

erg1-­dog

‘That’s my dog’. (lit., ‘As for me, it is my dog’.) b. EMA (2;3.10) Pedro   maxki  i-­cha’añ? who 

erg3-­poss

‘Who is its own­er’? EMA  cha’añ ñoñ. =  k-­cha’añ joñoñ. erg1-­poss  I ‘It is mine’. (lit., ‘I am mine’)

Both of ­these examples show EMA producing the pronoun joñoñ in a possessive context in which the possessed noun is missing the obligatory possessive prefix. EMA produced the first example without a supporting context. If he intended to say ‘That is my dog’, he should have used the demonstrative pronoun jiñi rather than the first-­person pronoun joñoñ. This production still places the focus pronoun in an utterance-­initial

126 chapter 5

position. This is not the case in the second example where the pronoun follows the possessed relational noun. In this case, EMA responded to a question about possession. Example (18b) parallels the Tzeltal examples in Brown, but in the context of a relational noun where this order is correct in Ch’ol. The Ch’ol investigator Pedro produced the same construction earlier in the recording. ­T here is no indication in the Ch’ol data that the c­ hildren used the pronouns systematically as replacements for omitted agreement markers on nouns and verbs. The c­ hildren did not produce pronouns in the vast majority of their utterances that contained nouns and verbs that lacked the obligatory agreement markers. In almost all cases, the Ch’ol ­children correctly observed the focus constraint on pronoun use from their earliest recordings. 5.7.2 The Acquisition of Pronouns in Mam ­ ecause Mam does not have pronominal forms that are equivalent to the B focus pronouns of Tzeltal and Ch’ol, I examined the Mam ­children’s use of emphatic pronominal suffixes, noun classifiers, and stative predicates. The emphatic pronominal suffixes of Mam are the nearest equivalents to the focus pronouns of Tzeltal and Ch’ol. The contexts of use for emphasis and focus overlap, but emphasis is not the same as focus. The use of noun classifiers in Mam resembles the use of pronouns in En­glish, in that speakers commonly use noun classifiers to refer to entities that w ­ ere introduced in the previous discourse rather than repeating the entire noun phrase. The Mam c­ hildren did not produce the emphatic person suffixes. Their parents did produce the emphatic suffixes, but did so very infrequently. The Mam ­children used the classifiers early in stative predicate constructions. At 1;08 WEN produced the nonhuman classifier jal in a complete sentence as shown in (20). In this instance, WEN contracted the classifier to its initial consonant /j/. WEN’s ­mother repeats the classifier in her responses, and WEN subsequently responds without producing the classifier. Note that the ­mother’s question tqal jal ( = what it ‘what is it’?) occurs frequently in the Mam recordings. It provides a salient context in which the ­children hear the nonhuman classifier.

The Acquisition of the Mayan Lexicon

127

(20)  WEN (1;8.21) WEN   wej. = wakixh  jal. cow  it ‘It’s a cow’. Mother tqal jal? ‘What is it’? Mother wakixh jal? ‘Is it a cow’? WEN   wakis. = wakixh. ‘cow’.

WEN began using classifiers with verbs at 2;0. Most of her examples ­were elicited by the adults who ­were playing with her, but in a few instances she produced a classifier as a verb argument (21). As the c­ hildren grow older, they produce a greater variety of classifiers in a greater variety of contexts. ­Table 5.7 shows how the Mam ­children’s use of classifiers increased with age.

­table 5.7 ​Classifier production in Mam Child

Age

Classifier

Tokens

WEN

1;8.21

jal ‘it’

1;10.2

b’ixh ‘familiar person’ jal ‘it’ ma ‘man’

1 28 7

2;0.2

b’ixh ‘familiar person’ jal ‘it’ ma ‘man’ nu’xh ‘baby’

11 110 11 2

JOS

2;6.16

b’ixh ‘familiar person’ jal ‘it’ ma ‘man’ txin ‘young w ­ oman’ xhlaaq’ ‘child’

10 37 1 6 1

CRU

2;5.12

b’ixh ‘familiar person’ jal ‘it’ ma ‘man’

3 16 3

8

128 chapter 5

(21)  WEN (2;0.2) ­Mother u tqal qa mal luu WEN? ‘U, what are ­those WEN’? WEN  ki

‘ixh ki!

= kinxa b’ixh ki! look fam emph ‘Look at her’!

Mam ­children produce the stative predicates ­later than the classifiers. Examples of WEN’s stative production are shown in (22). At 1;10.2, WEN only produced four stative predicates as opposed to the thirty-­five utterances she produced with classifiers. At 2;0.2, WEN produced five stative utterances. At 2;6.16, JOS produced fifty-­two stative predicates, an indication that stative production increases sharply a­ fter 2;5. (22)  WEN’s stative predicates a. WEN (1;10.2) WEN

a Lel. it_is Lel. ‘It’s Lel.’

­Mother a ti  Lel n   ’oq’? it_is  Lel prog  cry ‘Is Lel the one that is crying?’ b. WEN (2;0.2) N

aa ya

nan yaa.

is  you

grand­mother

‘Are you a grand­mother?’ WEN

a kina. = a qina. ‘I am.’

5.7.3 The Acquisition of Pronouns in K’iche’ K’iche’ ­children primarily use the in­de­pen­dent pronouns as subjects rather than other arguments (Pye 1992:283). The ­children use pronouns equally as subjects of transitive and intransitive verbs even though they

The Acquisition of the Mayan Lexicon

129

­table 5.8 ​Subject production for TIY Transitive Verbs

Intransitive Verbs

Pronoun

Noun Phrase

Verb Tokens

Pronoun

Noun Phrase

Verb Tokens

3 3 5 12

2 1 3 3

23 45 61 113 131

3 1 5 1 7

2 4 16 12 10

22 34 67 81 153

2;1.17 2;2.6 2;3.19 2;7.21 2;10.5

produce lexical subjects more frequently for intransitive verbs. They produce the pronouns at the same time that they begin using the absolutive and ergative agreement markers on verbs, but the c­ hildren use the pronouns for emphasis rather than as a substitute for the agreement markers. ­Table 5.8 provides information on TIY’s subject production. K’iche’ ­children frequently produce pronouns in a postverbal position, which indicates that they do not use the pronouns in the preverbal focus clause. The grammar of focus in K’iche’ is complicated by the use of the focus antipassive construction for subject focus on transitive verbs (Pye 1989, 1990). I provide examples of the K’iche’ c­ hildren pronoun use in (23). (23)  TIY’s pronoun use a. TIY (2;3.10) C

k’oo chi  nik’aj ee wakax ee-war-­inaq    e. exist more dim  pl  cow  abs6-sleep-­perf IV ­there ‘­T here are more ­little cows that have slept ­there’.

TIY naq ­ale’. =  ee-war-­ inaq   aree’. abs6-sleep-­perf IV  they ‘They have slept’. b. TIY (2;1.17) TIY oh yak’, in. = k’oo  w-ak’

in

exist  erg1-­chicken I ‘I have a chicken’.

130 chapter 5

c. TIY (2;1.17) Father  jachin yo’w lawetz’ab’al? jachin x-­ø -­ya’-ow

lee aw-­etz’a-­b’al

who  cmp-­abs3-­give-­foc.ap  the erg2-­play-­instr ‘Who gave you your toy’? TIY

no’, at oh. =  no’, at  x-­at-­ya’-­ow-­ik no  you cmp-­abs2-­give-­foc.ap-­ind IV ‘No, you gave it’.

The example in (23a) is an utterance in which TIY produced the third-­ person plural pronoun aree’ ‘they’ ­after the verb. The example in (23b) shows an utterance in which TIY produced the pronoun in ‘I’ as a noun possessor. The example in (23c) is an utterance in which TIY produced the pronoun in a preverbal focus position in response to her ­father’s question. Her ­father’s question shows the use of the focus antipassive voice that is used when the subject of a transitive verb is in focus. The focus antipassive form of root transitive verbs requires the suffix -­ow. I have interpreted TIY’s response as using the active voice suffix -­o rather than the antipassive suffix. TIY only produced two utterances in all of her sessions with a subject in the preverbal position. K’iche’ ­children produce most pronouns in nonverbal contexts ­either in isolation or as a possessor phrase. ­Table 5.9 provides a count of TIY’s in­de­pen­dent pronoun production in all contexts including the contexts shown in T ­ able 5.8. A comparison with T ­ able 5.8 shows that most of TIY’s pronoun production occurs outside of verbal contexts.

5.8 Summary This chapter used the comparative method to explore lexical development in K’iche’, Mam, and Ch’ol. Even though the Mayan languages have similar lexical categories, they put t­hese categories to dif­fer­ent uses. ­T hese differences result in large differences between the languages in the frequency distribution of dif­fer­ent lexical categories. The obligatory use of cross-­reference markers on nouns and verbs licenses the omission of lexical arguments. The pro-­drop feature of the Mayan languages makes them verb heavy relative to the Germanic languages. Neverthe-

The Acquisition of the Mayan Lexicon

131

­table 5.9 ​TIY’s pronoun production

2;1.17 2;2.6 2;3.19 2;7.21 2;10.5

In ‘I’

At ‘You, singular’

Aree’ ‘He, she, it’

10 7 23 13 56

3 5 5 16 27

13 4 2

Uj ‘We’

2 4 2

less, ­there are major differences between Mayan languages in the production of noun phrases. Speakers of Ch’ol, Tzeltal, and Tzotzil, all Greater Tzeltalan languages, produce a high proportion of verb types, whereas speakers of Yucatec, Mam, and K’iche’ produce a high proportion of noun types (Pye et al. 2017). ­Children acquiring ­these languages quickly learn the language-­specific patterns of word use in each language. ­There is no evidence that their lexical development is restricted by their cognitive development. I analyzed the c­ hildren’s pronoun production more closely in this chapter as an example of the development of a single lexical resource. I showed how a category as s­ imple as pronouns varies across the Mayan languages. K’iche’ is the only one of the four Mayan languages I examined that uses pronouns in a way that is at all similar to pronoun use in En­glish, and even in K’iche’, the ­children used the pronouns for emphasis rather than to mark person for arguments. The first-­and second-­person pronouns in Ch’ol and Tzeltal are associated with focus marking as well as person marking. ­Children acquiring Ch’ol show an early awareness of the focus marking on pronouns. I examined three dif­fer­ent forms that Mam uses to express person for arguments. The emphatic person suffixes are extremely rare in the speech of the adults and ­children. I found few examples of their use by the ­children. In contrast, the use of the noun classifiers was omnipresent in the speech of Mam ­children and adults. The ­children show an early awareness of the classificatory function of the classifiers and use them in the adult manner to express nominal arguments. The c­ hildren produced fewer examples of the stative absolutive suffixes and at a l­ ater period than the noun classifiers. The Mam data show that the noun classifiers fill the role of pronouns in the speech of the ­children and adults. I had not realized that pronoun use differed so drastically between the Mayan languages ­until I wrote this chapter. The comparison between

132 chapter 5

the Mayan languages is crucial to appreciating the dif­fer­ent ways that pronominal forms can interact with focus, emphasis, and disambiguation. The unique structure of each Mayan language provides a distinct ecol­ ogy for person marking in the languages and underlines Siewierska’s (2004) observation of the many ways that person marking interacts with other grammatical features. The differences in person marking among the Mayan languages can be observed in their dif­fer­ent contexts of use. This difference is notable in the focus use of pronouns in Ch’ol and Tzeltal in comparison with the emphatic use of pronouns in K’iche’ and classifier use in Mam. Ch’ol and Tzeltal ­children produce pronouns less frequently than K’iche’ ­children, and they tend to produce their pronouns in utterance-­initial position. In contrast, K’iche’ ­children most often produce pronouns ­after the verb. The study of how Mayan c­ hildren acquire pronouns shows that the c­ hildren acquire far more than the means to indicate person. The comparative method shows how Mayan c­ hildren master the par­tic­u­lar features of focus and classification in addition to person marking.

chapter six

The Acquisition of the Mayan Intransitive Verb Complex

I

briefly outlined the basic features of the Mayan verb complex in Chapter 4. In this chapter I provide an overview of the acquisition of the intransitive verb complex in K’iche’, Mam, and Ch’ol. Subsequent chapters ­will provide further details about the acquisition of specific features of the verb complex. ­T here are four main parts to the intransitive verb complex: the tense/ aspect marker, the subject marker, the verb root, and the status suffix. The tense/aspect marker, subject marker, and status suffix are interdependent and together indicate transitivity and mood. The Mayan intransitive verb complex is polysynthetic in the sense that it denotes a complete proposition by itself. ­Table 6.1 pres­ents inflectional templates for intransitive verbs in three moods in the three languages. The verb forms in the indicative and nominalized moods are the most similar across the three languages although Mam lacks the status suffixes seen on the K’iche’ and Ch’ol verbs. Mam adds the enclitic particle to verbs with first-­and second-­person subjects. K’iche’ uses a dependent verb form in place of the imperative verb forms seen in Mam and Ch’ol. The imperative verb forms have the simplest morphology in Mam and Ch’ol, whereas imperative verbs in K’iche’ have a morphology that is as complex as the morphology of the indicative verb. All three languages extend ergative subject markers to nominalized forms of intransitive verbs. Mam also has an infinitive verb form that is used as the complement of motion verbs (­England 1983:298) that I ­will not discuss. The analy­sis of Ch’ol is complicated by the inflectional distinction between verbs in the completive and incompletive aspects. Ch’ol innovated

134 chapter 6 ­table 6.1 ​Intransitive verb forms in K’iche’, Mam, and Ch’ol Mood

K’iche’

Mam

Ch’ol

Indicative Imperative Nominalized

Asp-­abs-­root-­i nd IV Asp-­abs-­root-­depIV Erg-­root-­n m IV

Asp abs root-(enclitic) Root- ­enclitic Erg-­root-(enclitic)

Asp root-­i nd IV-­abs Root-­i mpIV Erg-­root-­n m IV

the use of nominalized verbs in noncompletive aspects (Kaufman and Norman 1984). Ch’ol complicates this situation further by its use of verbal nouns. Verbal nouns denote events, but they require the use of a light transitive verb to form a complete predicate. ­T hese expressions are similar to the En­glish expressions “take a bath” and “take a walk.” I provide examples of a root intransitive verb and a verbal noun in Ch’ol in (1). (1)  Intransitive verb classes in Ch’ol a. Root intransitive verb (Vázquez Álvarez 2011:58) tyi  yajl-­iy-­oñ. cmp fall-­ind IV-­abs1 ‘I fell’. b. Verbal noun (Vázquez Álvarez 2011:62) tyi 

k- ­cha’l-­e-­ø k’ay.

cmp erg1-­do-­indTV-­abs3 song ‘I sang’.

Where the root intransitive verb (1a) in the completive aspect has the indicative intransitive status suffix and absolutive agreement marker, the verbal noun (1b) is uninflected and serves as an argument to the light transitive verb cha’l ‘do’. The light transitive verb has the regular transitive inflections for aspect and agreement. Further complicating this distinction is the class of “ambivalent” intransitive verbs in Ch’ol. The ambivalent verbs can inflect as ­either root intransitive verbs or verbal nouns (2). (2)  Ambivalent intransitive verb in Ch’ol (Vázquez Álvarez 2011:66) a. Root intransitive ­inflection tyi wäy-­iy-­oñ. cmp sleep-­indIV-­abs1 ‘I slept’.

The Acquisition of the Mayan Intransitive Verb Complex

135

b. Verbal noun ­inflection tyi k- ­cha’l-­e-­ø wäy-­el. cmp erg1-­do-­indTV-­abs3 sleep-­n m IV ‘I slept’.

Positional verbs form an additional class of intransitive predicates with their own inflectional paradigm. Positionals share a broad semantic field that refers to the position of objects. The example of a Ch’ol positional predicate in (13) has the positional suffix -­le. (3)  Positional intransitive predicate in Ch’ol (Vázquez Álvarez 2011:80) tyi

buch-­le-­oñ.

cmp

sit-­pos-­abs1

‘I sat’.

Ch’ol also has a class of predicates that are marked for person but not aspect. ­These predicates include the intransitive verbs tyal ‘come’ and cha’ ‘say’, the transitive verbs om ‘want’ and ilal ‘resemble’, the existential predicate añ, and the adjectival predicate k’un ‘weak’. ­These five verb classes take dif­fer­ent inflections in the completive and incompletive aspects and imperative mood as shown in ­Table 6.2. The Ch’ol intransitive verb conjugations create a learnability prob­ lem in that ­children could extend the light verb construction throughout the intransitive paradigm following the path that the related language Chontal has taken. C ­ hildren could also extend the completive paradigm to the incompletive aspect and reconstitute the Proto-­Mayan inflectional paradigm seen in K’iche’. They could extend the incompletive paradigm to the completive aspect and change the agreement paradigm from ergative-­ absolutive to nominative-­accusative. ­table 6.2 ​Ch’ol intransitive inflectional paradigms

Root intransitive Verbal noun Ambivalent root I Ambivalent root II Positional Irregular ­i ntransitive

Incompletive

Completive

Imperative

asp erg-­verb-el asp erg- ­cha’l-­eñ noun asp erg-­verb-el asp erg- ­cha’l-­eñ verb-el asp erg-­positional-­t yäl Verb-­a bs

asp verb-­i-­a bs asp erg-­cha’l-­e ­noun asp verb-­i-­a bs asp erg-­cha’l-­e verb-el asp positional-­le-­a bs Verb-­i-­a bs

Verb-­eñ cha’l-­eñ noun Verb-­eñ cha’l-­eñ verb-­el Positional-­i /-­leñ Suppletive

136 chapter 6

A further possibility would be to level the entire paradigm by changing the status suffixes from a -­VC form to a vowel. Root transitive verbs in Ch’ol use a vowel as the completive and imperative status suffixes; they do not have a status suffix in the incompletive aspect. The use of vowels as status suffixes for transitive verbs could exert pressure to eliminate the final consonants from the status suffixes for intransitive verbs. This change may be underway in the variety of Ch’ol spoken in Tila, Mexico, where I made the recordings of the ­children acquiring Ch’ol. The Tila variety optionally realizes the -­el suffix on incompletive intransitive verbs as -­e . This reduction increases the number of status suffixes that are realized as a vowel. The forms of the verb complexes in the Mayan languages pose a significant challenge to ­children acquiring the languages. ­Children acquiring Mam and Ch’ol might use the imperative verb forms as a default verb form that they use when they have difficulty accessing the more complex verb forms. If this is the case, we should expect to see the c­ hildren overgeneralizing the imperative verb forms to other contexts of use. The formal difference does not occur in K’iche’, and so c­ hildren acquiring K’iche’ should not overgeneralize the dependent verb form as a default verb form. ­Children acquiring all three languages might overgeneralize the nominalized verb forms b ­ ecause t­hese verb forms are not marked for aspect. The use of nominalized verb forms would be expected if the ­children default to an optional infinitive verb form (Wexler 1998). The inflectional paradigms for the verb forms in each language make it easy to determine when ­children overgeneralize a par­tic­u­lar verb form to nonadult contexts of use. A focus on the formal features of the verb complexes ignores their contexts of use. In our study of the acquisition of status suffixes in K’iche’ and Yucatec, Barbara Pfeiler and I showed how the two languages differed in the contexts of use of their verb forms (Pye and Pfeiler 2014). Even though the languages have similar verb forms, they put the forms to use in dif­fer­ent contexts, and ­these contexts determine how frequently the verb forms are used in the adult languages. I show how the contexts affect the use of the verb forms in K’iche’, Ch’ol, and Mam in ­Table 6.3. In terms of their frequency of use, the imperative and past contexts occur more frequently than the progressive and pres­ent contexts, which occur more frequently than purpose and want contexts. The when and finish contexts rarely occur in our recordings. T ­ hese frequency rankings lead to the expected frequency rankings for the three languages shown in (4).

The Acquisition of the Mayan Intransitive Verb Complex

137

­table 6.3 ​Contexts of use of intransitive verb forms in K’iche’, Mam, and Ch’ol Context

K’iche’

Mam

Ch’ol

Past Pres­ent Progressive Want-­same ­subject Want-­d ifferent subject Purpose clause When clause Finish Imperative

Indicative Indicative Indicative Indicative Indicative Indicative Indicative Nominalized Dependent

Indicative Indicative Indicative Indicative Nominalized Nominalized Nominalized Indicative Imperative

Indicative Nominalized Nominalized Nominalized Nominalized Indicative Indicative Nominalized Imperative

(4)  Expected frequency of use of verb forms in K’iche’, Mam, and Ch’ol

K’iche’ Mam

Ch’ol

1. Imperative

dependent

imperative

imperative

2. Past

indicative

indicative

indicative

3. Pres­ent

indicative

indicative

nominalized

4. Progressive

indicative

indicative

nominalized

5. Purpose

indicative

nominalized

indicative

6. Want

indicative

indicative

indicative

­ hese considerations show that even though the intransitive verbs have T similar forms in K’iche’, Mam, and Ch’ol, the forms have dif­fer­ent contexts and frequencies of use. The dependent form occurs frequently in K’iche’, while the imperative form occurs frequently in Mam and Ch’ol. The indicative form has the most contexts of use in K’iche’, fewer in Mam, and the fewest number of contexts in Ch’ol. Ch’ol has the most frequent contexts of use for nominalized verb forms. Mam uses nominalized verbs in several marked contexts, but K’iche’ limits the use of nominalized verbs to rare contexts such as complements to the verbs ‘start’ and ‘stop’. The dif­fer­ent contexts of use for the verb forms in each language create a prob­lem for ­children to discover what forms are used in the infrequent contexts. The issue h ­ ere is to discover the degree to which c­ hildren might overgeneralize a par­tic­u­lar verb form to contexts where that form is not used in the adult language. This other side of the frequency rankings in (1) shows that c­ hildren acquiring K’iche, Mam, and Ch’ol face dif­fer­ent challenges in discovering the constraints on the use for each verb form. ­Children acquiring K’iche’ and Mam hear the imperative and indicative verb forms most frequently. ­Children acquiring K’iche’ would not need to

138 chapter 6

alter their use of indicative verb forms in purpose clauses, but ­children acquiring Mam would need to learn that purpose clauses create a context of use for the nominalized verb form. ­Children acquiring Ch’ol would hear the nominalized verb form very frequently and would need to learn which contexts require the indicative verb form and which the nominalized verb form. The least frequently occurring contexts of use are exactly the places where ­children might be expected to overextend one or another verb form. Comparing how the verb forms map onto the contexts of use in K’iche’, Mam, and Ch’ol shatters the illusion that verb forms are universally associated with specific contexts of use. K’iche’ does not use an imperative verb form in imperative contexts, ­because the language extended the dependent verb form to imperative contexts. We know this historical change occurred, b ­ ecause it is pos­si­ble to reconstruct an imperative form for intransitive verbs in Proto-­Mayan that resembles the imperative form in Ch’ol (Kaufman and Norman 1984). Ch’ol does not use the indicative verb form in pres­ent tense contexts, ­because the language passed through a historical period in which the nominalized verb form became associated with the incompletive and progressive aspects. ­Children must learn to associate specific verb forms with specific contexts of use in each language. ­Children who identify one or another verb form as “finite” ­will overgeneralize that form to “finite” contexts in which adults use a dif­fer­ent verb form. A theory of Mayan language acquisition assumes that two-­year-­old ­children can distinguish between the dif­fer­ent forms of the verb complexes and recognize their contexts of use. This assumption predicts that ­ ill not confuse the ergative and ab­children acquiring Mayan languages w solutive sets of person markers, the completive and incompletive aspect markers, or the indicative and imperative status suffixes. This assump­ ill make the necessary distinctions betion predicts that Mayan ­children w tween transitivity, ergativity, aspect, and mood. More importantly, this theory predicts that c­ hildren acquiring Mayan languages w ­ ill not overextend the person and status markers. Although this theory assumes that two-­year-­old ­children can distinguish between the dif­fer­ent verb complexes and recognize their contexts of use, it does not predict that the c­ hildren can produce the complete verb complex. This theory recognizes the difference between the c­ hildren’s competence and their per­for­mance. The theory is essentially a theory about Mayan ­children’s linguistic competence. It requires a per­for­mance theory in order to predict the forms of the verb complexes that the ­children ­will produce.

The Acquisition of the Mayan Intransitive Verb Complex

139

I previously outlined a per­for­mance theory of language acquisition for K’iche’ (Pye 1983). This theory is based on the metrical structure of the verb complexes and predicts that ­children ­will start with the syllable of the verb complex that has the primary stress and gradually add more syllables as the ­children’s metrical structures develop. The metrical structures have not been fully described for all of the Mayan languages (cf. Bennett 2016). Stress interacts with vowel length and tone in the Mayan languages as well as with the laryngeal features of the vowels in some verb stems. My original paper demonstrated the effect that shifting the stress in K’iche’ to the status suffix at the end of phonological phrases had on the c­ hildren’s production of the verb complex. In this chapter, I ­will start with the assumption that the primary stress in the Mayan verb complex occurs on the verb root and shifts rightward ­under language-­specific conditions. This proposal accounts for the right-­edge advantage that my colleagues and I documented for ­children’s verb complexes in Yucatec, Tzeltal, Tzotzil, Q’anjob’al, and K’iche’ (Pye et al. 2007). In the remainder of this chapter, I ­will apply this per­for­mance theory to acquisition data for K’iche’, Mam, and Ch’ol.

6.1 Acquisition of the Intransitive Verb Complex in K’iche’ I provide examples of the K’iche’ child TIY’s intransitive indicative verb forms in (5). She produced the status suffix on the verb in (5a) in nonfinal position. Adults do not use the status suffix in this position. Her utterances in (5b) and (5c) only contain the final consonant of the verb root and the same indicative status suffix that she produced in (5a). Two-­ year-­old Mayan ­children frequently substitute /l/ for /r/. All of TIY’s examples in (5) preserve the final stressed syllable of the adult verb complex, which is typical of K’iche’ ­children’s verb production (Pye 1983). (5)  K’iche’ intransitive indicative productions a.  ek lon le’. (TIY 2;1.17) = x-­ø -­b’e-ik

joron le’.

 cmp-­abs3-­go-­ind IV   water t­ here ‘­Water went ­there’. b.  nik. (TIY 2;1.30) =  k-­e-­b’in-ik.   inc-­abs6-­walk-­ind IV ‘They walk’.

140 chapter 6

c.  lik. (TIY 2;1.30) = k-­ø -­war-­ik.   inc-­abs3-­sleep-­ind IV ‘She sleeps’.

I provide examples of K’iche’ c­ hildren’s intransitive verb forms that they produced in imperative/dependent contexts in (6). The imperative in (6a) is a baby talk word that does not have the usual dependent inflections. The example in (6b) has the regular dependent inflection in adult speech. TIY again produced the final consonant of the verb root and the dependent status suffix. The imperative in (6c) is a suppletive form of the verb b’e ‘go’ shown in (5a) and only has the absolutive inflection. Imperative forms for the verbs ‘go’ and ‘come’ generally have suppletive forms in the Mayan languages, and c­ hildren produce them very early. (6)  K’iche’ child imperative verb forms a. chux, leli! = chux chiri

(TIY 2;1)

b. loq! = ch-at-el-oq

c. ja’! =  j-­at

sit ­here

imp-­abs2-­leave- ­depIV

go-­abs2

‘Sit ­here’!

‘Leave’!

‘Go’!

­ hese examples illustrate the most frequent forms of intransitive imT perative verbs in K’iche’ c­ hildren’s speech. The most frequent imperative verbs they produced ­were the suppletive forms for the verbs -­pet ‘come’ (tasaaj) and -­b’e ‘go’ (jat). The baby talk word chux ‘sit’ was also produced frequently (Pye 1986). ­These imperatives all lack the imperative prefix ch-­ as well as the dependent status suffix. TIY produced one regularly inflected imperative form of the verb - ­el ‘leave’ (6b). Her production includes the intransitive dependent status suffix - ­oq. The K’iche’ ­children did not produce any examples of the nominalized verb complex. ­Table 6.4 summarizes the forms of K’iche’ verb complexes of two-­year-­old ­children. The K’iche’ ­children’s production of the intransitive verb complex is significant for several reasons. The early production of status suffixes in K’iche’ shows that young c­ hildren can access complex functional distinctions ­under special circumstances. ­Children do not produce telegraphic speech that is limited to major lexical categories in all languages (cf. Brown 1973; Pinker 1984; Radford 1998). In other words, two-­year-­old c­ hildren are not conceptually restricted to producing words that reference s­imple conceptual categories.

The Acquisition of the Mayan Intransitive Verb Complex

141

­table 6.4 ​K’iche’ ­c hildren’s intransitive verb complexes Form

Child’s Production

Change

Indicative verb complex Dependent verb complex

Root+ind IV Root+depIV

Omit aspect, absolutive Omit aspect, absolutive

The K’iche’ verb productions demonstrate the early emergence of productive combinations of verbs and inflections in the ­children’s grammars. The indicative suffix is omitted and the dependent suffix changes from -­oq to -­a when the verb complex is not produced at the end of a phonological phrase. The status changes from phrase-­final to phrase-­medial position are a prominent feature of K’iche’ grammar. The negative, directional, and adverbial particles that follow the verb complex also change forms between the phrase-­medial and phrase-­final position (Larsen 1988; Mondloch 1978). The contrasts between the indicative and dependent verb complexes as well as between the phrase-­medial and phrase-­final forms of ­these verb complexes provide an ideal test of the productivity of the ­children’s morphology. TIY’s utterances in (2b) and (2c) demonstrate her ability to use the indicative status suffix with dif­fer­ent verb roots. The productivity that we find in the K’iche’ c­ hildren’s production of the status suffixes provides further evidence that they can productively access functional projections in their grammar. Thus the data demonstrate that the ­children are not producing verb islands (cf. Tomasello 2000). Their production of imperative forms for regular intransitive verbs (3b) contrasts with their production of the suppletive imperatives (3a) and (3c). Assessments of inflectional productivity should be made in relation to the productivity of the adult language. While we presume that adult speakers have productive control of verb inflections, it is essential to mea­ sure adult productivity in the same way that we mea­sure productivity for ­children and especially for adults speaking to c­ hildren. Barbara Pfeiler and I (Pye and Pfeiler 2014) assessed the productivity of status suffix use for K’iche’ and Yucatec ­children and adults. ­Table 6.5 shows the K’iche’ results for three c­ hildren and three adults speaking to ­children. year-­ old K’iche’ ­ children proThis assessment shows that two-­ duced 70 ­percent of their intransitive verbs with just a single status suffix. While this result suggests that the c­ hildren are producing t­hese intransitive verbs with unanalyzed status suffixes, we find that the adults speaking to the ­children also produced 70 ­percent of their verbs with a single status suffix. The K’iche’ ­children produced 20  ­percent of their

142 chapter 6 ­table 6.5 ​Number and percentage of intransitive verb types in child and adult K’iche’ with multiple suffixes Number and Percentage of Intransitive Verb Types

Age

One Suffix

Percentage

Two Suffixes

Percentage

Three Suffixes

Percentage

TIY

2;0 2;6 3;0

7 12 5

70 71 29

2 4 11

20 24 65

1 1 1

10 6 6

LIN

2;0

7

70

1

10

2

20

CHA

2;6 3;0

7 14

64 70

2 5

18 25

2 1

18 5

Adult-­T IY

22

69

8

25

2

6

Adult- ­C HA

30

77

7

18

2

5

Adult-­AUG

11

69

3

19

2

13

Speaker

verbs with two distinct status suffixes and 10 ­percent of their verbs with three distinct status suffixes. The ­children’s productivity resembles the productivity seen in the adult speech and supports the hypothesis that K’iche’ ­children come to an early knowledge of the use of status suffixes on verbs. I have noted elsewhere that the ­children’s production of the status suffixes in phrase-­medial position is their primary error of commission (Pye 1983; Brown et al. 2013; Pye and Pfeiler 2014). TIY’s utterance in (2a) is an example of this type of overgeneralization. Adult speakers would include a mass object such as joron ‘­water’ in the phonological phrase with the verb, and produce the verb without the status suffix as xee (x-­ ø-­ b’e, cmp-­ abs3-go) rather than xe’k (x-­ ø -­b’e-ik, cmp-­abs3-­go-­indIV). Such overgeneralizations provide further evidence that the ­children are generating their verb complexes productively rather than imitating adult speech. Despite the tendency to overgeneralize the phrase-­fi nal forms to phrase-­medial position, K’iche’ c­ hildren display a statistically significant distinction between ­these contexts in their speech (Pye 1983). A pos­si­ble interpretation of the K’iche’ c­ hildren’s overgeneralization of status suffixes in phrase-­medial position is that they are producing the verbs as frozen forms in which they have not completely analyzed the function of the status suffixes. This interpretation does not explain why the ­children would make this type of overgeneralization and not o ­ thers. If the ­children did not have a complete understanding of the status suf-

The Acquisition of the Mayan Intransitive Verb Complex

143

fixes, they would be expected to produce the indicative status suffix in imperative contexts or vice versa. Their demonstrated ability to use the indicative and dependent status suffixes appropriately rules out a blanket use of the verbs as frozen forms. A more likely explanation for the overgeneralization of status suffixes in phrase-­medial position is that ­these are not phrase-­medial positions for the ­children. The performance-­based account of the ­children’s inability to produce complete syllable sequences is compatible with difficulties producing complete phonological phrases in a fluid adult manner. The ­children’s apparent status suffix overgeneralizations actually mark places in their utterances where they have difficulty putting words together into sentences. ­Because ­these places mark the end of a phonological phrase in the ­children’s utterances, the use of the status suffixes is appropriate and follows the rules for their use in the adult grammar. The most impor­tant aspect of the K’iche’ c­ hildren’s verb production is that it is not lexically or semantically driven. This point is obvious in TIY’s production of the final consonants of the verb roots in (5b), (5c), and (6b). If ­children initially followed a semantic bootstrapping procedure, they would be expected to isolate lexical roots and produce them (cf. Brown 1973; Pinker 1984; Radford 1996). TIY is not compelled to produce the verb roots in the verb complex any more than she is compelled to produce the aspect and person markers in the verb complex. I have proposed that K’iche’ ­children’s verb production is prosodicly driven rather than semantically or morphologically driven (Pye 1983). The K’iche’ verb complex is ideally suited to demonstrating the role that metrical structure plays in ­children’s language production. K’iche’ places the primary lexical stress on the final syllable (Norman 1976:56). This stress rule interacts with the status suffixes so that the primary phrasal stress never falls on the verb root when the verb complex is in utterance-­ final position. TIY’s productions with the status suffix in (5) contain the syllable with the primary stress and show that K’iche’ c­ hildren’s productions are guided by metrical structure rather than a semantically driven pro­cess that begins with lexical roots. The K’iche’ verb complex provides additional evidence in support of intonationally driven language production. If K’iche’ c­hildren’s production is guided by the metrical structure of the verb complex, we expect to find ­children adding CV(C)-­shaped syllables rather than morphemes to their developing verb complex. I provide examples of t­hese developing verb complexes in (7).

144 chapter 6

(7)  The development of TIY’s intransitive verb complex in K’iche’ Age a.

b.

c.

TIY’s form

En­glish translation

2;1.30 ­

‘I ­go’. kin’eek. =  k-­in-­b’ee-ik inc-­abs1-­go-­ind IV 2;1.30 ay, ­kisik. ‘It ­stopped’. = x-­ -­k’is-ik cmp-­abs3-­end-­ind IV 2;3.19 pulik ee ­nah. ‘That was face down ­mom’. = x-­ -­jup-­ul-ik e nan cmp-­abs3-­face_down-­pos-­ind IV that

d.

2;3.19

e.

2;7.8

f.

2;7.21

g.

2;7.21

h.

2;7.28

i.

2;9.29­

j.

2;10.5 ­

mom ay kopan, jun chik. = ay k-­ -­opan, jun chi-­k ay inc-­abs3-­arrive, one more-­status atinik sep ­cha’. = k-­ -­atin-ik, al sep cha’ inc-­abs3-­bathe-­ind IV, fam sep say lan kanoq ­cha’. = x-­ -­mula-­n kan-oq cha’ cmp-­abs3-­gather-ap stay-­status say sutin ee j­uun. = k-­ -­suti-­n    ee juun inc-­abs3-­turn-ap that one janik ­e’. = k-­ -­tzijon-ik e’ inc-­abs3-­talk-­ind IV that rapapik. = k-­ -­rapap-ik inc-­abs3-­fly-­i ndIV paq’inik. = x-­ -­paq’-­i-­n-ik cmp-­abs3-­climb-­pos-­ap-­ind IV

‘One more arrives’.

‘It is bathing Al Sep, he ­says’.

‘It is gathered, he ­says’.

‘That one is ­turning’.

‘That one is ­talking’.

‘It is fl ­ ying’.

‘It ­rose’.

All of TIY’s utterances in (7) use the intransitive indicative status suffix -­ik correctly. Her utterances in (7d), (7f), and (7g) correctly omit the suffix in phrase-­medial position. Her utterances in (7c) and (7h) demonstrate the correct production of the status suffix with the following demonstrative ee ‘­there’. ­These utterances form a minimal contrast

The Acquisition of the Mayan Intransitive Verb Complex

145

with the utterance in (7g) in which the verb is followed by a subject noun phrase that begins with the definite determiner ee ‘the, that’. ­These examples show that the contexts of use of the K’iche’ status suffixes are more complicated than simply occurring at the end of an utterance. The adult use of the status suffixes requires a sophisticated understanding of the demonstratives. TIY produced the incompletive aspect markers with her verb complexes in (7a) and (7d). The production in (7d) has the same CVCVC syllable structure as her utterances in (7b), (7c), and (7g), and yet t­ hese latter productions omit the obligatory aspect prefixes. The completive aspect marker x-­that TIY omits in (7b), (7c), and (7j) forms a complex consonant onset, which TIY simplifies by omitting the aspect marker. The incompletive aspect marker k-­that TIY omits in (7g) and (7i) forms a separate syllable by adding the epenthetic vowel /a/. The added complexity of the syllable structure created by the aspect markers explains aspect omission better than appeals to the inaccessibility of functional projections do. The examples in (7) contain examples of other morphemes in addition to the aspect marker and status suffix. TIY’s utterances in (7f) and (7g) contain the antipassive suffix -­n , which derives an intransitive stem from a transitive verb stem. Her utterance in (7c) contains the participle suffix -­ul attached to a positional verb, and her utterance in (7j) contains the -­i suffix that derives an intransitive verb from a positional root. TIY can produce dif­fer­ent types of derivational affixes as long as they do not violate her syllable structure template. TIY produced the evidential verb cha’ ‘say’ at the end of her utterances in (7e) and (7f). The evidential verb occupies a unique position at the ends of utterances rather than in the utterance-­initial position where verbs usually occur. The evidential verb is optionally inflected for aspect and absolutive person markers. The evidential verb marks a new phonological phrase so adult speakers produce status suffixes on verbs and other words that precede the evidential verb. TIY’s utterance in (7f) has a verb that correctly omits the status suffix preceding the directional particle kan ‘stay’. This directional derives from the intransitive verb kan ‘stay’, and in TIY’s utterance correctly contains the dependent status suffix - ­oq preceding the evidential verb. In sum, the development of TIY’s intransitive verb complex between 2;0 and 2;9 can be explained by assuming that TIY has a sophisticated understanding of the verbal morphology but omits syllables that do not fit her developing metrical template. The significance of the K’iche’ status

146 chapter 6

suffixes is that they show the degree to which production constraints limit ­children’s ability to produce the intransitive verb complex. They also reveal the ­children’s intricate knowledge of K’iche’ phonology. Larsen (1988) describes many phonological features that apply to final syllables in K’iche’, including vowel lengthening and vowel harmony. The K’iche’ ­children demonstrate an early mastery of ­these phonological features that underlie their production of the verb complex.

6.2 Acquisition of the Intransitive Verb Complex in Mam Examples of the Mam c­hildren’s intransitive indicative verb forms are shown in (8). Mam ­children, like K’iche’ ­children, regularly omit the aspect and person markers from the beginning of the verb complex. WEN’s utterance in (8a) contains part of the verb root and the familiar classifier. Her utterance in (8b) adds an /n/ to the verb root -­oq’. Her production in (8c) contains the verb root and locative object. It omits the aspect marker, nonhuman classifier, and the possessed relational noun. (8)  Mam intransitive indicative productions (WEN 2;0.2) a.  ke ixh.  =  n-­chi

skueela-­n  b’ixh.

inc-­abs6 school-­der ­fam ‘They are schooling’. b. ­o’n. = n-­ø    ’oq’ ­ jal. inc-­abs3 cry nh ‘It’s crying’. c.  axh kul. jax   jaq’  k’ul. = n-­ø    jal t-­  inc-­abs3 climb nh erg3-on  mountain ‘It climbs on the mountain’.

WEN omits the progressive aspect marker n-­in all of ­these examples. The aspect marker forms its own syllable in the adult forms of the verbs in (8a) and (8c) before the following consonants. The verb root -’oq’ ‘cry’ in (8b) begins with a glottal stop, and so in this case, the aspect marker also constitutes a separate syllable. WEN omits t­ hese initial syllables in each of her examples.

The Acquisition of the Mayan Intransitive Verb Complex

147

Examples of the Mam c­ hildren’s intransitive imperative verb forms are shown in (9). The only overt marker on most intransitive imperative verbs in Mam is the second-­person enclitic. WEN’s imperative verbs in (9a) and (9b) omit the second-­person enclitic. WEN’s utterance in (9c) contains a suppletive form of an imperative verb. WEN produced the suppletive form, but substituted the velar stop /k/ for the uvular stop /q/, which is common for c­ hildren acquiring Mayan languages (cf. Pye, Ingram, and List 1987). (9)  Mam child imperative verb forms (WEN 1;10–2;0) a.  ne Nuya! nej-­ a    Nuya = 

b.  ta wu’! =  tzaj-­a    w-­uk’al-­a

c.  ko Nuya! =  qo   Nuya

wait-­abs2  Nuya

come-­abs2 erg1-­w ith-­erg1

go_abs4 Nuya

‘Wait Nuya’!

‘Come with me’!

‘Let’s go Nuya’!

WEN’s examples illustrate the most frequent intransitive imperative verb forms in the Mam c­ hildren’s speech—­the verbs -­nej ‘wait’ and qo ‘let’s go’. WEN’s omission of the enclitic -­a in (9a) and (9b) is typical of Mam child utterances and also occurs in the indicative and nominalized moods. ­These examples have a minimal contrast in syllable structure between the name Nuya and that in the imperative verb form neja ‘wait’. This contrast shows that WEN had the ability to produce the complete imperative verb form, but she systematically omitted the production of the second-­ person enclitic -­a . The Mam ­children, like the K’iche’ ­children, produce suppletive imperative verbs before the age of two years. The verb tzaj ‘come’ in Mam has a regular imperative form unlike the suppletive imperative form of the verb pet ‘come’ in K’iche’. It is not surprising to find that c­ hildren produce suppletive verb forms for high frequency verbs. The Mam data allow us to separate frequency from suppletion and show that Mam c­ hildren apply a general pro­cess of enclitic omission even in the case of high frequency verbs and moods. The omission of the aspect and person markers before the verb, together with the omission of the enclitic, explains why c­ hildren acquiring Mam produce intransitive verb roots rather than roots with status suffixes as K’iche’ ­children do. The enclitic is unique to the Mamean person marking paradigm. Non-­ Mamean languages do not use the combination of prefix and enclitic to mark person. Both ergative and absolutive person marking paradigms

148 chapter 6

use the same enclitic to distinguish between the local persons (first and second persons) from the nonlocal third person. The absolutive prefixes distinguish the first person from the non-­fi rst persons (second and third). The ergative and absolutive person markers for Mam are shown in (10). The first person ergative person marker has one form (n-) for verbs that begin with consonants and another form (w-) for verbs that begin with vowels. The enclitic varies between a form (-­a) for verbs that end in a consonant and a form (-ya) for verbs that end in a vowel. (10)  Mam ergative and absolutive person markers (­England 1983:56) Person Ergative Absolutive Enclitic First

n-­/w-­

chin-­

-­a /-­ya

Second

t-­

ø-­/tz-­/tz’-­/ k-­1

-­a /-­ya

Third

t-­

ø-­/tz-­/tz’-­/ k-­

­England (1976) traces the origin of the enclitic in Mam to enclitics that express politeness in the related language Awakatek. Similar politeness enclitics (laal second formal singular and alaq second formal plural) occur in K’iche’ (Mondloch 1978:15). The enclitics in Awakatek and K’iche’ occur ­a fter the verb just like the enclitic in Mam. The Tacaná western variety of Mam has a four-­way enclitic distinction. E ­ ngland (1983:96n1) states that “Ixtahuacán Mam has simply applied vowel-­neutralization rules to the enclitics.” The person enclitic follows all other enclitics a­ fter the verb stem (­England 1983:316). E ­ ngland provides the example in (11) in which the person enclitic -­a follows the directional -­x ‘away’ and the adverbial clitics tzan ‘well’ and tl ‘other’. (11)  Mam enclitic use (­England 1983:310) n-­q-­ee-­x-­tzan-­tl-­a

q’amaa-­l 

prog- ­erg4-­go_out-­away-­well-­again- ­enc 

say-­i nf   erg3-rn  erg6- ­dat

t-­e

ky-­e

   q-­uuk’al-­a    erg4-­w ith-­enc ‘And we went out again to tell the ­others’.

1. ø-­nonpotential C-­initial root; tz-­‘arrive ­here’ and ‘pass by’; tz’-­V-­initial root; k-­potential.

The Acquisition of the Mayan Intransitive Verb Complex

149

The Mam enclitic is exceptional in many ways. The enclitic is highly frequent in the adult language. It is used with both ergative and absolutive sets of person markers and is used in the imperative, indicative, and nominalized moods. B ­ ecause it is used with the ergative markers, the enclitic also marks possession on nouns. The relational noun q-­uuk’al-­a ‘by us’ in (11) ends with the enclitic. The enclitic frequently occurs in utterance-­final position ­after verbs and nouns. Its phrase-­final position and its use with both sets of person markers and all three moods should ensure that the enclitic would appear early in the speech of Mam ­children. However this expectation is unmet. Examples of the Mam c­ hildren’s intransitive nominalized verb forms are shown in (12). WEN’s utterance in (12a) and JOS’s utterance in (9c) contain vowel-­initial verbs. Mayan c­ hildren regularly produce the ergative person markers on vowel-­initial verbs. WEN’s utterance in (12b) omits the ergative person marker. (12)  Mam intransitive nominalized productions (Pye et al. 2013) a. taaxh jhunt kuun. WEN (2;0.25) =  i 

t-­ajs

junt  q-­u’n

so  erg3-­return

one 

erg4-­by

‘So that another returns by us’. b. kuujh  kin. =  i 

t-­kub’

WEN (2;0.25) ja  chikin

so  erg3-­down it ­here ‘So that it stays h ­ ere’. c. i tok mah’. JOS (2;6.14) =  i 

t-ok

mal . . . ​

so erg3-­enter that ‘So that that enters . . .’.

The acquisition data from Mam provide an in­de­pen­dent test of the intonational account of language production that I previously applied to the K’iche’ data. This account predicts that ­children have an initial constraint on the number of syllables that they produce and that they begin by producing the stressed syllables in words. The rule of stress assignment is more complex in Mam than in K’iche’. E ­ ngland (1983:​37–38) states that stress falls on the long vowel in a word, or if the word does not

150 chapter 6

have a long vowel, stress falls on the vowel preceding the last glottal stop in the word. Other­wise, stress falls on the vowel preceding the last consonant in the root. E ­ ngland notes that suffixes and enclitics are not stressed ­unless they contain a long vowel or glottal stop. Mam has an in­de­pen­dent constraint that only allows words to have a single long vowel. We can apply ­these observations to the Mam verb in (11). The analy­sis in (13) shows the metrical structure (13a) and morphological structure (13b) of this verb. The accent marks the primary stress. (13)  Mam metrical structure a.  Metrical structure

n qéex tzant la

b. 

n-­q-­ee-­x-­tzan-­tl-­a

Morphological ­structure



prog-­erg4-­go_out-­away-­well-­again-­enc



‘And we went out again’.

The primary lexical stress falls on the syllable /qéex/ that contains the ergative person marker /q/, the verb root /ee/ and the directional verb /x/. The two following syllables are unstressed. The consonants of the enclitic -­tl ‘again’ are divided between two syllables, and the /l/ of this enclitic combines with the person enclitic to form the final syllable of the verb complex. As this example shows, the person enclitic regularly forms a final unstressed syllable with the final verb consonant. If the verb stem ends in a vowel, Mam introduces the epenthetic glide /y/ that forms a final syllable with the person enclitic. Part of the difficulty in acquiring the person enclitic involves learning how the person enclitic syllabifies with the verb stem. ­England also describes the junctures that occur between the dif­fer­ent parts of the verb complex in Mam. She states that the aspect markers and absolutive person markers that have vowels are phonologically ­free (1983:40) and writes them with a following space. The juncture properties of the aspect and absolutive person markers, and the separability of the person enclitic add a new dimension to the intonational account. It is no surprise that juncture would play a prominent role in computing the prosody of the verb complex. The difference between juncture in K’iche’ and Mam can be seen in the developing verb complex in the two languages. All of WEN’s utterances in (8), (9), and (12) contain words with the primary lexical stress. Further examples of WEN’s developing intransitive verb complex are shown in (14).

The Acquisition of the Mayan Intransitive Verb Complex

151

(14)  The development of WEN’s intransitive verb complex in Mam Age a. 2;1.7

WEN’s form

En­glish translation

chich wey.

‘I am nursing’.

=  n  chin chichi-­n

w-­eky’

prog abs1 nurse-­der  erg1-­poss b. 2;1.7

maach wey mam.

‘I went with mama’.

=  ma chin-xi’ w-­eky’

t-­uk’il

mama

rec abs1-go erg1-­poss erg3-­w ith mamá c. 2;3.18

chinxh lo te njh. =  ma chin-­x i’-­a

‘I went to look at it’.

lo-­l

t-­e

jal

rec abs1-­go-­enc see-­i nf erg3-­poss nh d. 2;3.18

maa ki’ jh. =  ma t-xi’

‘It went’. jal

rec abs3-go nh e. 2;6

mam tajh kiy. =  mami tzaaj-­a 

‘Moma come see’. ki-­l

mami come-­enc see-­i nf f. 2;6

tzok Nuy.

‘Come in Nuya’.

=  tzaj-­ok-­a

Nuya

toward-­enter-­enc  Nuya g. 2;7.16

ti ­tam. =  n-­chi

‘The men are playing’. saqchan ma

prog-­abs6  play h. 2;7.16

cl.man

ti tan j­ha. =  n-­chi

‘They are s­ leeping’. tan

jal

prog-­abs6 sleep cl.nh

WEN’s utterances between 2;0 and 2;7 generally omit the aspect and person absolutive absolutive prefixes, although she produced the first-­ marker chin in (14c) and produced the recent past tense marker maa in (14d). She omitted the enclitic in all of her utterances. The verb xi’ ‘go’ is irregular (­England 1983:65), and WEN produced the complete complex with this verb in (14d), if we assume that she substituted /k/ for the retroflex affricate  [= tʂ]. WEN produced a contrasting form of this verb in (14c). She produced contrasting forms of the verb tzaaj ‘come’ at 2;6, and produced the verbs saqchan ‘play’ and tan ‘sleep’ with the third-­person plural absolutive marker chi (WEN ti) at 2;7.16 in (14g) and (14h).

152 chapter 6 ­table 6.6 ​The forms of Mam ­c hildren’s intransitive verb complexes Form

Child’s Form

Change

Indicative verb complex Imperative verb complex Nominalized verb complex

Root Root Root

Omit aspect, absolutive, enclitic Omit enclitic Omit ergative, enclitic

­There are also signs that WEN is beginning to produce directional auxiliary verbs. The directional auxiliaries are derived from verbs of motion and indicate the direction of movement. Unlike K’iche’, which only incorporates two verbs of motion, Mam incorporates eleven such verbs and allows up to three directionals in a verb complex. WEN’s utterance in (14f) contains the directional tzaj ‘­toward’, which contracts with the verb ok ‘enter’ to form the syllable /tzok/. I summarize the early forms of Mam ­children’s intransitive verb complexes in ­Table 6.6. Mam two-year-olds frequently reduce the intransitive verb complex in all moods to a syllable of the verb root. Even though the intransitive verb complexes are composed of similar morphemes in K’iche’ and Mam, ­children acquiring t­hese languages produce dif­fer­ent parts of the complex. K’iche’ c­ hildren produce verbs with status suffixes. Mam does not have status suffixes, but it does use a person enclitic, which Mam ­children omit. Differences in the juncture and stress features of the verb complex allow Mam ­children to produce aspect and absolutive prefixes early, although they frequently omit them.

6.3 Acquisition of the Intransitive Verb Complex in Ch’ol Examples of the Ch’ol c­ hildren’s intransitive indicative verb forms are shown in (15). The indicative forms are limited to verbs in the completive aspect in Ch’ol ­because Ch’ol requires the nominalized forms of verbs for the incompletive and progressive aspects. Ch’ol c­ hildren typically omit the aspect markers in their indicative verb complexes. The examples in (15b) and (15c) show that EMA often omitted the indicative status suffix in many of his utterances. EMA produced almost all of his intransitive verbs with the zero third-­person absolutive marker so ­there is almost no evidence for his production of the absolutive markers. The example in (15c) is notable ­because EMA contracts the initial consonant of the aspect

The Acquisition of the Mayan Intransitive Verb Complex

153

marker with the vowel of the verb root. Such contractions are relatively frequent in EMA’s speech, in comparison to the productions of K’iche’ and Mam ­children. (15)  Ch’ol intransitive indicative verb productions (EMA 2;1.30) a. chämi. =  tyi chäm-­i-­ø

b. tyo. =  tyi tyojp’-­i-­ø

c. tya’. =  tyi yajl-­i-­ø

  cmp die-­ ind IV-­abs3    cmp break-­ind IV-­abs3

cmp fall-­indIV-­abs3

   ‘It died’.

‘It fell’.

‘It broke’.

Unlike the imperative verb forms in Mam and K’iche’, intransitive imperative verbs in Ch’ol are not inflected for aspect or person. Imperative verbs in Ch’ol only have an imperative status suffix. Examples of Ch’ol ­children’s intransitive imperative verb forms are shown in (16). EMA’s utterance in (16a) contains two consecutive intransitive imperative verbs. The verb majlel ‘go’ has a suppletive imperative ku, while the verb - ­och ‘enter’ takes the regular intransitive imperative status suffix. I write the intransitive imperative suffix as -­eñ even though adult speakers produce it as -­e. The example in (16a) puts both verbs together into a single complex with ku acting as a movement verb. The example in (16b) contains an imperative of the positional verb buch ‘sit’, which has the imperative suffix -­i. The verb tyälel ‘come’ in (16c) has the suppletive imperative la’. The examples in (16) show that the Ch’ol c­ hildren are generally successful in producing the imperative status suffixes on intransitive verbs and positionals. (16)  Ch’ol imperative intransitive verb productions (EMA 2;2) a.  kuchi oche!

=  ku chiñ och-­eñ

b. tochi’!

c. tyityo la’!

=  buch-­i

=  kiko la’



go then enter-­impIV

sit-­i mpPOS

kiko come



‘Go then enter’!

‘Sit’!

‘Kiko come’!

Examples of the Ch’ol c­ hildren’s nominalized intransitive verb forms are shown in (17). Nominalized intransitive verbs in the adult language have ergative subject markers. EMA only produced part of the verb root wok ‘suffer’ in (17a) and produced a part of the verb root ajñ ‘run’ and the nominalized status suffix in (17b). His production of the nominalized

154 chapter 6

verbs resembles his production of the indicative verb forms in (15) in that he does not produce the entire verb roots. EMA did not produce the ergative subject marker in e­ ither of ­these utterances. (17)  Ch’ol nominalized intransitive verb productions (EMA 2;1.30) a. chu chuj wo.

b. ñe.

= jiñi chup  chon tyi  i-­wok-ol this bug  

=  mi i- ­cha’l-­eñ-­ø

prog cmp erg3-­

iy-­ajñ-­el

inc ​erg3-­do-­i nd IV-­abs3 erg3-

suffer-­n m IV  ­run-­n m IV

‘This bug is suffering’.

‘He is r­ unning’.

I provide further examples of EMA’s intransitive verb utterances in (18) that show how the intransitive verb complex developed between the ages of 2;3.10 and 2;10.20. EMA regularly omits the completive aspect markers tyi/ta (18a), (18d), (18e), and (18f) and the incompletive aspect marker mi (18i) and (18k) throughout this period. He only begins to use the progressive verb chon(kol) by the end of this period (18n) and (18p). The ergative subject marker is used in incompletive and progressive contexts, and EMA used the first-­person ergative marker /k/ with a vowel-­initial verb och ‘enter’ in (18i). He produced the third-­person ergative marker /i/ with the progressive construction in (18n), but not in (18p) nor in the incompletive utterance in (18k). The overwhelming majority of EMA’s intransitive utterances with the completive aspect have third-­person subjects, which take the zero absolutive suffix.

(18)  The development of EMA’s intransitive verb complex in Ch’ol Age a. 2;3.10

EMA’s form

En­glish translation

yali letyo.

‘Still look, it fell’.

=  tyi  yajl-­i-­ø     k’el-­ e-­ tyo

cmp fall-­ind IV-­abs3 look-­i mp-­still b. 2;3.10

tyij chi’. =  tyi 



tyijk-­i-­ø ts’i’

cmp jump-­ind IV-­abs3 dog c. 2;6.18

i ñumi. = tyi  ñum-­i-­ø



‘The dog jumped’.

cmp pass-­indIV-­abs3

‘It passed by’.

The Acquisition of the Mayan Intransitive Verb Complex d. 2;6.18

maj. =  tyi 



155

‘He went’. majl-­i-­ø

cmp go-­indIV-­abs3

e. 2;6.18 ­satyi.

‘It already ­died’.

= ta-ix    sajty-­ i-­ ø

cmp-­already die-­ind IV-­abs3

f. 2;6.18

oty.

‘He arrived’.

= tyi  k`oty-­i-­ø

cmp arrive-­ind IV-­abs3

g. 2;10.20

cha loki yaya’.

‘He went out again t­ here’.

= ya’i tyi cha’ lok’-­ i-­ ø ­there cmp again exit-­ind IV-­abs3 h. 2;10.20

la ikuch lum.

‘Come carry dirt.’

= la’  i-­kuch  lum. i. 2;10.20

come erg3-­carry dirt mi koche ma.

‘I am ­going to enter’.

= mi k-­ och-­ e     ma. inc erg1-­enter-­n m IV go

j. 2;10.20

chu chuli an.

‘It fractured’.

= tyi  xu   l-­i-­ø k. 2;10.20

cmp fracture -­ind IV-­abs3 leche ma.

‘He is ­going to climb’.

=  mi i-­lets-­e

ma.

inc erg3-­climb-­n m IV go

l. 2;10.20

­ abayu. tyaw k

­ orse is c­ oming’. ‘A h

= tyäl-­ø kabayu. come-­abs3 ­horse

m. 2;10.20

‘It fell’.

yali. =  tyi  yajl-­i-­ø cmp fall-­ind IV-­abs3

n. 2;10.20

chon iletse ma. =  chon i-­lets-­e

o. 2;10.20

prog erg3-­climb-­n m IV go tax  pajtyi. =  ta-ix



cmp-­already 

p. 2;10.20

‘He is ­going climbing’. ma. ‘It already ­fell’.

p’ajty-­i-­ø fall-­ind IV-­abs3

ay chon patye  bu’u.



=  ay chon i-­p’ajty-­e ​bu’u. ay prog erg3-­fall-­n m IV beans

‘Ay the beans are falling’.

156 chapter 6

EMA’s production of the status suffixes improved over this period. At 2;2, he produced the nominalized status suffix -­e in seven of thirteen obligatory contexts (54 ­percent). He produced the indicative status suffix -­i in five of twenty obligatory contexts (25 ­percent). He produced verbs with the indicative status suffix in (18a), (18c), (18e), (18g), (18j), (18m), and (18o). The utterance in (18j) is impor­tant ­because the verb is passivized as indicated by the infixed -­j-­ in the adult form. His incompletive and progressive verbs have the participle suffix -­e in (18i), (18k), (18n), and (18p). His utterances in (18o) and (18p) show a contrast between the completive and progressive forms of the verb p’ajty. This verb applies to falling fruit, meat, money, and tortillas, in contrast to the verb yajl (18a), which applies to falling ­people. I assessed the productivity of the Ch’ol ­children’s use of the intransitive status suffixes by comparing their production with the adult production of intransitive verb suffixes. I excluded the verbs with suppletive forms from this analy­sis (ku ‘go!’ and la’ ‘come!’). ­T hese suppletive forms ­were the most frequent forms that the c­ hildren and adults produced. I also excluded the form ma of the verb -­majl ‘go’ that is used to indicate movement associated with another action. Fi­nally, I excluded contrasts that resulted from the omission of the status suffixes in their obligatory contexts. ­T hese exclusions limit the productivity analy­sis to verbs with regularly contrasting incompletive, completive, and imperative status suffixes. The results are shown in ­Table 6.7. The adult speakers produced the intransitive status suffixes in all of their obligatory contexts. The status suffixes w ­ ere: -­i on completive verbs, -­e on incompletive verbs, and -­eñ on imperative verbs. EMA produced contrasting suffixes on the verbs -­lets ‘climb’, -­majl ‘go’, -­k ’ax ‘pass’, and -­wa’ ‘stand’. His contrasting productions for the verb lets are shown in (19).

­table 6.7 ​Number and percentage of intransitive verb types in child and adult Ch’ol with multiple suffixes Number and Percentage of Intransitive Verb Types Speaker EMA EMA MA MA Adult-­EMA

Age

One Suffix

Percentage

Two Suffixes

Percentage

2;1:30 2;3.10 1;11.18 2;3.12

14 18 10 26 11

78 78 91 96 92

4 5 1 1 1

22 22 9 4 8

The Acquisition of the Mayan Intransitive Verb Complex

157

I analyzed the form in (19a) as having the imperative suffix and the form in (19b) as omitting the incompletive suffix. (19)  Contrasting suffixes for EMA (2;2.13) a. Imperative

b. Incompletive

lete! tye. =  mi k-­lets-­e =  lets-­eñ   climb-­impIV

inc erg1-­climb-­n m IV

‘climb’!

‘I am climbing’.

One notable feature of EMA’s grammar from 2;0 is the use of vari­ous adverbial modifiers. He used the motion verb la’ ‘come’ in (18h), and the directional ma ‘go’ in (18i), (18k), and (18n). He used the adverbial clitic -­t yo ‘still’ (18a) frequently. He added the repetitive particle cha’ ‘again’ in (18g) and the completive particle ix ‘already’ in (18o). He omitted the latter particle earlier in (18e). ­Children acquiring Ch’ol reduce words more often than c­hildren acquiring other Mayan languages do. Many of EMA’s words in (15) and (18) only have a CV syllable structure. The ­children acquiring other Mayan languages produce a larger proportion of words with a CVC structure. A comparison of EMA’s intransitive verb production at two and three years of age does not indicate much development other than a higher rate of speech (20). (20)  EMA’s intransitive verbs at 2 and 3 years of age (Ch’ol) 2;1.30 3;0.17 a. Incompletive tyatyo. tyäle. =  tyal-­oñ-­tyo

=  ya’ tyal-­el-­ø

come-­abs1-­still

here come-­inc-­abs3

‘I still come’.

‘­Here she comes’.

b. Completive mi’ ­tyo. =  tyi ​tyojp’-­i-­ø

pu’. =  tyi ​pul-­i-­ø

cmp break- ­cmp-­abs3

cmp burn- ­cmp-­abs3

‘It broke’.

‘It burned’.

158 chapter 6

c. Imperative oche! = och-en

letse ma ilayi! =  lets-­ en  ma ilayi

enter-­impIV

climb-­impIV go ­here

‘Enter’!

‘Go climb ­here’!

EMA’s two-­year-­old incompletive utterance tyatyo contains the adverbial clitic tyo ‘already’, but omits the first-­person absolutive suffix. The verb is irregular and is not marked for aspect or status. His three-­year-­ old incompletive utterance tyäle ends in a vowel that I interpret as the incompletive status suffix -­el. His imperative utterances in (20c) both end in the same vowel. ­These utterances show that EMA does not produce distinctive status suffixes on incompletive and imperative intransitive verbs. His completive utterances in (20b) show that he frequently omitted the second syllable of verbs that include the completive status suffix -­i . ­T here is some uncertainty with regard to stress assignment in Ch’ol. Aulie and de Aulie (1978:xx) state that stress occurs on the final closed syllable. They do not provide examples with final open syllables. Vázquez Álvarez (2011) states that Ch’ol stress occurs on the final syllable but only provides examples that end with the plural marker la. The plural marker follows absolutive markers in the completive aspect, but follows the incompletive aspect marker preceding the verb stem. Vázquez Álvarez (70) notes that the aspect markers in Ch’ol are auxiliary verbs that undergo allomorphic changes when they are followed by a second position clitic. Their auxiliary status separates them from the rest of the verb complex. The examples of EMA’s verb production that I have provided to this point provide evidence that a stress shift in line with Aulie and de Aulie’s description of stress placement is occurring in Tila, the town where EMA lived. A shift of lexical stress to the first syllable of the verb root would lead to the production of the status suffixes as unstressed syllables. The loss of the final consonants in the nominalized status suffix -­el and the imperative status suffix -­en would follow from this stress shift, and by Aulie and de Aulie’s stress rule reinforce the main stress on the verb root. This account would explain why EMA reduced so many verbs to their initial CV sequence as seen in his productions in (20b). His imperative productions in (20c) show that he can add another open syllable to produce imperative verbs with the syllable structure CVCV.

The Acquisition of the Mayan Intransitive Verb Complex

159

In sum, ­children acquire the suppletive forms of the verbs ‘come’ and ‘go’ early in Ch’ol. Two-­year-­old Ch’ol speakers just produce the initial syllable of verb roots and omit the preceding aspect and person markers. They produce the indicative and imperative status suffixes on verbs, but not consistently. They have a tendency to produce only a single syllable of the verb complex, which sometimes results in a contraction between the aspect marker and the verb root. The production of stressed syllables predicts the majority of their verb forms, but they also add directional and adverbial particles.

6.4 Summary ­ able  6.8 summarizes the ­children’s production of the intransitive verb T complexes in three moods. The results show some pan-­Mayan generalizations. Mayan ­children generally omit the aspect and person markers from the preverbal position and produce the status and person markers in postverbal position (Brown et al. 2013). The comparative method allows us to look more closely at how ­these general pro­cesses affect the acquisition of each language. A per­for­mance constraint based on the number of syllables that the ­children can produce accounts for the forms of the ­children’s intransitive verb complexes. Two-­year-­old c­ hildren acquiring K’iche’, Mam, and Ch’ol generally produce a single syllable of the verb complex. C ­ hildren acquiring K’iche’ and Mam produce closed syllables, while c­hildren acquiring Ch’ol produce open syllables. Which syllable the c­ hildren produce, ­whether open or closed, depends on the inflections and stress pattern of the verb complex. If a language lacks status suffixes, as in the case of Mam, the primary stress falls on the verb root, and the ­children produce that syllable. If a language has status suffixes, and if the primary stress is word-­fi nal, the c­ hildren follow the K’iche’ pattern and produce the final consonant of the verb root and the status suffix. If a language has status ­table 6.8 ​­C hildren’s production of intransitive verb complexes in K’iche’, Mam, and Ch’ol Language

Imperative

Indicative

Nominalized

K’iche’ Mam Ch’ol

Root + depIV Root Root + impIV

Root + ind IV Root Root + (indIV)

Root Root + (nom IV)

160 chapter 6

suffixes, and if the stress shifts to the verb root, ­children follow the Ch’ol pattern and produce the initial syllable of the verb root. Although the intransitive verb complexes in K’iche’ and Ch’ol have similar status suffix paradigms, Ch’ol lacks the alternation between phrase-­ medial and phrase-­final verb forms that occurs in K’iche’. The alternation in K’iche’ is associated with a shift in the primary stress from the verb root to the status suffix. The alternation also highlights the use of the status suffixes in K’iche’. As a result of this alternation, K’iche’ ­children and adults produce more contrasting forms of verbs than Ch’ol c­ hildren and adults. The alternation in K’iche’ also explains why two-­year-­old K’iche’ ­children produce the indicative status suffixes in 72 ­percent (TIY) and 92  ­percent (LIN) of their obligatory contexts, but two-­year-­old Ch’ol ­children only produce the indicative status suffixes in 25 ­percent (EMA) of their obligatory contexts. This comparison supports the results of the comparison for K’iche’ and Yucatec status suffixes reported in Pye and Pfeiler (2014). Juncture also plays a key role in determining which syllable in the verb complex Mayan ­children produce. K’iche’ and Ch’ol ­children generally produce the status suffixes. In contrast, c­ hildren acquiring Mam do not produce the person enclitic even though they constantly hear adults using the enclitic on imperative verbs. Juncture is the best explanation why Mayan ­children produce status suffixes but not enclitics. The effect of juncture can be explored further by comparing c­ hildren’s production of similar enclitics in K’iche’ and Ch’ol. Both K’iche’ and Ch’ol have second-­ person forms (K’iche’ lal, Ch’ol la’) that are cognate with the Mam enclitic. This question remains for f­ uture investigation. If juncture defines the right edge of the verb complex, it also defines the left edge and determines both the initial and the final syllables that Mayan ­children produce. The orthographic conventions for the Mayan languages provide information on juncture within the verb complex. The aspect and person markers that precede the verb in Yucatec, Ch’ol, Mam, and K’iche’ are written with spaces ­after them as shown in (21). (21)  Examples of the Mayan intransitive indicative verb ­complex a. Yucatec

b. Ch’ol

h   wen-­ih-­ø.

tyi wäy-­iy-­oñ.

cmp sleep-­ind IV-­abs3

cmp sleep-­indIV-­abs1

‘She/he slept’.

‘I slept’.

The Acquisition of the Mayan Intransitive Verb Complex c. Mam

161

d. K’iche’

ma chin tan-­a.

x-­in-­war-­ik.

rec abs1 sleep-­enc1

cmp-­abs1-­sleep-­i ndIV

‘I slept (­today)’.

‘I slept’.

­These examples follow the orthographic conventions for each language and contain a space before the verb roots in Yucatec (21a), Ch’ol (21b), and Mam (21c). The modern convention in K’iche’ is to write the verb complex as a single word, but Larsen (1988:153) notes that Brasseur de Bourbourg (1862) wrote the aspect and person markers separately from the verb. ­T here are a number of features that separate the prefixes from the verb root. The aspect and person markers combine to form a separate syllable in K’iche’, as they do in Yucatec. Larsen (154–57) lists a number of clitic properties of the absolutive markers and concludes that they are clitic particles. ­Because the primary stress falls on the verb root in phrase-­ medial position, I conclude that the verb stem constitutes a separate prosodic word in K’iche’ as well as in the other Mayan languages. The rules for syllable structure, juncture, and stress predict the forms of the ­children’s verb complexes listed in ­Table 6.8. ­T hese observations confirm my original prosodic account of the K’iche’ ­children’s verb complexes and extend the account to the ­children’s verb complexes in Mam and Ch’ol. ­Because the prosodic account describes the ­children’s per­for­ mance, it is probabilistic in nature. C ­ hildren sometimes produce two or three syllables and sometimes only one. ­Children occasionally metathesize sounds, as WEN does in (8b), or contract the aspect marker and the verb root, like EMA in (15c). The prosodic account makes it pos­si­ble to predict the form of Mayan ­children’s verb complex from the number of syllables they produce. ­T here are a number of ways to test the prosodic account. In the next chapter I ­will use the ­children’s production of transitive verbs as an in­de­ pen­dent test of the prosodic account. New data from other Mayan languages also provide a test of the prosodic account.

chapter seven

The Acquisition of the Mayan Transitive Verb Complex

C

hapter 6 provided an overview of the acquisition of the intransitive Mayan verb complex and sketched a prosodic account that explains the forms of the c­ hildren’s verbal utterances. In this chapter, I provide an overview of the acquisition of the transitive verb complex in K’iche’, Mam, and Ch’ol. The structure of the transitive verb complex differs considerably from that of the intransitive verb complex and provides an in­ de­pen­dent test of the prosodic account. ­T here are five main parts to the transitive verb complex: the aspect ­prefix, the subject marker, the verb root, the object marker, and the status suffix. The subject marker and status suffix differ from t­ hose in the intransitive verb complex. The aspect marker, subject marker, and status suffix are interdependent and together indicate mood. ­Table 7.1 pres­ents inflectional templates for transitive verbs in three moods in the three languages. In ­these three languages, the transitive verb complexes are more distinct than the intransitive verb complexes are. Motion verbs can be incorporated into the transitive verb complex in all three languages, but they occur more frequently in Mam than in K’iche’ and Ch’ol. The incorporation of motion verbs results in the addition of a dependent suffix in Mam and K’iche’. Mam shifts the motion verbs to a postverb position in the imperative mood and adds the enclitic particle to transitive verbs with first-­ and second-­person subjects. Mam also uses the ergative person markers twice on nominalized transitive verbs: first to indicate the object, and second to indicate the subject. K’iche’ uses a dependent verb form in place of the imperative verb forms seen in Mam and Ch’ol. K’iche’ restricts verb

The Acquisition of the Mayan Transitive Verb Complex

163

­table 7.1 ​The transitive verb complex in K’iche’, Mam, and Ch’ol Mood

K’iche’

Mam

Ch’ol

Indicative

Asp-­abs- ­erg-­root-­ indTV

Asp-­abs-­motion erg-­root-­ dep (enclitic)

Asp erg root-­i ndTV-­abs

Imperative

Asp-­abs- ­erg-­ root-­depTV

Abs root-­i mpTV motion ­enclitic

Root-­i mpTV-­abs

Nominalized

Erg-­root-­ap-­n m IV

Ergobj-­motion ergsubj-­root (enclitic)

Erg-­root-­n mTV-­abs

nominalization to intransitive verb stems. Transitive verbs must first be passivized or antipassivized in order to be nominalized. All three languages have root and derived classes of transitive verbs; the inflections of the derived transitive verbs differ from t­ hose of the root transitive verbs. Derived transitive verbs in K’iche’ have the suffix -­V Vj, where the vowel of the suffix harmonizes with the vowel of the verb stem. Derived transitive verbs in Ch’ol have the imperative suffix -­Vñ. Mam has leveled most of the distinctions between root and derived transitive verbs, but passivizes the two classes differently. The verb -­il ‘see’ is a root transitive verb in K’iche’ and Mam, but a derived transitive verb in Ch’ol. ­Table 7.2 shows the status suffix distinctions on root and derived transitive verbs. The structure of the Mayan transitive verb complex provides an in­de­ pen­dent test of the prosodic account of c­ hildren’s verb production that I presented in Chapter  6. The ­children’s production of transitive verbs in K’iche’ and Ch’ol should be similar to their production of intransitive verbs in that both languages apply the same prosodic rules to transitive and intransitive verbs. The K’iche’ c­ hildren should begin with the final syllable of the transitive verbs, which contains the final consonant of the verb root and the status suffix. The Ch’ol ­children should begin with the initial syllable of the verb root and sometimes add the status suffix. K’iche’ provides evidence of how quickly the c­ hildren distinguish the status suffixes for root and derived transitive verbs, as well as the distinction between the status suffixes for transitive and intransitive verbs. The story is very dif­fer­ent in Mam. In addition to grappling with the obligatory use of directionals with transitive verbs, ­children acquiring Mam must learn the use of the dependent suffix -­‘n that appears on transitive verbs with incorporated motion verbs. This suffix as well as the position of the motion verbs changes in the imperative forms. If Mam

164

chapter 7

­table 7.2 ​Status suffixes on root and derived transitive verbs in K’iche’ and Ch’ol K’iche’

Ch’ol

Aspect/Mood

Root

Derived

Root

Derived

Incompletive Completive Imperative

(-­V) (-­V) -­a’

-­V Vj -­V Vj -­V Vj

-­ -­V -­V

-­Vñ -­V -­Vñ

­table 7.3 ​Syllable bound­a ries and stress in the Mayan transitive verb complexes Root Transitive

Derived Transitive k-­ -­a / tzu / q-­úuj ch-­ -­a / tzu / q-­úuj u / tzu / q-­u / n-­í ik

K’iche’

Indicative Imperative Nominalized

k-­ -­a / b’a / n-(óh) ch-­ -­a / b’a / n-­á’ u / b’aa / n-­í ik

Mam

Indicative Imperative Nominalized

ma / chin / t-­í l / a chi / -­t zyúu-­n / ka-tz / ­a t-­ku’-­x / ky-­a / wá-’n

Ch’ol

Indicative Imperative Nominalized

tyi-­k / tyá / j-­a k’é / l-­e mi i / mós

tyi a / w-­í / l-­ä kí / p-­a ñ mi a / w-­í / l-­a ñ

c­ hildren pay attention to the prosody of the transitive verb complex, they ­will zero in on the syllable with primary stress. In most cases, this syllable ­will be in the verb root, and so Mam c­ hildren should continue to produce the verb roots of transitive verbs as they did for the intransitive verbs. They should omit the motion verbs that follow imperative verbs to the same extent that they omit the person enclitic. A discussion of prosody is incomplete without mentioning the interaction between stress and the syllable bound­aries. I showed in the previous chapter how the orthographic conventions for individual Mayan languages show significant divisions between the morphemes in the verb complexes. Juncture interacts with the syllable bound­a ries to promote the prosodic salience of dif­fer­ent syllables in the transitive verb complex. ­Table 7.3 shows how the syllable and stress rules apply to the examples that I presented. Bold type indicates the verb root, and an accent indicates the primary stress. Syllable bound­aries are marked by the slash. The three languages differ in the contexts in which they add a syllable to the end of the verb complex. The parentheses indicate the morphemes that adult speakers add in phrase-­fi nal contexts in K’iche’. The Ch’ol

The Acquisition of the Mayan Transitive Verb Complex

165

examples in ­Table 7.3 all have zero forms of the third-­person absolutive suffix at the end of the verb. Stress shifts to the nonzero forms of the absolutive suffix, that is, to the final closed syllable of the verb complex. Mam adds the motion verbs ­after the verb stem in the imperative mood, but this addition does not affect stress placement in Mam. Putting together the information on syllable bound­aries, stress, and the stress shift between the dif­fer­ent verb complexes, we can predict the first two syllables that the ­children ­will produce in each language. ­Table 7.4 pres­ents ­these predictions. The forms in ­Table 7.4 generally contain two syllables: a pretonic syllable and the stressed syllable. The pretonic syllables are shown in parentheses to indicate that they may be optionally produced by ­children who usually produce a single syllable. The contrast between the phrase-­ medial and phrase-­final forms show that c­ hildren acquiring K’iche’ would only produce the syllable with the status suffix in phrase-­final position. The contrast between root and derived transitive verbs shows that c­ hildren acquiring K’iche’ and Ch’ol would be expected to produce an early contrast between ­these verb classes. ­T hese contrasts predict where ­children acquiring Mayan languages would be expected to show productive contrasts in verb morphology. ­Table 7.4 also shows how syllable structure and stress interact ­either to preserve the production of the verb root or disrupt its production. The disruption is apparent in the predicted production of the phrase-­final root transitive and derived transitive verb complexes. In ­these cases, the ­children are expected to produce the final consonant of the verb root with ­table 7.4 ​Predicted forms of Mayan ­c hildren’s transitive verb complexes Root Transitive Phrase-­Medial

Phrase-­Final

Derived Transitive

(b’a) / n-­óh

(tzu) / q-­úuj (tzu) / q-­úuj (qu)n-­í ik

K’iche’

Indicative Imperative Nominalized

(k-­ -­a) / b’an (b’a) / n-­á’ (b’aa) / n-­í ik

Mam

Indicative Imperative Nominalized

(chin) / t-­í l tzyúu-­m (ky-­a) / wá-’n

Ch’ol

Indicative Imperative Nominalized

tyáj-­a (k’é) / l-­e mos

w-­í / l-­ä (kí)/ p-­a ñ (w-­í )/ l-­á ñ

166

chapter 7

the status suffix. A dif­fer­ent disruption is expected for the cases in which the verb root begins with a vowel. The examples with vowel-­initial verb stems (Mam -(chin) / t-­íl and Ch’ol w-­í / l-­ä include part or all of the ergative subject marker attached to the verb stem. The prosodic account predicts that the ­children w ­ ill first produce the ergative markers on vowel-­ initial stems, b ­ ecause their prosodic template allows t­hese markers to appear as part of the stressed verb syllable. In sum, the Mayan transitive verb complex provides an opportunity to explore competing motivations for lexical production. ­Children guided by purely semantic considerations are expected to focus on producing uninflected verb roots (Brown 1973), while c­ hildren guided by prosody are expected to produce dif­fer­ent verb forms determined by contrasts between the phrase-­medial and phrase-­fi nal use of status suffixes, contrasts between root and derived transitive verbs, and contrasts between vowel-­initial and consonant-­initial verb roots. ­Factors such as the production of directional verbs and the person enclitic in Mam provide additional information about the c­ hildren’s production of the verb complex.

7.1 Acquisition of the Transitive Verb Complex in K’iche’ I provide examples of the K’iche’ child TIY’s transitive indicative verb forms in (1). She produced both verbs in final position with contrasting status suffixes. Her production in (1a) contains the consonant of a root transitive verb with the indicative status suffix. Her production in (1b) contains the final syllable of a derived transitive verb. The verb in (1b) refers to the way ­women (and girls) carry babies on their backs in a shawl. (1)  K’iche’ transitive indicative productions a.  Root transitive (TIY 2;1.30)

loh. = k-­ ø -­inw-­il-oh



b.  Derived transitive (TIY 2;1.17) ay, ­kaj. =  ay k-­ø -­i nw-­eq-­aaj



inc-­abs3-­erg1-­see-­indTV

ay inc-­abs3-­erg1-­carry-­derTV



‘I see it’.

‘Ay, I carry it’.

Example (2) gives examples of K’iche’ c­ hildren’s transitive verb forms that they produced in imperative/dependent contexts. TIY produced the

The Acquisition of the Mayan Transitive Verb Complex

167

complete form of the root transitive imperative in (2a); she only produced the final syllable of the derived transitive imperative in (2b). (2)  K’iche’ child imperative verb forms a.  Root transitive (TIY 2;1.7)

b.  Derived transitive (TIY 2;2.19)

chaya lee ­lee!

xaj!

= ch-­ø -­ a-ya’     lee ­ aree’



= ch-­ø -­aw-­es-­aaj

imp-­abs3-­erg2-­give the it

imp-­abs3-­erg2-­take-­derTV

‘Give it’!

‘Take it off’!

The K’iche’ transitive verb complex provides additional evidence in support of prosodicly driven language production (Pye 1983). If K’iche’ ­children’s production was guided by the prosodic structure of the verb complex, we would expect to find ­children adding CV-­shaped syllables, rather than morphemes, to their developing verb complex. Example (3) provides examples of ­these developing root transitive verb complexes for K’iche’. (3)  The development of TIY’s root transitive verb complex in K’iche’ Age a. 2;1.30

TIY’s form

En­glish translation

aye, qak’oo le. =  aye, k-­ø -­qa-­q’oo

‘Ay, we are painting that’. le

ay,  inc-­abs3-­erg4-­paint that

b. 2;1.30

loh. inc-­abs3-­erg1-­see-­indTV

c. 2;2.19

mam ­jun.



= k-­ ø -­ in-­ b’an    jun



inc-­abs3-­erg1-­make one d. 2;2.19

ma ­loq! imp-­abs3-­erg2-­carry-­depTV ­here 

e. 2;2.19

ka’an ­daj.



‘I am making ­one’.

‘Bring ­it’!

= ch-­ø -­a-­k’am-­a   loq





‘I see ­it’.

= k-­ ø -­inw-­il-oh

= k-­ ø -­ a-­ b’an      taj inc-­abs3-­erg2-­make neg

‘I am not making ­one’.

168

f. 2;3.10

chapter 7 kan t­ aj.



inc-­abs3-­erg2-­make neg

g. 2;3.10

chob’e ­taj.



‘Do not do i­t’.

= k-­ ø -­ a-­ b’an      taj ‘I do not know ­it’.

= k-­ ø -­ in-­ ch’ob’     taj



inc-­abs3-­erg1-­know neg

h. 2;3.10

k’am ta wuj ­i.



= k-­ ø -­ in-­ k’am    ta lee wuj i here’.

‘I am not carry­i ng the b ­ ook



inc-­abs3-­erg1-­carry neg the book here

i. 2;3.10

inya’o’.



‘I ­w ill give i­t’.

= k-­ ø -­in-­ya’-­o inc-­abs3-­erg1-­give-­indTV

j. 2;7.8

qil ­taj.



inc-­abs3-­erg4-­see neg

k. 2;10.5

ya k’u ­loq!



‘We do not see ­it’.

= k-­ ø -­ q-il     taj ‘Give it ­here ­then’!

= ch-­ø -­ a-ya’     k’u loq imp-­abs3-­erg2-­give then ­here

l. 2;10.5

enma ­chuloq. ‘I am ­going to bring it ­again’. = k-­ ø -­ e-­ in-­ k’am-­ a      chi  loq



inc-­abs3-­go-­erg1-­carry-­depTV again ­here

m. 2;10.13

inloq’oh.



­ ill buy i­t’. ‘I w

= k-­ ø -­in-­loq’-oh inc-­abs3-­erg1-­buy-­indTV

Whereas TIY’s utterances in (1) and (2) show that she produces the status suffixes on transitive verbs, her utterances in (3c), (3e), and (3f) show that she omits the status suffix correctly in phrase-­medial position. Her early production of transitive verbs is similar to her early production of intransitive verbs in that she usually omits the preceding aspect and person markers on both verb types. Her productions in (3e) and (3f) are exceptions: both utterances have the aspect and the person markers. Comparing her productions in t­ hese cases with the adult form shows that this root is shortened from -­b’an to ‘an and then to n in the second person by both adults and c­ hildren. The expression in both of t­ hese examples is frequent and idiomatic, which accounts for its exceptional form in TIY’s productions. Her production of the same

The Acquisition of the Mayan Transitive Verb Complex

169

verb in (3c) is not in an idiomatic context and reflects her productive morphology. Her utterances at the l­ater ages contain more syllables and consequently more morphemes. She uses the ergative subject marker more frequently, as in (3j) and (3l), as well as the particles loq ‘­here, hither’ and chi ‘again’. Her production in (3l) contains the incorporated motion verb ee ‘go’. TIY also produced many utterances with derived transitive verbs throughout this period. Examples of t­ hese productions are shown in (4). (4)  The development of TIY’s derived transitive verb complex in K’iche’ Age a.  2;1.7

TIY’s form

En­glish translation

kinweqaj.

‘I am carry­ing ­it’.

= k-­ ø -­inw-­eqa-­j



inc-­abs3-­erg1-­carry-­derTV b.  2;1.17

ay, kaj.

‘Ay, I am carry­ing it’.

=  ay k-­ø -­inw-­eqa-­j



ay inc-­abs3-­erg1-­carry-­derTV c.  2;1.22 ­tij.

‘She broke ­it’.

ø -­u-­tub’i-­j = x-­



cmp-­abs3-­erg3-­break-­derTV d.  2;1.22 ­b’aj.



‘I am painting i­t’.

ø -­in-­tz’ib’a-­j = k-­



inc-­abs3-­erg1-­w rite-­derTV e.  2;1.30

ay paj e ­lili.

‘Give t­ his’.

= k-­ ø -­ a-­ sipa-­ j      lee riri’



inc-­abs3-­erg2-­give-­derTV the this f.  2;2.19



xaj!

‘Take it o ­ ut’!

= ch-­ø -­aw-­esa-­j



imp-­abs3-­erg2-­take-­derTV g.  2;7.8



‘He says they steal i­t’.

inc-­abs3-­erg6-­steal-­derTV he_says h.  2;7.21



kelaqaj ­cha’. = k-­ ø -­ k-­ elaq’a-­ j      cha’ karaj ­koq’ih. = k-­ ø -­r-­a-­j inc-­abs3-­erg3-­want-­derTV

‘She wants ­it’.

14

Adult-­AUG

14 41

15

2;6 3;0

CHA

10

Adult-­CHA

2;0

LIN

13 12 14

15

2;0 2;6 3;0

TIY

One Suffix

Adult-­T IY

Age

Speaker

61

56

68

56 80

77

68 63 58

Percentage

7

6

4

9 6

2

4 4 7

Two Suffixes

30

22

18

36 12

15

21 21 29

Percentage

1

4

1

2 3

1

2 3 2

Three Suffixes

4

15

5

8 6

8

11 16 8

Percentage

Number and Percentage of Transitive Verb Types

­table 7.5 ​Number and percentage of transitive verb types in child and adult K’iche’ with multiple suffixes

1

2

2

1

1

Four Suffixes

4

7

9

2

4

Percentage

The Acquisition of the Mayan Transitive Verb Complex i.  2;7.28



‘You do not want i­t’. taj

inc-­abs3-­erg1-­want-­derTV neg j.  2;10.13



kawaj t­ aj. = k-­ ø -­aw-­a-­j

171

naan nweqaj we. =  naan k-­ø -­inw-­eqa-­j

‘Mama I carry mine’. weh

mama inc-­abs3-­erg1-­carry-­derTV mine

The derived transitive status suffix is retained in phrase-­medial contexts, and all of TIY’s productions of ­these verbs have the derived status suffix, including ­those in phrase-­medial position (4e), (4i), and (4j). Once again we find that most of her early productions of derived transitive verbs omit the aspectual and ergative person markers. Her production in (4a) from the first recording session, however, is complete, which I count as evidence of the probabilistic nature of syllable omission. All her single-­syllable productions in (4b) through (4f) contain the final stressed syllable of the verb complex. Once again we can assess the productivity of the ­children’s use of the status suffixes by comparing the c­ hildren’s production to the adult’s production. T ­ able 7.5, derived from Pye and Pfeiler (2014), provides an analy­ sis of inflectional productivity for the status suffixes on transitive verbs. This assessment shows that two-­year-­old K’iche’ ­children produced multiple transitive verbs with more than one status suffix. The productivity seen in the c­ hildren’s speech is similar to the productivity of status suffixes in the adult speech. The K’iche’ c­ hildren produced 20 ­percent of their verbs with two distinct status suffixes and 10 ­percent of their verbs with three distinct status suffixes. Thus the ­children’s productivity supports the hypothesis that K’iche’ c­ hildren come to an early knowledge of the use of status suffixes on verbs. In sum, the development of TIY’s transitive verb complexes over the period between 2;0 and 2;9 mirrors the development of her intransitive verb complex. Her production of the status suffixes shows that she distinguishes both intransitive verbs from transitive verbs and root transitives from derived transitives. The forms of her verb complexes are predicted by a developing prosodic template that gradually adds more syllables to the left edge of her verbs. T ­ able 7.6 summarizes the forms of c­ hildren’s transitive verb complexes in K’iche’.

172

chapter 7

­table 7.6 ​K’iche’ c­ hildren’s transitive verb complexes

Indicative verb complex Dependent verb complex Derived verb complex

Child’s Production

Change

Root + indTV Root + depTV C + derTV

Omit aspect, absolutive, ergative Omit aspect, absolutive, ergative Omit aspect, absolutive, ergative

7.2 Acquisition of the Transitive Verb Complex in Mam Examples of Mam c­ hildren’s transitive indicative verb forms are shown in (5). Mam ­children, like K’iche’ c­ hildren, regularly omit the aspect and person markers from the beginning of the verb complex. WEN’s utterance in (5a) contains the verb root and the nonhuman classifier jal. Her utterance in (5b) omits the initial adverb, but it contains the first-­person ergative marker n-. The ergative marker forms a complex initial consonant cluster with the initial consonant of the verb. WEN omitted the enclitic in this utterance. Her utterance in (5c) contains the recent past marker maa as well as the first-­person ergative marker for vowel-­initial verbs. Once again, she omitted the enclitic that should accompany the first person. (5)  Mam transitive indicative productions (WEN 2;0.2) a.  kee jha. =  ø-­t-­ky’i’

jal

abs3-­erg3-­not_want nh ‘She does not want it’. b.  nki’ ne. = ch’in ø-­n-­kub’-­il-­a

nej

­little abs3-­erg1-­down-­see-­enc bit ‘I ­w ill look at it a ­little’. c. 

ma ­w it.

= maa ø-­w-­il-­a rec abs3-­erg1-­see-­enc ‘I saw it’.

Examples of Mam c­ hildren’s transitive imperative verb forms are shown in (6). WEN’s imperative verbs in (6a) and (6b) include the

The Acquisition of the Mayan Transitive Verb Complex

173

­i mperative suffix allomorphs -­n/-­m. She uses the -­n form correctly in (6a) where the imperative is followed by the directional xi ‘away’. She uses the glottal stop in place of the initial uvular ejective /q’/ in (6a), which is a common substitution in Mayan phonological development. She also uses the palatal fricative / ʃ /, transcribed as , in place of the retroflexive fricative / ʂ / (transcribed as ). (6)  Mam child imperative verb forms (WEN 2;0.2) a.  ’inxh jh ne! =  ø-­q’i-­n

xi jal ­nej

abs3- ­carry-­impTV go nh ­bit ‘Take it a bit’! b.  yum nejh! =  ø-­tzyu-­m-­a

nej

abs3-­grab-­i mpTV-­enc 

bit

‘Grab it a bit’! c. ku’! =  ø-­q’oo-­n

kub’-­a

abs3-­put-­i mpTV down-­enc ‘Put it down’!

WEN’s imperative in (6b) is not followed by a directional auxiliary. She produced the correct -­m allomorph in this context. Her production in (6c) requires an interpretive stretch. She omitted the transitive verb completely and only produced the following directional kub’ ‘down’. The interpretation is supported by the context and is but one example of this type of imperative. WEN did not produce the obligatory person enclitic in this case, nor did she do so in the other two examples or with any of her intransitive imperatives. WEN’s imperative utterances demonstrate the special difficulty that Mam ­children have producing the person enclitic. The transitive imperative construction adds directionals a­ fter the transitive verb and the person enclitic follows the directionals. WEN’s utterance in (6c) would appear to be an ideal context for the production of the person enclitic, ­because it occurs in an utterance-­final position. However, she omits it. A prosodic account must explain the systematic omission of person enclitics by ­children acquiring Mam.

174

chapter 7

Examples of Mam c­ hildren’s transitive nominalized verb forms are shown in (7). WEN’s utterance in (7a) contains the first-­person ergative subject marker but not the ergative object marker. Her production in (7b) does not contain e­ ither ergative marker. JOS’s utterance in (7c) contains the ergative markers for both subject and object before two vowel-­initial verbs. Mayan ­children regularly produce the ergative person markers first on vowel-­initial verbs, and JOS’s utterance is an ideal phonological context for the production of the ergative person markers. JOS also produced the person enclitic in his utterance. WEN does not produce the person enclitic in ­either of her utterances. (7)  Mam transitive nominalized productions (Pye et al. 2013) a.  wiin. =  i  t-xi’

WEN (2;0.2) w-­ii-­n-­a

so erg3-go erg1-­carry-­dep-­enc ‘So that I go carry it’. b.  ku’ tzun. =  i  t-­kub’

WEN (2;1.7) n-­tzyuu-­n-­a

so erg3-­down erg1-­grab-­dep-­enc ‘So that I grab it’. c.  i taj wiina kloo tan. =  i  tzaj

w-­i-’n-­a

JOS (2;6.14) q-lo’

txan

so erg3​.­come erg1-­carry-­dep-­enc erg4-­f ruit guisquil ‘So that I bring our guisquil’.

Further examples of WEN’s developing transitive verb complex are shown in (8). ­T hese examples show that WEN continued to omit inflectional markers for aspect and ergative subject marking through the age of 2;6, although the examples in (8a), (8d), and (8e) show that she could produce the ergative marker t-­ on vowel-­initial verbs. The examples show that WEN continued to use the directional auxiliaries correctly on indicative and imperative verbs throughout this period. She also added the imperative suffix -­m correctly. The only example of her production of the person enclitic -­a is shown in (8h).

The Acquisition of the Mayan Transitive Verb Complex

175

(8)  The development of WEN’s transitive verb complex in Mam Age a. 2;0.25

WEN’s form

En­glish translation

tiin jh.

‘He is carry­ing it’.

= n  ø-xi’ t-­ ii-’n    jal



inc abs3-go erg3-­carry-­dep nh

b. 2;0.25

kinxh jh!



=  ø-­ki-­n-­x

‘Look at ­it’! jal

abs3-­look-­impTV-go nh c. 2;0.25 

ant wey’ Ana!

‘Give it to me Ana’!

=  ø-­q’a-­n-­tz-­a t-­e w-eky’-­a Ana abs3-­give-­i mpTV-­enc erg3-­poss erg1-­m ine-­enc Ana

d. 2;1.7

tiy?

‘Did you see it’?

= maa ø-­t-­il-­a

  rec abs3-­erg2-­see-­enc e. 2;1.7

ka tajh?



what abs3-­erg2-­want-­enc

f. 2;1.7

in toon ki!



‘What do you want’?

= tqal  ø-­t-­aj-­a ‘Look at what you ­did’!

=  ø-­ ki-­ n-tz     t-­ uun-­ a ki abs3-­look-­impTV-­away erg2-­by-­enc see

g. 2;6

tin ki’ we’ jhoxh ’a nejh.

‘I want to look at the eggs a ­bit’.

= ch’in ø-­n-­kib’il-­a w-­eky’ t-­jos jal nej

­little ab3-­erg1-­see-­enc erg1-­poss erg3-­egg nh bit h. 2;6

’ima!

‘Grab ­it’!

=  ø-­q’i-­m-­a abs3-­grab-­i mpTV-­enc

Examples of the transitive verb complex produced by an older child JOS are shown in (9). JOS’s utterances in (9a) and (9b) demonstrate the use of the recent past marker ma as well as the use of the n allomorph of the first-­person ergative marker in (9a) and the w allomorph of the first-­ person ergative marker in (9b). The production of absolutive markers to cross-­reference the direct object is shown in (9b), (9f), and (9g). The absolutive marker t-­ in (9b) and (9f) is used with the directional auxiliary xi’. JOS produced the person enclitic in (9f), but still frequently omitted it at the age of 3;4.

176

chapter 7

(9)  The development of JOS’s transitive verb complex in Mam Age

JOS’s form

a.  2;6.14

ma kub nteb wii ch’. ‘I combed the ­l ittle one’s



=  ma kub’ n-­xeyb’a-’n t-wi’ ch’in



rec down erg1-comb-­dep erg3-­

  b.  2;6.14

En­glish translation

hair’.

hair ­little ma ti win jah.

‘I carried it’.

=  ma’ t-xi’ w-­i-’n   jal



rec erg3-go erg1-­carry-­dep nh

c.  2;6.14

kal taj wey’ ki? ‘What do you want with me



=  tqal t-­aj-­a  w-­eky’-­a kyjakin

so’?

what erg2-­want-­enc erg1-­poss-

 ­enc so d.  2;6.14

miin ken we’jh!

‘­Don’t look at me’!

=  mi’ tzaj t-­ki’-­n-­a w-­i’j-­a neg away erg2-­look-­impTV-­enc

  erg1-­at-­enc e.  2;6.14

’ant ­papxh!

‘Give me potatoes’!

=  q’a-­n-tz   n-­papas-­a give-­impTV-­away erg1-­potatoes-

 ­enc f.  3;4.4

ma chi ona te chin Anit. =  maa t-xi’ 

‘I gave it to Anita’.

n-­q’o’-­n-­a  t-­e txin Anita

rec erg3-go erg1-­give-­dep-­enc

  erg3-­poss fem Anita g.  3;4.4

chin tjhawonxh ti’ mal lu ki!



=  chin t-­jawo-­n-­x-­a t-­ib’aj mal lu_ki



abs1 erg2-­haul-­impTV-­away-­enc

‘Haul me over that there’!

  erg3-­above that ­there

A comparison of WEN’s and JOS’s utterances shows that the development of the transitive verb complex in Mam is accomplished by producing more syllables of the complex. WEN usually manages to produce part of the transitive verb root, but her utterance in (6c) shows that sometimes she only managed to produce the following directional verb. The motion verbs that precede the transitive verb in the Mam verb complex act as

The Acquisition of the Mayan Transitive Verb Complex

177

in­de­pen­dent prosodic frames. WEN’s utterance in (8b) is an example of Mam c­ hildren’s production of a syllable of the motion verb and a syllable of the transitive verb. JOS’s utterances demonstrate an advanced production ability that includes more syllables that precede the verb. JOS’s utterances add the recent past marker ma in (9a), (9b), and (9f), the question word tqal in (9c), and the first-­person absolutive object marker chin in (9g). With the exception of the recent past marker in (5c), t­ hese syllables are missing in WEN’s utterances. WEN added syllables to the right of the verb complex before elaborating the structure to the left of the verb. The prosodic template restricts the ­children’s production of preceding syllables containing aspect and ergative markers, but allows the production of ergative markers that form part of the verb root prosodicly, namely the ergative markers that precede vowel-­initial verb roots. The ­children’s imperative verbs provide striking examples of the production of following syllables, including the imperative suffix -­m as well as the following directional auxiliaries. Mam ­children omit the person enclitic on transitive verbs as frequently as they omit it on intransitive verbs, nouns and relational nouns. The utterances of older ­children such as JOS provide more tests for a per­for­mance account of ­children’s language. I compare the syllables of the adult equivalent to JOS’s utterance in (9a) to JOS’s production in (10). JOS reduced the number of syllables in the verb by dropping the final syllable, and he contracted the syllables in the relational noun and the word ch’in ‘­little’. He simplified the syllable in wi’ by dropping the ergative person marker t-­and omitting the final glottal stop. (10)  Syllable comparison for example (9a) a.  Adult form (9a)

ma kub’

b.  Adult syllable structure

CV CVC’  C-­C V_C’V-’C  C-­C V’  C’VC

n-­xeyb’a-’n

c.  JOS’s syllable structure

CV CVC C-­C V_C

CV C’

d.  JOS’s form (9a)

ma kub

wii ch’

n-­teb

t-wi’

ch’in

e.  Morpheme gloss

rec down  erg1-­comb

f.  Interpretation

‘I combed the hair of the l­ ittle one’.

hair ­little

JOS produced the syllables of most words and preserved at least one consonant from the adult syllables. He produced the sonorant ergative

178

chapter 7

marker n-­, but not the ergative possessive marker t-. His alterations follow syllable bound­aries rather than bound­aries between morphemes or between words. In sum, ­children acquiring K’iche’ and Mam produce radically dif­fer­ ent transitive verb complexes. C ­ hildren acquiring K’iche’ produce transitive verb complexes with distinct status suffixes for root and derived verbs. ­Children acquiring Mam produce directional auxiliaries that precede or follow the dependent verb complex depending on w ­ hether they produce an indicative or imperative verb. ­Children acquiring both languages demonstrate an early productive knowledge of the obligatory suffixes on transitive verbs. Thus prosodic constraints offer the best explanation of the ­children’s transitive verb complexes in both languages.

7.3 Acquisition of the Transitive Verb Complex in Ch’ol Examples of Ch’ol ­children’s transitive indicative verb forms are shown in (11). ­T hese ­children typically omit the aspect markers in their transitive indicative verb complexes. EMA produced the indicative status suffix in (11a) and (11c), but omitted the suffix in (11b). He used the status suffix in half of their obligatory contexts at this age. EMA produced the second-­person plural ergative marker in (11a) and omitted the first-­ person singular ergative marker in (11b) and (11c). (11)  Ch’ol transitive indicative productions (EMA 2;1.30) a.  laj tyo’o.  ​ = tyi la’ tyop’-­ o -­ ø cmp erg5 break-­indTV-­abs3 ‘You.pl broke it’. b. tyoy.  ​ =  tyi-­k  

tyom-­o -­ø

cmp-­erg1 tear-­indTV-­abs3 ‘I tore it’. c. jiñ cho’o.  ​ = jiñ 

tyi-­k  

cho’-­o -­ø

that cmp-­erg1 peal-­i ndTV-­abs3 ‘That is what I pealed’.

The Acquisition of the Mayan Transitive Verb Complex

179

EMA’s utterance in (11c) is of interest for his use of the third-­person singular focus pronoun jiñ. He seldom used the focus pronouns, but when he did, he used them correctly in the preverbal focus position. The contrast between the use of the focus pronoun in (11c) and its absence in (11a) and (11b) shows that EMA used focus selectively in the appropriate conditions. Examples of Ch’ol c­ hildren’s transitive imperative verb forms are shown in (12). EMA’s utterance in (12a) contains the final consonant of a transitive verb followed by the imperative status suffix, which is a harmonic vowel. His utterance in (12b) has a transitive verb followed by the emphatic particle tyo ‘still’. He only produced the initial syllable of the verb in this case. Example (12c) contains the vowel /e/ that occurs in the verb root as well as in the status suffix. In this case, it is impossible to tell w ­ hether EMA produced the verb root or the status suffix. (12)  Ch’ol transitive imperative productions (EMA 2;1.30) a. xuj!

b. tyä tyo!

c.  e ­tyo’!

  =  k’ux-­u-­ø   = ch’äm-­ä-­ø tyo =  k’el-­e-­ø tyo    eat-­ impTV-­abs3    carry-­impTV-­abs3  still   look-­impTV-­abs3 still     ‘Eat it’!     ‘Still carry it’!   ‘Still look at it’!

Examples of the Ch’ol ­children’s transitive nominalized verb forms are shown in (13). The examples in (13a) and (13b) are root transitive verbs that do not have status suffixes in this context. The verb in (13c) is a derived transitive verb that takes the nominalizing suffix in this context. EMA only produced a single syllable of all three verbs. His production in (13c) includes the third-­person singular ergative marker y-­followed by the vowel of the verb root. EMA did not produce the incompletive aspect marker in (13a) and (13b). (13)  Ch’ol transitive nominalized productions (EMA 2;1.30) a. tyoj.   =  mi i-­tyoj-­ø    inc erg3-­pay-­abs3    ‘She/he pays it’. b. toch.   = mi-­k  ty’och-­ø    inc-­ erg3 detach-­ abs3    ‘I detach it’.

180

chapter 7 c. yä wa oto.   = y-­ äk’-­eñ-­ ety

waj  otro

    erg3-­give-­n m-­abs2 tortilla another     ‘She ­w ill give you another tortilla’.

Further examples of EMA’s transitive verb utterances demonstrating how the transitive verb complex developed between the age of 2;1.14 and 2;10.20 are shown in (14). EMA omitted the completive aspect markers tyi/ta in (14a), (14k), and (14p) and omitted the incompletive aspect marker mi in (14b), (14f), (14h), and (14i). His utterance in (14f) only contains the second-­person singular absolutive suffix. He produced the correct status suffix in (14a) and correctly omitted the status suffix on the same verb in (14b). ­T here are several instances at 2;6 when he omitted the status suffix, for example, (14k), then at 2;10 regularly produced the status suffixes. He used the ergative subject marker in (14b) and (14g) but not in (14a), (14e), and (14t). (14)  The development of EMA’s transitive verb complex in Ch’ol Age a. 2;1.14

EMA’s form

En­glish translation

tya’a.

‘You found it’.

  =  tyi 

a-­tyaj-­a-­ø



cmp erg2-­fi nd-­indTV-­abs3

b. 2;1.14

atyaj tye’.

‘You are finding the tree’.

  =  mi a-­tyaj-­ø     tye’ inc erg2-­fi nd-­abs3 tree



c. 2;1.14 ­sep’e!

cut_hair-­impTV-­abs3

d. 2;1.14

luwas ­cho’o! erg2-­banana peel-­impTV-­abs3

e. 2;3.10

ety. mi-­k inc- ­erg1 give-­app-­abs2

f. 2;3.10

ety en weya’.



‘I give it to y­ ou’.

  =  äk’-­en-­ety



‘As for your banana, peel ­it’!

  =  a-­ ja’as   cho’-­ o -­ ø



‘Cut the ­hair’!

  =  sep’-­e-­ø

‘Wera gives it to you’.

  =  mi y-­äk’-­en-­ety   jin aj wera inc erg3-­give-­app-­abs2 that cl Wera

The Acquisition of the Mayan Transitive Verb Complex g. 2;6.18

inc-­erg2   eat-­abs3

h. 2;6.18

ley kom c­ hi’.

‘Look, I want a ­dog’.

  = k`el-­ e    k-­ om    jump`e ts`i` look-­i mpTV erg1-­want one cl dog

i. 2;6.18

‘You are ­going to eat ­it’.

  =  mi-­a[= ma`] kux-­ø



akuch.

181

etyom. ‘You popped it’.

  =  tyi  a-­tyom-­o -­ø



cmp erg2-­burst-­indTV-­abs3

j. 2;6.18 ­loto! ‘Take it ­out’!

  =  lok’-­o -­ø



take_out-­impTV-­abs3

k. 2;10.20 ­no’po! ‘Try ­it’!

  =  ño’p-­o -­ø



try-­i mpTV-­abs3

l. 2;10.20 xäklan kalu ­julya! ‘Julia, look for this ­car’!

  = säkl-an    ili karu julia



look_for-­impTV this car   Julia

m. 2;10.20 atyutyu. ‘You plucked it’.

  =  tyi  a-­tyujty-­u-­ø



cmp erg2-­pluck-­indTV-­abs3

n. 2;10.20 teyo ju’be.

­ ottle’. ‘She is lowering the b

  =  chonko i-­ju’be-­ø   bolteyo prog  erg3-­lower-­abs3 ­bottle



o. 2;10.20 nijka ya. ‘I am g­ oing driving i­t’.

  =  mi-­k   nijk-­an-­ø    ma



inc-­erg1 drive-­derTV-­abs3 go

p. 2;10.20

cha’ kuche’ lum.



‘He is ­going to carry dirt again’.

  =  mi ke   i-­cha’ kuch-­e-­ø lum inc pros erg3-­again carry-­derTV-­abs3 dirt

q. 2;10.20 akä mex. ‘You are teaching this cat’.

  =  mi a-­käñ-­e’-­ø      ​ i li mix inc erg2-­know-­derTV-­abs3 this cat

r. 2;10.20 uko ya’ m ­ exa! ‘Leave this t­ able ­there’!

  = ak’-­ ä-­ø  ya’  ili mesa give-­i mpTV ­there this t­ able

s. 2;10.20 yoj! ‘Pay ­it’!

  =  tyoj-­o -­ø pay-­impTV-­abs3

182

chapter 7

t. 2;10.20 päyäx ­lä. ‘She is ­going carry­ing

  = mi-­i   ​päy-­äx-­ø    ma ­ aläl  the child’. inc-­erg3 carry-­indTV-­abs3 go child

u. 2;10.20 lachan ­kiko! ‘Lift it Kiko!’

  =  lets-­an-­ø    ​ kiko raise-­impTV-­abs3 kiko

The examples in (14) contain imperative forms of root transitive verbs that mark the imperative with a vowel, for example, (14c), (14d), (14j), and (14k). EMA sometimes omitted the vowel, as in (14s). ­There are also examples of imperative forms of derived transitive verbs that mark the imperative with -­Vñ, for example, (14l) and (14u). EMA produced the -­Vñ imperative suffix in both of t­ hese cases. In examples (14e) and (14f), EMA produced the absolutive suffix in contrast to his production of the vowel in the verb root shown in (13c). T ­ hese examples show the variation in EMA’s production of transitive verbs. Among the examples listed in (14) are a few with multiple syllables. As I observed for the other c­ hildren, the longer utterances that older ­children produce also have gaps and provide another way of testing the prosodic account. EMA’s utterance in (14p) is notable for the use of the adverb cha’ ‘again’ preceding the verb. The adult interpretation shows that the ergative subject marking moves to the adverb in ­these cases. Even at 2;10 EMA frequently omitted the preceding aspect markers, but in this case produced the modifying adverb. His expanding production ability enabled him to introduce a range of adverbial modifiers in the preverbal position. While displaying some variability, EMA’s production of transitive verbs included a syllable of the verb root and a status suffix. In some cases he omitted the status suffix, and in some cases he omitted the verb root. The production of syllables preceding the verb root begins with the addition of adverbs and ­later includes the production of the aspect and ergative subject markers. I assessed the productivity of the c­ hildren’s use of the status suffixes by comparing the c­ hildren’s production to the adult’s production. ­Table 7.7 provides an analy­sis of inflectional productivity for the status suffixes on transitive verbs in Ch’ol. This assessment shows that two-­year-­old Ch’ol c­ hildren produce multiple transitive verbs with more than one status suffix. The productivity seen in the ­children’s speech is similar to the productivity of status suffixes in the adult speech. The Ch’ol ­children produced 19 ­percent of their

The Acquisition of the Mayan Transitive Verb Complex

183

­table 7.7 ​Number and percentage of transitive verb types with multiple suffixes in child and adult Ch’ol Number and Percentage of Transitive Verb Types Speaker

Age

EMA EMA MA MA Adult—­EMA

2;1:30 2;3.10 1;11.18 2;3.12

One Suffix

Percentage

Two Suffixes

Percentage

35 39 37 44 39

81 78 95 88 78

8 11 2 6 11

19 22 5 12 22

verbs with two distinct status suffixes, as compared to the adult production of 22  ­percent of verbs with distinct status suffixes. The ­children’s productivity supports the hypothesis that Ch’ol ­children come to an early knowledge of the use of status suffixes on verbs.

7.4 Summary ­Table 7.8 summarizes the ­children’s production of the transitive verb complex in three moods. The results show some pan-­Mayan generalizations. Mayan ­children generally omit the aspect and person markers from the preverbal position. They produce some part of the verb root, but this is often the final consonant of the root in K’iche’ or the initial syllable of the root in Mam and Ch’ol. Mayan ­children generally produce the status suffixes on verbs and display the appropriate use of contrasting forms of the status suffixes (Brown et al. 2013). The comparative method allows us to look more closely into how ­these general pro­cesses affect the acquisition of each language. A prosodic constraint based on the number of syllables that the ­children can produce accounts for most of the c­ hildren’s transitive verb complexes as well as for their intransitive verb complexes. Two-­year-­old ­children

­table 7.8 ​­C hildren’s production of transitive verb complexes in four Mayan languages Language

Indicative

Imperative

Nominalized

K’iche’ Mam Ch’ol

Root + (indTV) (Direction) root Root + indTV

Root + depTV Root + impTV (direction) Root + impTV

Root Root + nomTV

184

chapter 7

acquiring K’iche’, Mam, and Ch’ol generally produce a single stressed syllable of the verb complex. K’iche’ ­children change the syllable that they produce as stress changes when the verb is in phrase-­medial and phrase-­final position. Mam ­children change the syllable they produce depending on ­whether the direction verbs precede or follow the verb stem. Ch’ol c­ hildren produce dif­fer­ent forms of transitive verbs depending on the presence or absence of the status suffix due to aspect. The contrast between the phrase-­ final use of status suffixes in K’iche’ and the aspect-­driven use of status suffixes in Ch’ol is especially in­ter­est­ing. Juncture also plays its role in determining which syllable in the verb complex Mayan ­children produce. The K’iche’ and Ch’ol ­children generally produce the status suffixes, which are attached to the verb root. ­Children acquiring Mam do not produce the person enclitic even though they constantly hear adults using the enclitic on imperative verbs. Juncture is the best explanation why Mayan ­children produce status suffixes but not enclitics. This question can be explored further by comparing ­children’s production of similar enclitics in K’iche’ and Ch’ol. Both K’iche’ and Ch’ol have second-­person forms (K’iche’ lal, Ch’ol la’) that are cognate with the Mam enclitic. This question remains for f­ uture researchers to investigate. This chapter and Chapter 6 provide general overviews of the acquisition of the intransitive and transitive verb complexes in K’iche’, Mam, and Ch’ol. They provide a qualitative impression of the verb complexes that two-­year-­old ­children produce in ­these three Mayan languages. The next chapter pres­ents a quantitative assessment of the c­ hildren’s use of the person markers on the verbs.

chapter eight

The Acquisition of Person Marking in the Mayan Verb Complex

I

n Chapters 6 and 7, I presented the structure and development of the intransitive and transitive verb complexes in K’iche’, Mam, and Ch’ol. In this chapter I take a closer look at the ­children’s acquisition of the ergative person marking system, which plays a central role in identifying the participants of events in Mayan languages. The comparison in (1) contrasts the pronominal case system in En­glish with the ergative person marking system in K’iche’. (1)  Accusative Case Marking

Ergative Person Marking



En­glish

K’iche’



They ­came.

x-­ee-­peet-­ik

They found me.

x-­in-­ki-­r iq-­oh



cmp-­abs6- ­come-­indIV



I saw ­them.

cmp-­abs1-­erg6-­fi nd-­indTV x-­ee-­i nw-­il-­oh cmp-­abs6-­erg1-­see-­indTV

English pronouns have dif­fer­ent forms that mark the distinctions among the nominative, accusative, and genitive cases. The nominative case applies to pronouns when they occur in the context of sentence subjects. The accusative case applies when the pronouns occur in the context of verb objects. The K’iche’ examples show that the absolutive person

186

chapter 8 ­table 8.1 ​Nominative case marking and ergative person marking Context of Use

En­g lish

K’iche’

Intransitive verb subject Transitive verb subject Transitive verb object Nominal possessor

Nominative Nominative Accusative Genitive

Absolutive Ergative Absolutive Ergative

markers apply in the context of the subject of an intransitive verb and the object of a transitive verb. The ergative person markers occur in the context of the subject of transitive verbs (and nominal possessors). ­Table 8.1 compares the contexts of use for case marking in En­glish and ergative person marking in K’iche’. The most striking feature of ergative person marking systems is that they divide event participants in a way that strikes En­glish speakers as unnatural. Linguists have spent over a ­century looking for ways to reconcile ergative marking systems with the accusative marking systems of Eu­ro­ pean languages (cf. Schuchardt 1895; Hale 1970; Marantz 1984; Legate 2006). My colleagues and I have published several studies exploring how ­children acquire the person markers in dif­fer­ent Mayan languages (Pye 1980, 1990; Brown et al. 2013; Pye et al. 2013; Pye and Pfeiler 2017). In this chapter, I pres­ent a comparison of how ­children acquire the person markers in K’iche’, Mam, and Ch’ol. The ergative alignment pattern of K’iche’ person marking is far from its only distinctive feature. Most of the linguistic lit­er­a­ture on ergative alignment focuses on languages with ergative case marking systems (e.g., Dixon 1979; Legate 2006). A language with ergative case marking adds an ergative case marker to the subject of a transitive verb and typically leaves the subjects of intransitive verbs unmarked. In contrast, languages with ergative person marking systems have overt absolutive markers as seen in the K’iche’ verbs in (1). The overt absolutive person markers found in the Mayan languages enable investigators to see how ­children acquire both the ergative and absolutive systems of person marking in­de­pen­dently and thus to investigate ­whether c­ hildren initially apply an accusative alignment pattern to languages with ergative alignment. A distinctive feature of the K’iche’ person marking system is that it applies almost without exception. K’iche’ consistently applies ergative person marking to the subjects of transitive verbs and absolutive person marking to the subjects of intransitive verbs and the objects of transitive

The Acquisition of Person Marking in the Mayan Verb Complex

187

verbs. The person marking systems of other Mayan languages have many exceptions in contrast with the K’iche’ system. The exceptions occur when a language extends the ergative markers to intransitive verbs in dif­fer­ent contexts of use. Popti’ (Jakaltek) extends the ergative markers to intransitive verbs in subordinate clauses. Mopan extends the ergative markers to intransitive verbs in the pres­ent tense, and Mocho extends the ergative markers to intransitive verbs depending on the degree of humanness or animacy of the subject (Larsen and Norman 1979). ­T hese exceptions are essential to defining the contexts of use for the ergative and absolutive person markers in each Mayan language. The exceptions also provide an opportunity to observe how ­children use the ergative and absolutive markers in each context. I remind readers of the discussion in Chapter 5 of the differences between the number of transitive and intransitive verbs found in each Mayan language. The number of intransitive verbs in a language is in­de­pen­dent of the contexts in which absolutive marking occurs in the languages. A language with relatively few intransitive verbs, but with a regular ergative alignment system ­will still use the absolutive markers on ­these verbs in all contexts. In contrast, a language with relatively few intransitive verbs, but which extends the ergative person markers to intransitive verbs in the pres­ent tense ­will have comparatively few occasions for using the absolutive person markers. Thus, while contexts for absolutive marking occur relatively frequently in K’iche’, they are rare events in Ch’ol. As a consequence of the extensions of the ergative markers that are found in dif­fer­ent Mayan languages, researchers distinguish the use of ergative subject markers on transitive verbs from their use on intransitive verbs (Pye et al. 2013). I w ­ ill follow this practice ­here and pres­ent the results for the acquisition of the ergative markers on transitive verbs before investigating the use of ergative markers on intransitive verbs. The third ­ ill investigate the acquisition of the absolutive section of the chapter w markers.

8.1 The Acquisition of Ergative Person Markers on Transitive Verbs The ergative markers in K’iche’, Mam, and Ch’ol have allomorphs that depend on ­whether the verb begins with a consonant or a vowel. This difference interacts with the c­ hildren’s production of the verb complex. As I

188

chapter 8

showed in Chapters 6 and 7, Mayan ­children regularly omit the syllables that precede the verb root. This omission pattern results in the omission of the ergative allomorphs that precede consonant-­initial verb roots. If the verb root begins with a vowel, Mayan ­children tend to produce the part of the preceding person marker that forms a syllable with the verb root. For more data on this phenomenon, see Pye (1980), Brown et al. (2013), Pedro Mateo (2015). T ­ able 8.2 pres­ents the prevocalic ergative markers in K’iche’, Mam, and Ch’ol. T ­ able 8.3 displays the preconsonantal ergative markers for ­these three languages. Comparing the ergative allomorphs in ­Tables 8.2 and 8.3 shows that Mam only retains the allomorphs for the first-­person singular marker. In the other persons, Mam uses the same ergative allomorph with both the consonant-­initial and vowel-­initial verbs. K’iche’ and Ch’ol use dif­fer­ent ergative allomorphs for consonant-­initial and vowel-­initial verbs. K’iche’ and Ch’ol derive the vowel-­initial ergative allomorphs by adding an epenthetic glide to the consonant-­initial ergative markers, or in the case of K’iche’, by the absence of an epenthetic vowel seen in the first-­and third-­ person plural consonant-­initial ergative markers. The first-­person ergative ­table 8.2 ​Prevocalic ergative person forms in K’iche’, Mam, and Ch’ol Number

Person

K’iche’

Mam

Ch’ol

Singular

1 2 3

inw-­ aw-­ r-­

w-­ . . . ​= a t-­ . . . ​= a t-­

k-­ aw-­ (u)y-­

Plural

1 ­i nclusive 1 ­exclusive 2 3

q-­ q-­ iw-­ k-­

q-­ q-­ . . . ​= a ky-­ . . . ​= a ky-­

la=k-­ k-­ . . . ​-­lojoñ la=aw-­ (u)y-­ . . . ​- ob

­table 8.3 ​Preconsonantal ergative person forms in K’iche’, Mam, and Ch’ol Number

Person

K’iche’

Mam

Ch’ol

Singular

1 2 3

in-­ a-­ u-­

n-­ . . . ​= a t-­ . . . ​= a t-­

k-­ ~ j-­ a-­ i-­

Plural

1 ­i nclusive 1 ­exclusive 2 3

qa-­ qa-­ i-­ ki-­

q-­ q-­ . . . ​= a ky-­ . . . ​= a ky-­

la=k-­ ~ j-­ k-­  ~  j-­  .  .  . ​-­lojoñ la=a-­ i-­ . . . ​- ob

The Acquisition of Person Marking in the Mayan Verb Complex

189

marker in Ch’ol has the allomorph j-­ used with words that begin with /k/. The first person allomorph k-­ in Ch’ol is used elsewhere with both consonant-­initial and vowel-­initial words. The ergative person markers have retained a g­ reat deal of formal similarity despite over three thousand years of separation between t­hese three languages. The main changes include the innovation of plural markers that are added to the singular forms in Ch’ol. The most radical change occurred in Mam, which added a system of enclitics to its person markers (­England 1976). The enclitics are used with the first-­and second-­person markers, but they are used with neither the third-­person markers nor the first-­person plural inclusive marker. ­C hildren acquiring Mayan languages produce the prevocalic allomorphs more dependably than the preconsonantal allomorphs (Brown et  al. 2013). I illustrate this phenomenon with examples from K’iche’, Mam, and Ch’ol in (2).

(2)  Comparison of c­ hildren’s production of ergative markers on consonant-­ initial and vowel-­initial ­verbs

Consonant-­i nitial verb ­root

a. K’iche’ TIY 2;2.19

2;7.8

  mam jun.

Vowel-­initial verb root

= k-­ ø -­ in-­ b’an    ­ jun

qil ­taj. = k-­ ø -­q-il ­taj

  inc-­abs3-­erg1-­make ­one

inc-­abs3-­erg4-­see neg

  ‘I ­w ill make one’.

‘We do not see it’.

b. Mam: WEN 2;0.2

2;0.25

  kem.

=  t-­ky’ee 

tiin ­jh. ma

= n  ø-xi’ t-­ i i-’n jal

  erg3-­not.want cl:he prog abs3-go erg3-­carry-­   move cl:it   ‘He does not want it’. c. Ch’ol: EMA 2;1.3

‘He is carry­ing it’. 2;1.3

 tyeñ. yom.

=  tyi k-­tyeñ-­e

=  y-­om-­äch

  cmp erg1-­crush-­indTV

erg3-­want-­affirmative

  ‘I crushed it’.

‘She wants it’.

190

chapter 8

The ­children omit the ergative prefix from consonant-­initial verbs in (2) and produce the ergative marker on the vowel-­initial verbs. This phenomenon is so prevalent in Mayan language acquisition that it is best to analyze the acquisition of the preconsonantal ergative markers separately from the prevocalic ergative markers. The ­children also produce a few high frequency vowel-­initial verbs more often than the more numerous low frequency consonant-­initial verbs. The counter­parts to the K’iche’ verb -­il ‘see’ (2a), the Mam verb -­ii ‘carry’ (2b) and the Ch’ol verb -­om ‘want’ (2c) occur frequently in all three languages. ­Table 8.4 pres­ents the number of ergative tokens and percentage of use the ­children produced of the prevocalic erga-

­table 8.4 ​Child production of prevocalic ergative markers on transitive verbs 2;0 Language

Child

n/Contexts

K’iche’

TIY LIN CHA

7/21 5/6

WEN JOS CRU

5/7

EMA MAR MA

5/13 0/1 4/6

Mam

Ch’ol

2;6 Percentage 33 83

71.4

38 67

3;0

n/Contexts

Percentage

n/Contexts

Percentage

10/10

100

25/31

81

3/12

25

63/72

87

2/2 11/11 4/4

100 100 100

5/6 9/9

83.3 100

3/3 1/1 1/4

100 100 25

3/3 4/5 3/3

100 80 100

­table 8.5 ​Child production of preconsonantal ergative markers on transitive verbs 2;0 Language

Child

K’iche’

TIY LIN CHA

1/23 6/36

WEN JOS CRU

10/30

EMA MAR MA

2/29 0/25 4/32

Mam

Ch’ol

n/Contexts

2;6 Percentage 4 17

33.3

7 13

n/Contexts

3;0 Percentage

n/Contexts

Percentage

13/88

15

19/76

25

9/177

5

23/237

10

0/1 1/9 1/5

11.1 20

9/38 0/30

23.7

3/11 2/4 2/25

27 50 8

17/46 8/57 6/8

37 14 75

The Acquisition of Person Marking in the Mayan Verb Complex

191

figure 8.1. ​Comparison of prevocalic and preconsonantal ergative marking

tive markers. ­Table 8.5 pres­ents the number of ergative tokens and percentage of use the ­children produced of the prevocalic ergative markers. ­T hese results show that ­children acquiring K’iche’, Mam, and Ch’ol produce the prevocalic ergative allomorphs at least twice as frequently as the preconsonantal allomorphs. Another difference is that the c­ hildren produce more contexts for the use of the preconsonantal allomorphs than for the prevocalic allomorphs. This difference is consistent with the observation that the ­children only produce a few vowel-­initial verbs in comparison to consonant-­initial verbs replicating the published results for the Mayan languages Tzeltal, Tzotzil, and Yucatec (Brown et al. 2013). The comparison between the ­children’s acquisition of the prevocalic and preconsonantal ergative markers shows that the ­children acquire the ergative allomorphs differently in the two contexts. One further question is the degree to which c­ hildren acquiring dif­fer­ ent Mayan languages acquire the ergative markers in the same way. I explored this issue by averaging the results presented in ­Tables 8.4 and 8.5. I averaged the results for each age and each language by adding the ­children’s uses and their obligatory contexts for each period. For the Ch’ol ­children’s preconsonantal allomorphs at age 2;0, I added EMA’s results (2 of 29) to ­those for MAR (0 of 25) and MA (4 of 32) to produce the average 6 of 86. Figure 8.1 compares ­these results. The comparison of the ­children’s prevocalic and preconsonantal ergative markers shows a consistent progression in the use of the prevocalic

192

chapter 8

allomorphs between the ages of 2;0 and 3;0. The Mam ­children reached 90 ­percent use by the age of 2;6. The average results for the preconsonantal allomorphs show slower, less consistent pro­gress. By the age of three years, only the Ch’ol ­children produced the preconsonantal allomorphs in more than 20  ­percent of their obligatory contexts. Overall, the c­hildren produced the ergative markers at similar frequencies in ­these three languages.

8.2 The Acquisition of Ergative Person Markers on Intransitive Verbs The extension of the ergative markers to cross-­reference the subjects of intransitive verbs marks one of the major distinctions between the individual Mayan languages. Barbara Pfeiler, Pedro Mateo Pedro, and I (Pye et  al. 2013) investigated how ­children acquiring the Mayan languages Mam, Q’anjob’al, and Yucatec use the ergative markers on intransitive verbs. ­Here I ­will add data from Ch’ol to this picture. Mam, Q’anjob’al, Ch’ol, and Yucatec extend ergative markers to intransitive verbs in dif­fer­ent contexts. Mam extends ergative markers to intransitive verbs in adverbial clauses and the complements to some verbs. ­England (1983:264) states, “­These contexts include one type of embedded clause, purpose or result clauses, clauses which follow focused adverbials, and clauses which follow a few other specific adverbials. In addition, certain verbs in relative clauses require dependent person marking [= extended ergativity CP], but only in a rather restricted semantic context.” The purpose adverb ii ‘so that’ occurred frequently in the c­ hildren’s and ­mother’s recordings and was almost the only context of extended ergativity that occurred in the Mam recordings. Q’anjob’al extends ergative markers to intransitive verbs that lack overt aspect marking and occur as complements to many verbs including -­ab’ej ‘hear’, -­al ‘say’, -­nahaj ‘decide suddenly’, -­nachaj ‘know how’, -­kuyu’ ‘learn how’, -­il ‘see’, -­ab’lej ‘try’, -­na’ ‘think to’, - ­ochej ‘want’, -­xiw ‘fear’, -­uj ‘can’, -­lanan ‘progressive’, and -­k ’ol ‘begin’ (Pascual 2007). Q’anjob’al also extends ergative markers to intransitive verbs modified by manner adverbs (e.g., k’ojank’ulal ‘slowly’, and yob’ ‘bad’). The progressive verb -­lanan appeared frequently in the ­children’s recordings, and the verbs - ­ochej ‘want’ and - ­uj ‘can’ ­were also used sporadically. Ch’ol and Yucatec extend ergative markers to intransitive verbs that do not have completive aspect markers. Both languages extend the

The Acquisition of Person Marking in the Mayan Verb Complex

193

e­ rgative markers to intransitive verbs in the progressive and incompletive aspects. Other Yucatec contexts of extended ergative marking include ts’­o’ok ‘terminative’ (conclude, result), táant . . . ​- ­e’ ‘immediate past’, ho’op’ ‘inceptive’ (begin), k’áah ‘inceptive’ (begin), yan ‘obligative’ (must, have to), táak ‘desiderative’ (want), k’ab’éet ‘necessitive’ (need, have to), he’ . . . ​- ­e’ ‘assurative (­f uture)’ (surely, indeed), and bíin ‘predictive, indefinite ­future’. The extended ergative contexts for the four languages are shown in ­Table 8.6. ­T hese contexts occur at dif­fer­ent frequencies in daily conversations. Verbs occur more frequently in the incompletive and progressive aspects than they do ­after temporal and manner adverbs. We therefore predicted that ­children acquiring Yucatec and Ch’ol would hear ergative markers used on intransitive verbs more frequently than c­ hildren acquiring Mam and Q’anjob’al would. Extended ergative marking would appear to be a rare experience in Mam. However, an analy­sis of the adult use of extended ergative markers on intransitive verbs that occurred in a one-­hour sample of adult speech failed to support ­these expectations as ­Table 8.7 shows. The Q’anjob’al ­father and Yucatec ­mother produced the expected number of intransitive verbs with ergative person markers; however, the Mam ­mother produced more than the expected number of extended ergative markers and the Ch’ol ­mother produced fewer than the expected number of extended ergative markers. The adults all produced ergative subject markers on 95 ­percent or more of the intransitive verbs in contexts of extended ergativity. I pres­ent examples of the c­ hildren’s production of intransitive verbs in extended ergative contexts in (3). The Mam example in (3a) occurred in a purpose clause introduced by the particle ii ‘so that’ (­England 1983:267). WEN’s production of the ergative marker t-­on the intransitive verb - ­ajs ‘return’ provides the evidence that she was producing a purpose clause. In an ordinary indicative clause, the intransitive verb would have the tz’third-­person absolutive person marker. The Q’anjob’al example in (3b) oc­table 8.6 ​Contexts of ergative marker use on intransitive verbs in four Mayan languages

Language Mam Q’anjob’al Ch’ol Yucatec

Temp Adverb

Manner Adverb

Extended

Extended Extended Extended

Desiderative

Progressive

Incompletive

Extended Extended Extended Extended

Extended Extended Extended

Extended Extended

194

chapter 8 ­table 8.7 ​Number and percentage of use in obligatory contexts of extended ergative markers in adult speech Language

Speaker

Tokens

Percentage of Use

Mam Q’anjob’al Ch’ol Yucatec

­Mother ­Father ­Mother ­Mother

21 3 20 160

100 100 95 98

curred in a progressive context. Although XHUW omitted the ergative prefix, she compensated by adding a pronoun a­ fter the verb.

(3)  Children’s production of intransitive verbs in extended ergative contexts a.  Mam

WEN (2;0.25)

  taaxh  jhunt kuun. = it-­ ajs     junt q-­ u’n    so erg3-­return one ​erg4-­by   ‘So that another returns by us’. b.  Q’anjob’al

XHUW (2;4)

  la low hin. =  lan 

hin-­lo-­w-­i

   prog erg1-­eat-­ap-­n m IV   ‘I am eating’. c.  Ch’ol

EMA (2;1.30)

  aloy. =  mi a-­loty    inc erg2-­kid   ‘You are kidding’. d.  Yucatec

ARM (2;0.15)

  ok peek’. = táan uy-­ ok-ol    peek’    prog erg3-­enter-­n m IV dog   ‘The dog is coming in’.

The Acquisition of Person Marking in the Mayan Verb Complex

195

The Ch’ol example in (3c) occurred in an incompletive aspect context. EMA added the second-­person singular ergative marker to the intransitive verb, but omitted the required incompletive aspect marker. The Yucatec example in (4d) occurred in a progressive context. ARM omitted the progressive verb táan as well as the obligatory third-­person singular ergative marker uy-­. I used the number of tokens of extended ergativity that the adults produced to predict the number of extended ergative tokens the c­ hildren would be expected to produce. For e­ very token a Q’anjob’al speaker produces, the Mam and Ch’ol c­ hildren are expected to produce seven tokens, and the Yucatec ­children should produce fifty tokens. This prediction extends to the proportion of extended ergative markers the ­children would be expected to produce if their production follows the frequency of occurrence in the adult language. For ease of exposition, I selected one child in each of the four languages. ­Table 8.8 pres­ents t­ hese results. The c­hildren’s production of ergative person markers on intransitive verbs does not reflect the frequency of adult use in t­ hese languages. The Q’anjob’al child was expected to produce the fewest number of ergative tokens in the lowest proportion of their contexts of use. Instead, the Q’anjob’al child produced more tokens and a higher percentage of use in obligatory contexts than many of the other c­ hildren did. The Yucatec child was expected to produce the highest number of tokens and at

­table 8.8 ​Number and percentage of use in obligatory contexts of extended ergative markers

Age

Tokens

Percentage of Use

WEN XHUW EMA ARM

2;0–2;1 1;9–2;1 1;11–2;2 2;0

19 24 2 1

49 89 40 8

Mam Q’anjob’al Ch’ol Yucatec

JOS XHIM EMA ARM

2;7 2;3–2;9 2;5–2;6 2;6

24 2 3 4

38 100 38 80

Mam Q’anjob’al Ch’ol Yucatec

CRU TUM EMA ARM

2;11 2;7–3;1 3;0–3;1 3;0

16 16 8 4

84 84 24 80

Age Group

Language

Child

2;0

Mam Q’anjob’al Ch’ol Yucatec

2;6

3;0

196

chapter 8

figure  8.2. ​­ Children’s percentage of use of ergative markers on vowel-­ i nitial and consonant-­i nitial transitive verbs and intransitive verbs in extended ergative contexts

a higher frequency of use than the other ­children. However, he produced relatively few tokens of extended ergative markers, but was fairly successful in producing them in their obligatory contexts. One in­ter­est­i ng result was the expectation that the Mam and Ch’ol ­children would produce similar numbers of extended ergative tokens at similar rates. Contrary to expectation, the Mam ­children produced far more extended ergative tokens than the Ch’ol child, but at similar rates to the Ch’ol subject at the ages of 2;0 and 2;6. The three-­year-­ old Mam and Ch’ol ­children produced the extended ergative markers at dif­fer­ent rates. ­T hese results indicate that Mayan c­ hildren acquire ergative markers in­de­pen­dently of their frequency of use in the adult languages. One final question concerns the relation between the c­ hildren’s use of ergative person markers on intransitive verbs in the contexts of extended ergativity and their use of ergative markers on transitive verbs. Figure 8.2 compares the ­children’s use of ergative person markers on vowel-­initial and consonant-­initial transitive verbs with their use of ergative markers on intransitive verbs. This comparison shows that the c­ hildren acquiring Mam and Ch’ol do not produce ergative markers at similar rates across t­ hese three contexts of use. As we have already seen, the ­children produce ergative markers at the highest rates on the relatively few transitive verbs that begin

The Acquisition of Person Marking in the Mayan Verb Complex

197

with vowels. The ­children are less successful at producing ergative markers on transitive verbs that begin with consonants. They produce ergative markers on intransitive verbs at rates between t­ hose for the vowel-­initial and consonant-­initial transitive verbs. The three-­year-­old Mam child produced ergative markers on intransitive verbs at a rate similar to the Mam c­ hildren’s production of ergative markers on vowel-­initial transitive verbs. The three-­year-­old Ch’ol child produced ergative markers on intransitive verbs at a rate similar to all the Ch’ol ­children’s production of ergative markers on consonant-­initial transitive verbs. This result indicates that the three-­year-­old Mam and Ch’ol ­children ­were assimilating the ergative marking for intransitive verbs to their paradigms for dif­fer­ ent types of transitive verbs. The K’iche’ ­children did not produce ergative markers on intransitive verbs, a result clearly related to the differences between K’iche’ and the other two languages in the contexts that license ergative marking on intransitive verbs. K’iche’ does extend ergative markers to nominalized forms of intransitive verbs that occur in complement clauses, but ­these contexts are such rare events in K’iche’ that they do not appear in the recordings of daily conversations. The difference between K’iche’ ­children’s use of ergative marking and Mam and Ch’ol ­children’s use of ergative marking indicates that two-­year-­old ­children acquiring Mayan languages already have a sophisticated understanding of the contexts of use for the ergative person markers, even though they only begin to produce the ergative markers consistently a­ fter the age of three years.

8.3 The Acquisition of Absolutive Person Markers on Intransitive Verbs Mayan languages are said to have an ergative alignment system primarily ­because they have a set of absolutive person markers that is distinct from the ergative set of person markers. ­Table 8.9 pres­ents the absolutive person markers for K’iche’, Mam, Ch’ol, and Yucatec. Once again, we find many similarities among the forms of the absolutive markers in the four languages, which reflects their historical relationship. K’iche’ and Mam attach the absolutive markers to the aspect markers that precede the verb stem, whereas Ch’ol and Yucatec attach the absolutive markers as suffixes that follow the verb stem. Yucatec does not add the indicative status suffix -­i to intransitive verbs that have overt

198

chapter 8

­table 8.9 ​Absolutive person markers in K’iche’, Mam, Ch’ol, and Yucatec Number

Person

K’iche’

Mam

Ch’ol

Yucatec

Singular

1 2 3

in-­ at-­ -­

chin-­ . . . ​= a -­ . . . ​= a -­ ~ k-­ ~ tz’-­ ~tz-­

-­oñ - ­ety -­

- ­en -­ech -­

Plural

1 ­i nclusive 1 ­exclusive 2 3

uj-­ uj-­ ix-­ ee-­

qo-­ qo-­ . . . ​= a chi-­ . . . ​= a chi-­

la . . . ​- ­oñ -­lojoñ la . . . ​- ­ety -ob

-­o’on-­e’ex -­o’on -­e’ex -­o’ob

­table 8.10 ​Contexts of use for the third-­person singular absolutive allomorphs Context of Use Incompletive Completive Potential Imperative Vowel-­i nitial

K’iche’

Mam

Ch’ol

Yucatec

-­ -­ -­ -­ -­

-­ -­ k-­ -­ tz’-­

-­ -­i -­ -­ -­

-­ -­i -­ -­ -­

absolutive suffixes. The status suffix indicates when a speaker does not intend to add an additional absolutive marker. Most of the intransitive verbs that the Yucatec ­children produced have third-­person singular subjects, thus taking the zero absolutive marker. I included the indicative suffix -­i for Ch’ol and Yucatec in my analy­sis as an indicator of the ­children’s acquisition of the absolutive person markers. Mam has a set of nonzero third-­person singular absolutive allomorphs. The k-­ allomorph occurs with intransitive verbs in the potential aspect, indicating an event that is about to happen. The tz’-­allomorph occurs with intransitive verbs that begin with a vowel, and the tz-­allomorph is used with the verbs -­ul ‘arrive ­here’ and -­iky’ ‘pass by’. The zero allomorph is used elsewhere. Mam uses the same enclitics with the absolutive markers as it does with the ergative markers to contrast the first and second persons with the third-­person singular and plural (­England 1983). ­Table 8.10 pres­ents the contexts of use for the third-­person singular absolutive allomorphs in K’iche’, Mam, Ch’ol, and Yucatec. ­Because most of the ­children’s intransitive verb production included third-­person singular subjects, the nonzero allomorphs in Mam and the indicative status suffixes in Ch’ol and Yucatec made up a significant proportion of the data for the c­ hildren’s absolutive production. The K’iche’

The Acquisition of Person Marking in the Mayan Verb Complex

199

absolutive data for the c­ hildren is based almost entirely on their production of first-­and second-­person singular and plural subjects. I emphasize that the data I pres­ent for the ­children’s use of the absolutive markers is not based on identical forms. In my pre­sen­ta­tion of the ­children’s absolutive data, I divided the Ch’ol and Yucatec productions of the first-­and second-­person absolutive markers from the ­children’s productions of the status suffix -­i. The examples in (4) illustrate the ­children’s production of indicative forms of intransitive verbs. (4)  Children’s production of intransitive verbs in the indicative mood a.  K’iche’

LIN (2;0)

mb’ek. =  k-­in-­b’ee-­ik inc-­abs1-­go-­ind IV ‘I am g­ oing’. b.  Mam

JOS (2;6)

o, ma chexh. =  o, ma tz’-­el-xi [= tz’ex] o, rec abs3-­leave-­away ‘Oh, he/she left’. c.  Ch’ol

MA (1;11)

yayo’. =  tyi  yajl-­iy-­oñ com fall-­ind IV-­abs1 ‘I fell’.

In ­these examples, the K’iche’ child LIN told us that he was about to go. He produced an initial /m/ in (4a), which I interpret as a production of the first-­person absolutive marker /in/. The nasal consonant of the absolutive marker assimilates to the position of the following consonant in adult speech. Unlike LIN, the Mam child JOS told us that someone ­else left. I interpret his production of /ch/ in (4b) as a production of the third-­person allomorph /tz’/ used on vowel-­initial verbs. The Mam verb -­el ‘leave’ is usually followed by the directional xi ‘away’; the two combine to form the compound ex ‘go away’ (­England 1983:168). The Ch’ol

200

chapter 8

child MA told us that she fell. I interpret the final /o’/ in her utterance as a production of the first-­person absolutive suffix -­oñ. The verb should also have the indicative status suffix -­i with an epenthetic glide between the two vowels, but MA did not produce the status suffix in this case. I analyzed the c­ hildren’s production of the absolutive and indicative status suffixes in three age periods: 2;0, 2;6, and 3;0. I pres­ent the Ch’ol productions of the absolutive and indicative status suffixes separately. ­Table 8.11 pres­ents the ­children’s production data. ­ able 8.11 show that while ­children acquiring K’iche’ do The results in T not increase their production of absolutive person markers between the ages of two and three years, the c­ hildren acquiring Mam and Ch’ol exhibit an increase and come close to the adult usage by the age of three years. The results for the Mam ­children are particularly clear due to the frequent production of the nonzero third person absolutive allomorphs. The Ch’ol c­ hildren did not produce as many indicative verb forms as the K’iche’ and Mam ­children did, rendering the Ch’ol results more difficult to interpret. Recall that the Ch’ol ­children also produced many nonindicative verb forms in the incompletive and progressive aspects with extended ergative markers. This grammatical difference decreased the Ch’ol ­children’s production of the indicative verb forms. The Ch’ol results combine the ­children’s production of the first-­and second-­person suffixes with their production of the indicative status suffix. Overall, the c­ hildren

­table 8.11 ​Absolutive production on intransitive verbs 2;0

2;6

Language

Child

n/Contexts

Percentage

K’iche’

TIY LIN CHA

4/11 3/11

36 27

WEN JOS CRU

7/27

EMA -­oñ/ety -­i MAR -­oñ/ety -­i MA -­oñ/ety -­i

0/1 1/12 1/1

Mam

Ch’ol

3/3 3/10

26

8 100

46

3;0 Percentage

n/Contexts

Percentage

8/20

40

19/52

36

0/11

0

12/43

28

11/16 56/71 14/21

69 79 67

78/80 36/45

98 80

n/Contexts

1/1 3/6 0/1 3/4 1/1 4/5

60

1/2 8/35 1/1 12/16

83

4/4

57

24 72 100

The Acquisition of Person Marking in the Mayan Verb Complex

201

figure 8.3. ​Comparison of the ­children’s average ergative and absolutive production rates

­ ere more successful at producing the absolutive person suffixes than the w indicative status suffixes. ­T here is also a large difference between the individual Ch’ol c­ hildren. MA was more advanced than MAR, and EMA was less advanced than MA and MAR. EMA’s difficulty in producing the indicative status suffix is especially noticeable at 3;0. ­Table 8.11 displays an average rate of absolutive production for the ­children in each language derived by averaging the results within each language. This procedure, unfortunately, gave undue weight to EMA’s absolutive results at age 3;0, so I compared the ­children’s average absolutive production to their average production of the prevocalic and preconsonantal ergative markers (see the previous section). Figure 8.3 displays the results of this comparison. Figure 8.3 shows that the ­children in all three languages produced the absolutive markers at higher rates than they produced the preconsonantal ergative markers and at lower rates than they produced the prevocalic ergative markers. T ­ hese differences indicate that the c­ hildren in all three languages pro­cess the absolutive markers on intransitive verbs in a dif­ fer­ent fashion than the ergative markers on transitive verbs. In other words, the ­children recognize the grammatical distinction between the ergative and absolutive subject markers by the age of two years. It is also pos­si­ble to compare the ­children’s use of ergative markers on intransitive verbs with their use of absolutive markers on intransitive verbs. Recall that ­children acquiring Mam and Ch’ol must learn to produce absolutive markers on intransitive verbs in indicative contexts and

202

chapter 8

ergative markers on intransitive verbs in nonindicative contexts. The Mam ­children must acquire the ability to use ergative markers on intransitive verbs in purpose clauses, while the Ch’ol c­ hildren must learn to use ergative markers on intransitive verbs in the incompletive and progressive aspects. The K’iche’ ­children must acquire the absolutive markers on intransitive verbs in almost all contexts. The comparison of the ­children’s production of ergative and absolutive markers on intransitive verbs also provides a test of the prevocalic/ preconsonantal effect that was so clear for the production of ergative markers on transitive verbs. I did not separate the ergative markers on the ­children’s intransitive verbs in the same way as I did the ergative markers on transitive verbs, ­because t­ here w ­ ere too few instances of ergative marker production on intransitive verbs to produce a meaningful result. Possibly the c­ hildren’s production of the ergative and absolutive markers on intransitive verbs differs from their production of ergative markers on transitive verbs b ­ ecause I did not control for the consonant/vowel effect on person marker use. This f­ actor would affect the production of the ergative and absolutive prefixes in K’iche’ and Mam, but would not affect the Ch’ol ­children’s production of the absolutive suffixes. A comparison of ergative and absolutive production on intransitive verbs should then show a similarity for the Mam c­ hildren and a difference for the Ch’ol ­children. Figure 8.4 shows this comparison. The comparison between the ­children’s production of ergative and absolutive person markers on intransitive verbs shown in Figure 8.4 indi-

figure 8.4. ​Comparison of ergative and absolutive person marking on intransitive verbs

The Acquisition of Person Marking in the Mayan Verb Complex

203

cates that the Mam and Ch’ol ­children pro­cess the ergative and absolutive person markers differently. While they produce absolutive markers in approximately 30  ­percent of obligatory contexts at age 2;0 and in 67 ­percent of obligatory contexts at age 2;6, they produce ergative markers on intransitive verbs at higher rates at 2;0 and at lower rates at 3;0. The Mam and Ch’ol ­children show an increased use of absolutive person markers on intransitive verbs between 2;0 and 2;6, but their use of ergative person markers does not change during the same period. The difference in their developmental patterns indicates that the ­children treat the ergative and absolutive person markers as dif­fer­ent morphemes and shows that the prevocalic/preconsonantal ­factor did not mask the difference between the ­children’s use of the ergative and absolutive person markers on intransitive verbs.

8.4 Conclusion Having presented the basic information on Mayan ­children’s acquisition of the ergative and absolutive person markers, I can now turn to a discussion of the implications of ­these findings. I have stressed the need to define the contexts for linguistic ele­ments in order to understand comparisons of acquisition results between languages. An exploration of Mayan c­ hildren’s acquisition of the ergative and absolutive person markers provides a clear example of how the contexts of use are central to the ­children’s linguistic development. The formal similarities of the person markers in K’iche’, Mam, and Ch’ol derive from a common historical origin, but the person markers are used at dif­fer­ent frequencies in vastly dif­fer­ent contexts. Of the three languages, K’iche’ comes closest to a prototypical use of absolutive person markers to cross-­reference the subjects of intransitive verbs. Mam departs from this prototype by extending ergative person markers to intransitive verbs in purpose clauses. Ch’ol moved further away from this prototype by extending the ergative markers to intransitive verbs in the incompletive and progressive aspects. T ­ hese differences add to the differences between the languages in their use of transitive and intransitive verbs. Mam mainly uses intransitive verbs, whereas Ch’ol mainly uses transitive verbs, and K’iche’ sits between Mam and Ch’ol in its use of transitive and intransitive verbs. A third difference between the languages is the use of nonzero third-­person absolutive allomorphs in Mam and the use of absolutive suffixes in Ch’ol.

204

chapter 8

In light of all t­ hese differences between the languages, researchers should hesitate to maintain that c­ hildren acquiring K’iche’, Mam, and Ch’ol are acquiring the same linguistic ele­ments. Terms such as “ergative” and “absolutive” mislead investigators into assuming that common linguistic ele­ments exist that correspond to the labels “ergative” and “absolutive.” This assumption is benign as long as the investigation only concerns a single language, but it leads to complications when the investigation includes two or more languages. An obvious implication that follows from the assumption that linguistic ele­ments such as ergative and absolutive exist is that c­ hildren acquiring languages with ergative morphologies w ­ ill initially use ergative and absolutive person markers in the same ways. It is much easier to explain how ­children acquire a single ele­ment such as ergativity, than it is to explain how ­children acquire language-­specific ele­ments such as ergativeK’iche’ or ergativeMam. Acquisition theories that assume all ergative languages use ergative markers in the same contexts do not predict how c­ hildren acquire language-­specific systems of extended ergativity (Pinker 1984). The Mayan ergative “splits” based on the use of ergative markers on intransitive verbs in language-­specific contexts require c­ hildren to divide the intransitive verb category into specific contexts of use. If Mam and Ch’ol ­children impose a K’iche’ model of ergativity on their languages, we would find many instances of absolutive markers in contexts of extended ergativity in ­these languages. We do not find evidence of such rampant overgeneralizations in studies of dif­fer­ent Mayan languages made at dif­fer­ent times, for example, Pye (1990) for K’iche’; Brown et al. (2013) for K’iche’, Tzeltal, Tzotsil, and Yucatec; Mateo Pedro (2015) for Q’anjob’al; and this chapter. The only explanation for the absence of such rampant overgeneralization in the acquisition of language-­specific contexts of extended ergative marking is that ­children are equipped to observe the contexts in which older speakers use ergative and absolutive person markers in each language. ­Children acquiring Mam observe the use of ergative markers on intransitive verbs in purpose clauses. ­Children acquiring Q’anjob’al observe the use of ergative markers on intransitive verbs in the progressive aspect, and c­hildren acquiring Ch’ol observe the use of ergative markers on intransitive verbs in both the progressive and incompletive aspects. ­T hese c­ hildren are not acquiring ergative markers; they are acquiring ergativeMam, ergativeQ’anjob’al, and ergativeCh’ol markers. They do

The Acquisition of Person Marking in the Mayan Verb Complex

205

this by observing how the person markers are used in progressiveMam, progressiveQ’anjob’al and progressiveCh’ol contexts. The acquisition results for the Mayan languages with extended ergative morphology provide crucial information on ­children’s ability to observe language-­specific constraints on morpheme use. Learning the constraints on morpheme use is only one side of the acquisition prob­lem. The other side of the prob­lem is to extend morpheme use to all of the appropriate contexts. The results for Mam and Ch’ol give new importance to the K’iche’ results. While the imposition of K’iche’ contexts of use in Mam would lead to overgeneral use of the absolutive markers on intransitive verbs, the imposition of the Mam contexts of use in K’iche’ would lead to an underuse of absolutive marking in K’iche’. If c­ hildren are overly conservative in using morphemes, they ­will be reluctant to use morphemes in new contexts. If ­children acquiring K’iche’ are overly fussy about using absolutive markers on intransitive verbs in the incompletive aspectCh’ol or purpose clausesMam, they would limit their use of absolutive markers to intransitive verbs in the completive aspect. While the results for Mam and Ch’ol demonstrate ­children’s ability to observe constraints on the use of absolutive markers, the K’iche’ results show ­children’s success at generalizing absolutive markers to contexts where other Mayan languages use ergative markers.

chapter nine

The Acquisition of Mayan Argument Structures

M

ayan languages fit the classic description of pro-­d rop languages in that the verb complex contains full paradigms for subject and object cross-­referencing and allow the optional omission of subject and  object noun phrases. The ergative and absolutive person markers in the verb complex are obligatory and are often the only indication of which arguments participate in the event. However, the Mayan languages depart from the classic profile of pro-­drop languages in two re­spects. Mayan languages use ergative markers to cross-­reference the subject of transitive verbs and absolutive markers to cross-­reference the subject of intransitive verbs. The contrast between ergative and absolutive agreement indicates that subject drop in Mayan languages is the result of two distinct agreement mechanisms. Subject drop with transitive verbs is licensed by ergative agreement, but subject drop with intransitive verbs is licensed by absolutive agreement. The conditions for argument omission vary from one Mayan language to the next. K’iche’ and Ch’ol allow the full omission of cross-­referenced noun phrases, whereas Mam and Q’anjob’al optionally use noun classifiers in the absence of cross-­referenced noun phrases. In ­either case, the demands of the discourse w ­ ill decide when the use of a full noun phrase, pronoun, or classifier is necessary and when they may be omitted. K’iche’ allows the speaker the option to use an in­de­pen­dent pronoun in addition to full omission. The optional expression of arguments has been the main focus of the lit­er­a­ture on pro-­d rop for many years (Grinstead 2000; Hamann 2002; Hyams 1986, 2011). Much of this lit­er­a­ture assumes that rich agreement

The Acquisition of Mayan Argument Structures

207

paradigms license the omission of subjects. The pro-­drop lit­er­a­ture does not provide a detailed analy­sis of the conditions promoting argument omission, the basis for predicting the frequency of subject omission. The lit­er­a­ture usually ignores the possibility of object omission and the discourse conditions that promote an asymmetry between the use of subjects and objects. The analy­sis of Mayan languages has significant implications for the study of pro-­drop. All ­else being equal, if the same grammatical pro­cess licenses the omission of ergative and absolutive cross-­referenced subjects, we expect similar frequencies of ergative and absolutive subject omission. If the same grammatical pro­cess licenses the omission of absolutive cross-­referenced subjects and objects in Mayan languages, we expect similar frequencies of absolutive subject and object omission. Fi­nally, to the extent that all Mayan languages rely on the same pro­cesses of nominal omission, we expect to find similar frequencies of nominal omission across the Mayan languages. ­Children are notorious for omitting more than subjects and objects in their utterances. The pro-­drop analy­sis provided a technical account of the grammatical conditions for argument omission licensed by agreement. In addition to omitting subjects and objects, ­children acquiring Mayan languages also omit the relational nouns that express locative and oblique syntactic relations such as dative, benefactive, and comitative relations. The comparison of agreement licensed argument omission with the unlicensed omission of relational nouns provides evidence for the role that agreement plays in ­children’s omissions. The frequency of agreement licensed omission should be greater than unlicensed omission of verbs and relational nouns in c­ hildren’s speech b ­ ecause argument omission is permitted by the adult grammar. Similar rates of omission for subjects and relational nouns would be evidence that agreement does not account for all of ­children’s omissions. This chapter compares ­children’s argument omission in three Mayan languages.

9.1 Argument Structure in K’iche’ Written texts provide one source of evidence for the frequency of argument omission in the adult languages. I found that 50 ­percent of the clauses in one K’iche’ text (Norman 1976) do not contain any overt subject or object noun phrases (Pye 1992). Twenty-­four ­percent of the clauses contained

208

chapter 9

­table 9.1 ​Noun phrase use in K’iche’ child directed speech and K’iche’ text Transitive Verbs TV

Subject

Speaker

n

n

­Mother Text

149 153

12 30

Percentage 8.1 19.6

Object n 57 119

Percentage 38.3 77.8

Relational n 19 45

Percentage 12.8 29.4

overt subject noun phrases. Sixty-­four ­percent of the sentences with transitive verbs contained overt object noun phrases. Both subject and object noun phrases appear in only twenty-­three clauses (8 ­percent) in the entire text. Mondloch (1978) reports that only twenty sentences out of 1,380 lines of narrative materials contained both subject and object noun phrases. I compared t­ hese statistics with the use of overt noun phrases in K’iche’ speech to ­children in order to analyze the effect that genre might have on the use of noun phrases. I analyzed the speech of two adult speakers who spoke to TIY in my first session with her. One prob­lem for this analy­sis is that adult speech to c­ hildren contains a high number of vocative expressions that are used to attract the child’s attention. Example (1) provides a sample of TIY’s ­mother’s utterance containing a vocative. (1)  Vocative utterance of ­mother to TIY (2;1.7) chetz’ana k’ut ­alih! ch-­e-­at-­etz’an-­a

k’ut ­alih

imp-­go-­abs2-­play-­i mpIV then girl ‘Go play then girl!’

I counted the noun phrase alih ‘girl’ as an appositive phrase rather than as a subject noun phrase in this utterance. In general the appositive phrases occurred in imperative contexts. I included the imperative verbs in the count of verbal utterances, but I treated the appositions in a separate count. TIY’s ­mother used appositive phrases in twenty-­four (16 ­percent) of her utterances with transitive verbs, and in nine (7.6 ­percent) of her utterances with intransitive verbs. ­Table 9.1 shows TIY’s ­mother’s use of subjects, objects, and relational noun phrases and reports separate percentages for the subjects, objects, and relational noun arguments of the transitive and intransitive verbs produced in this session.

The Acquisition of Mayan Argument Structures

209

Intransitive Verbs IV

Subject

n

n

118 162

17 63

Relational

Percentage

Percentage

n

14.4 38.9

18 75

15.3 46.3

TIY’s ­mother used subjects at similar rates with transitive (8.1 ­percent) and intransitive verbs (14.4 ­percent), half the rate of subject use in the K’iche’ text. She used overt direct object phrases in 38 ­percent of her utterances with transitive verbs, which is approximately half the rate of overt object use (64 ­percent) in the K’iche’ text. She only produced three utterances containing both a subject and object phrase (2 ­percent)—­a lower rate than the 8 ­percent rate in the K’iche’ text. ­T hese results show that the discourse context has a profound effect on the use of subject and object phrases in adult speech. K’iche’ adults are more likely to omit subject and object phrases when speaking to ­children at home. One case in which TIY’s m ­ other did use both the subject and object phrases occurred when she was attempting to attract TIY’s interest to the toys we had brought to the recording session. She produced the utterances shown in (2). (2)  TIY’s ­mother’s verb-­object-­subject sentence (TIY 2;1.7) a. b’inisaj akej cha, ­alih! b’in-­isa-­j

a-kej

cha’, ­alih.

walk-­cause-­derTV erg2-­horse  say,

girl.

‘Walk your ­horse say, girl!’ b. xuk’am b’i latz’i le ­kej. x-­ø -­u-­k’am      b’i

lee a-­tz’i

lee ­kej.

cmp-­abs3-­erg3-­carry away the erg2-­dog the ­horse ‘The ­horse carried away your dog’.

In (2a), TIY’s m ­ other tells TIY’s s­ister to tell TIY to make the toy ­ orse walk. TIY’s ­mother then tells TIY that the ­horse carried off her dog. h TIY’s ­mother is suggesting that TIY can put the dog on the h ­ orse and

210

chapter 9

have the h ­ orse carry it. The utterance in (2b) has the unmarked word order in K’iche’ of verb-­object-­subject. The subject is introduced in (2a), and then the m ­ other expands her suggestion by explaining how the dog and ­horse could interact. The low frequency of the ­mother’s utterances featuring both subject and object is an indication of the unusual context illustrated in (2). The adult use of relational noun phrases is in­ter­est­ing b ­ ecause relational nouns are used to express adjunct syntactic roles such as dative, comitative, and instrumental phrases. TIY’s m ­ other used relational noun phrases at similar rates with transitive and intransitive verbs. Her use of relational noun phrases was similar in frequency to her use of subject noun phrases. Example (3) provides a sample of her use of a relational noun phrase. (3)  TIY’s ­mother’s use of a relational noun phrase (TIY 2;1.7) xa kikixe’j kib’ wa’. xa k-­ø -­ ki-­ xe’-­ j       k-ib’  wa’ just inc-­abs3-­erg6-­fear-­derTV erg6-­self maybe ‘Maybe they are just afraid.’

TIY’s ­mother used an idiomatic expression that combines the transitive verb -­xe’ ‘fear’ with the reflexive relational noun -­ib’ ‘self’. This expression has the literal interpretation of ‘scare themselves’, but that is not what TIY and her s­ ister ­were ­doing in this context. K’iche’ speakers almost always use the reflexive noun without an overt possessor b ­ ecause the possessor is obvious in reflexive contexts. The referent of the third-­ person plural ergative possessive marker k-­was clear in the context of the ­mother’s attempt to elicit speech from her ­daughters.

9.2 Argument Structure in Mam Mam, like K’iche’, has an ergative agreement system that uses ergative markers to cross-­reference the subjects of transitive verbs and absolutive  markers to cross-­reference the subjects of intransitive verbs and the direct objects of transitive verbs. Like K’iche’, Mam also uses the ergative markers to cross-­reference nominal possessors. Nominal possessors frequently appear on relational nouns that express locative and syntactic

The Acquisition of Mayan Argument Structures

211

relations. Mam does not have prepositions and so uses relational nouns without a modifier, such as, t-­jaq’ yooxh tx’otx, erg3-­below red earth, ‘below the red earth’ (­England 1983:72). Unlike K’iche’, Mam has a set of nominal classifiers that can optionally replace third-­person arguments, such as, ky-­ee-­tzan-­ma, erg6-­to-­well-­cl.man, ‘to the men’ (74). I counted ­these classifiers as noun phrases in my count of overt nominal arguments. The frequent use of oblique argument phrases restricts the use of transitive verbs in Mam. Oblique agent phrases, or by phrases, are usually ­ ngland discusses several transitive associated with the passive voice. E verb roots that are only used in the passive voice, including the example shown in (4). An oblique agent phrase is optional in this case b ­ ecause the agent is the possessor of the penny. (4)  Obligatory passive in Mam (­England 1983:180) ma ø-­kan-­eet

jun n-­sentaabi-­ya ​t-uj   tz’iis

rec abs3-­fi nd-­pas

one erg1-­cent-­enc erg3-in garbage

‘I found my penny in the garbage.’ (lit., ‘My penny was found in the  garbage.’)

The antipassive voice derives an intransitive verb phrase by suppressing the theme role. Antipassive stems are intransitive and only appear with a subject phrase. The theme can be expressed optionally in an oblique theme phrase. Mam has several transitive verb roots that are only used in their antipassive form. For example, the verbs -­b’iitza-­n ‘sing’ and -­b’ixi-­n ‘dance’ listed in ­Table 9.4 are verbs that always include the antipassive suffix -­n. The obligatory passive and antipassive verbs in Mam maintain the passive and antipassive suffixes that mark their morphological derivation from transitive verb roots even though ­these verbs are no longer used in their underived, transitive form. In their analy­sis of Mam texts, E ­ ngland and Martin discount the use of passive and antipassive constructions as an explanation for the low frequency of transitive clauses in Mam ­because they did not find an elevated use of passive and antipassive constructions in the texts that they analyzed (2003:153). E ­ ngland, however, also notes that Mam allows the use of intransitive verbs of motion to express the transitive sense of a caused change of location. She (1983) provides the examples in (5).

212

chapter 9

(5)  Verbs of motion use in Mam a. ­England (154)

ax leq’-ch ma ø-­tzaaj

a’

w-­u’n-­a.

also far-­pos.adj rec abs3-­arrive.­here ­water erg1-­by-­enc

‘I brought the ­water from far away.’ (lit., ‘The w ­ ater arrived h ­ ere from far away by me.’) b. ­England (181)

t-­w iixh ​o

ø-­kub’

t-ee

ich’.



erg3-­cat past abs3-­go.down erg3-at mouse



‘His cat killed mice.’ (lit., ‘His cat went down at mice.’)

In (5a), the theme is expressed as the subject of the intransitive verb. The oblique agent phrase indicates the agent. K’iche’ also allows verbs of motion to be used with oblique agent phrases, but not to the extent that Mam does. In (5b), the agent is expressed as the subject of the intransitive verb, and an oblique theme phrase is used to indicate the theme. Mam has a transitive verb -­b’iyoo ‘to kill’, but the verb of motion is frequently used in its place. The use of verbs of motion produces many contexts in which Mam speakers use intransitive verbs, whereas Ch’ol and K’iche’ speakers produce transitive verbs. As a result, Mam speakers produce more utterances with intransitive verb subject phrases than do Ch’ol and K’iche’ speak­ able 9.2 shows some of the contexts in which a transitivity contrast ers. T distinguishes Mam from K’iche’ and Ch’ol. Many of ­these contexts frequently occur in speech with c­ hildren.

­table 9.2 ​Transitivity contrasts among Mam, K’iche’, and Ch’ol En­g lish

Mam

K’iche’

Ch’ol

Find Sing Do Bring Take Lift Put Kill

Intransitive—­passive Intransitive—­a ntipassive Intransitive—­‘done’ (cf. [7]) Intransitive—­‘arrive ­here’ Intransitive—­‘leave’ Intransitive—­‘go up’ Intransitive—­‘enter’ Intransitive—­‘go down’

Transitive Intransitive—­antipassive Transitive Transitive Transitive Transitive Transitive Transitive

Transitive Transitive—­cha’l ‘do’ Transitive Transitive Transitive Transitive Transitive Transitive

The Acquisition of Mayan Argument Structures

213

As a reference point for the analy­sis of the spoken Mam data, I analyzed the Mam text that appears in the appendix of ­England’s book A Grammar of Mam (1983). As with the K’iche’ text, I analyzed the arguments occurring with each clause. In the case of verbs with complex complements, I counted the complement as the direct object of the main verb then made a separate analy­sis of the arguments occurring in the subordinate clause. I also analyzed the arguments in relative clauses separately from the main clause. ­England divided the Mam text into thirty-­seven numbered sections, which I subdivided into 104 clauses. The results show an ergative pattern of argument production in the sense that the proportion of intransitive subjects (44.6 ­percent) was similar to the proportion of transitive objects (40  ­percent) and differed substantially from the proportion of transitive verb subjects (16.7  ­percent). I analyzed the language samples of a Mam ­ able 9.3 provides in­mother speaking to her c­ hildren in the same fashion. T formation on the use of overt verb arguments and relational nouns in t­ hese Mam language samples. The ­mother’s language sample and the Mam text have similar proportions of argument production. Both language samples show a distinct difference between the use of subjects with transitive and intransitive verbs. The main difference between the two language samples is that the text has a high proportion of clauses with intransitive verbs, whereas the ­mother’s language sample has a higher proportion of clauses with transitive verbs. Most of the m ­ other’s transitive verbs occur in the imperative mood. However, the text only contains a single example of a transitive verb in the imperative mood. ­T here is an in­ter­est­ing contrast in argument omission between Mam and K’iche’. Whereas K’iche’ speakers maintain a rough similarity between their production of subjects with transitive and with intransitive verbs, Mam speakers exhibit a rough similarity between their production of subjects with intransitive verbs and objects with transitive verbs. In other words, ­there is evidence that absolutive cross-­referencing provides a uniform mechanism for argument omission in Mam that differs from the omission of ergative cross-­referenced arguments, that is, the subjects of tran­ other produces subjects with 41.3 ­percent sitive verbs. Whereas WEN’s m of intransitive verbs, the K’iche’ m ­ other only produces subjects with 14.4 ­percent of her intransitive verbs. Like the K’iche’ m ­ other, WEN’s ­mother only produces four utterances with both a subject and object (2.1 ­percent), all of them questions about

214

chapter 9

­table 9.3 ​Adult argument structure in Mam Transitive Verbs TV Speaker ­Mother Mam text

Subject

Object

Relational

n

n

Percentage

n

Percentage

n

Percentage

188 30

11 5

5.9 16.7

92 12

48.9 40

56 6

29.8 20

an object. Example (6) provides one of her object questions with a subject classifier. (6)  ­Mother’s question with a subject classifier and direct object (WEN 2;0.2) qal nb’ate ma txuuy? tqal  n-­ ø -­b’ate

ma

txuuya?

What prog-­abs3-do cl.man mama ‘What is he ­doing mama?’

WEN’s ­mother makes this utterance in the context of trying to entice WEN to describe what a man is ­doing. She uses the classifier ma ‘man’ to refer to a person already introduced in the discourse and adds the appositive txuuya ‘mama’ to attract WEN’s attention. I counted this use of the classifier as a subject noun phrase. A major difference between the clause structures in K’iche’ and Mam is seen in the high proportion of relational noun phrases in the speech of the Mam speakers. WEN’s ­mother produces twice the number of relational noun phrases as the K’iche’ ­mother does, demonstrating a significant difference between the two languages in the use of relational noun phrases. Mam speakers frequently use more than one relational noun phrase in a sentence, as seen in (7). In this example, the first relational noun phrase weky’ ‘mine’ is the subject of the intransitive verb and the second relational noun phrase wuuna ‘by me’ indicates the agent. The intransitive verb b’ant ‘done’ is an example of an action usually expressed by transitive verbs in K’iche’ and Ch’ol.

The Acquisition of Mayan Argument Structures

215

Intransitive Verbs IV

Subject

Relational

n

n

Percentage

n

Percentage

92 74

38 33

41.3 44.6

28 23

30.4 31.1

(7)  Mother’s use of multiple relational noun phrases nlay b’ant weky’ wuuna. Nlay

b’ant  w-­e-ky’

w-­uun-­a

cannot done  erg1-­poss-­enc erg1-­by-­enc ‘I cannot do it’. (lit., ‘My ­thing cannot be done by me’.)

9.3 Argument Structure in Ch’ol Ch’ol divides intransitive verbs into agentive and nonagentive classes. The agentive intransitive verbs only appear as direct objects of the light verb -­cha’l ‘do, make’, whereas the nonagentive verbs appear as typical intransitive verbs. Gutiérrez Sánchez (2004) lists fifty-­three agentive verbs for Ch’ol and another eigh­teen ambivalent verbs that can appear in ­either construction. Example (8) provides samples of intransitive verbs from ­these two classes. The word k’ay in (8a) is a noun that forms a verb in the -­cha’l construction. The verb yajl ‘fall’ in (8b) is an intransitive verb. (8)  Ch’ol intransitive verb ­classes a. Agentive

tyi 



k-­cha’l-­e

k’ay

cmp erg1-­do-­indTV sing ‘I ­sang.’



b. Nonagentive

tyi  yajl-­iy-­oñ cmp fall-­ind IV-­abs1



‘I fell.’

216

chapter 9

­table 9.4 ​Comparison of agentive verbs in Ch’ol, K’iche’, and Mam En­g lish

Ch’ol

K’iche’

Mam

I sang I turned I danced I wrote I played I slept I walked I bathed I cried I climbed

tyi k-­cha’l-­e ­k’ay tyi k- ­cha’l-­e ­joy tyi k- ­cha’l-­e ­soñ tyi k- ­cha’l-­e ­tsijb tyi k- ­cha’l-­e ’alas tyi k- ­cha’l-­e wäy-el tyi k- ­cha’l-­e xäm-el tyi k- ­cha’l-­e ts’äm-el tyi k-­cha’l-­e ’uk’-el tyi k- ­cha’l-­e lets-el

x-­i n-­b’ixan-ik x-­i n-­sutin-ik x-­i n-­xojow-ik x-­i n-­t z’ib’an-ik x-­i n-­etz’an-ik x-­i n-­war-ik x-­i n-­b’in-ik x-­i n-­ats’an-ik x-­i n-­oq’-ik x-­i n-­qopan-ik

ma chin b’iitzan-­a ma chin-­b’ilii-­a ma chin b’ixin-­a ma chin tz’iib’an-­a ma chin-­saqchaa-­a ma chin-­taan-­a ma chin-­b’et-­a ma chin sb’unchin-­a ma chin-­ooq’a-­a ma chin-­jaawa-­a

The agentive class of verbs is an example of a context of use that distinguishes Ch’ol from K’iche’ and Mam in the sense that where Ch’ol agentive verbs require a transitive construction, the equivalent verbs in K’iche’ and Mam appear as ordinary intransitive verbs employing absolutive markers to cross-­reference their subjects. ­Table 9.4 compares ten agentive verbs in Ch’ol with their translations in K’iche’ and Mam. The last five verbs belong to the ambivalent class of verbs in Ch’ol. This sample shows that some of the more frequent intransitive verbs in conversations with ­children such as ‘play’, ‘sleep’, ‘walk’, and ‘cry’ appear in the light verb construction in Ch’ol, whereas they are intransitive verbs in K’iche’ and Mam. Vázquez Álvarez and Zavala Maldonado (2013) analyze the argument structure in three Ch’ol narratives recorded by three dif­fer­ent Ch’ol speakers. Two of the speakers ­were men over seventy years old and one was a thirty-­five-­year-­old ­woman. The researchers calculate that in the aggregate, the texts contained 2,496 clauses, and they determine w ­ hether the arguments in each clause are expressed as noun phrases, pronouns, or by the agreement markers on the verb. Their study distinguishes between the subjects of transitive verbs, the subjects of intransitive verbs, the objects of transitive verbs, and the occurrence of arguments in relational noun phrases. Their analy­sis differs from my analy­sis of K’iche’ and Mam in that Vázquez Álvarez and Zavala Maldonado had to recognize the added complication caused by the use of a light verb construction with intransitive verbs in Ch’ol. One of ­these cases occurs with intransitive verbs expressing the distinction between controlled and uncontrolled actions (their example (8)). The controlled action in (9a) is expressed by means of a

The Acquisition of Mayan Argument Structures

217

light verb construction using a transitive verb -­cha’l ‘do, make’. The subject in this construction is marked as the subject of the transitive verb although the action is semantically intransitive. The uncontrolled action in (9b) is expressed by means of an intransitive verb. (9) Ch’ol contrast between controlled and uncontrolled actions (Vázquez Álvarez and Zavala Maldonado 2013) a. controlled ­action tyi 

k- ­cha’l-­e-­ø

tyijp’-­el

cmp erg1-­do-­indTV-­abs3 jump-­n m IV ‘I jumped’. (­u nder my control) b. uncontrolled ­action tyi 

tyip’-­iy-­on

cmp jump-­indIV-­abs1 ‘I jumped’. (from being scared)

The use of the light verb construction in Ch’ol places the language at the other end of the transitivity spectrum from Mam. Both languages show a divergence between the semantic structure of events and their morphosyntactic expression. Mam frequently uses intransitive verb constructions to express events that involve an agent acting on a patient, whereas Ch’ol frequently uses transitive verb constructions to express events that only involve an actor. Vázquez Álvarez and Zavala Maldonado coded the subjects of the light verb constructions SA, as in (9a), separately from the subjects of transitive verbs (A) and the subjects of intransitive verbs (SO), as in (9b). They did not separate the counts for the number of oblique phrases that appeared with transitive verbs from t­ hose that appeared with intransitive verbs, nor did they specify w ­ hether they included locative phrases as oblique phrases. For my analy­sis of the argument structure in the adult and child speech, I grouped together Vázquez Álvarez and Zavala Maldonado’s subject types SA and A, ­because both are arguments of transitive verbs. Vázquez Álvarez and Zavala Maldonado established that they had the same frequency of occurrence in the texts that they analyzed. I counted the oblique phrases that occurred with transitive and intransitive verbs separately, and I distinguished oblique syntactic phrases such as dative and comitative

218

chapter 9

­table 9.5 ​Indirect object constructions in K’iche’, Mam, and Ch’ol Context

K’iche’

Mam

Ch’ol

Benefactive Dative Malefactive Locative

Relational noun Relational noun Relational noun Relational noun

Relational noun Relational noun Relational noun Relational noun

Applicative Applicative Applicative Applicative

phrases from locative phrases. I did not count the existential as a verb, but did include positionals as verbs. The analy­sis of dative phrases in Ch’ol posed a dif­fer­ent prob­lem. Ch’ol has a productive applicative suffix that appears with dative, benefactive, and malefactive arguments. The goal arguments occur as bare noun phrases. The direct object occurs immediately following the verb followed by the goal phrase. In (10), a Ch’ol m ­ other tells her son to ask Kiko for a banana. Banana is the direct object and appears directly ­after the applicative form of the verb ‘ask’. I counted the goal phrase (aj kiko) in double object constructions as a relational noun phrase in order to distinguish it from direct objects in nonapplicative constructions. (10)  Goal phrase use in Ch’ol ­mother’s s­ peech

ku k’ajtyi-­beñ a-­ ja’as   aj kiko.



go ask-­app

‘Go ask for your banana from K’iko’.

erg2-­banana fam kiko

In contrast, K’iche’ and Mam do not use the applicative construction for dative and benefactive relations. K’iche’ restricts its applicative form to contexts that focus on a location or instrument (Pye 2007b). K’iche’ and Mam use relational noun phrases to indicate dative and benefactive relations (11). ­table 9.6 ​Adult argument structure in Ch’ol 6

TV

­Mother Pedro Ch’ol texts

1

Transitive Verbs

Subject

Object

1

1

Relational

n

n

Percentage

n

Percentage

n

Percentage

251 426 657

22 38 85

8.7 8.9 12.9

135 193 316

53.4 45.3 48.1

11 10 182

4.4 2.3 27.7

The Acquisition of Mayan Argument Structures

219

(11)  Dative constructions in K’iche’ and Mam a. K’iche’ x-­ ø -­u-ya’

juun ­leen 



cmp-­abs3-­erg3-­give a  

‘She/he gave a penny to me’.

chi-­w-­ee.

penny at-­erg1-­poss

b.  Mam (­England 1983:183)

ma-­a’

rec-­emph abs3-­dir erg1p-­give-­dep money erg3-­poss María

ø-­tzaj

q-­q’o-’n

pwaq t-­e

Mal.



‘We gave the money to María’.

While both K’iche’ and Mam use relational noun phrases to indicate indirect objects, the relational noun phrase in K’iche’ is preceded by the preposition chi ‘at’, whereas relational noun phrases in Mam do not have prepositions. ­Table 9.5 compares the contexts of use for relational noun phrases in K’iche’, Mam, and Ch’ol. I analyzed the arguments produced by two dif­fer­ent adults, recorded in separate sessions with the ­children. One of the adults was EMA’s ­mother and the other was the field investigator for Ch’ol. ­These results are shown in ­Table 9.6. As shown in ­Table 9.6, adult speech to ­children in Ch’ol uses subjects and objects with verbs at similar frequencies to their use in the Vázquez Álvarez and Zavala Maldonado texts. The similarity of frequencies is remarkable, given that we not only analyzed dif­fer­ent speech styles, but devised our categories in­de­pen­dently. The analy­sis of the adult Ch’ol argument structure provides the basis for my assessment of the c­ hildren’s argument structures.

4

IV

1

Intransitive Verbs

Subject

1

Relational

n

n

Percentage

n

Percentage

64 98 854

13 10 198

20.3 10.2 23.2

6 4 237

9.4 4 27.7 1

1

1

220

chapter 9

The two adults in my study produce four times as many transitive verbs as intransitive verbs and twice as many relational noun phrases with intransitive verbs as t­ hose with transitive verbs. However, both produce relational noun phrases in less than 10 ­percent of their utterances. EMA’s ­mother and the texts produce subjects with intransitive verbs with half the frequency of direct objects, but with twice the frequency of the subjects with transitive verbs.

9.4 Comparative Argument Structure in K’iche’, Mam, and Ch’ol The preceding discussion shows that K’iche’, Mam, and Ch’ol adults not only produce transitive and intransitive verbs at dif­fer­ent frequencies, but also produce subjects, objects, and especially relational noun phrases at very dif­fer­ent rates. Figure 9.1 compares ­these frequencies for adult speakers in the three languages. The frequencies of production of subject, object, and the relational noun phrases reflect differences in the grammatical structure of the three languages. The description of the individual languages in the preceding sections provides a basis for identifying the contexts that discriminate the use of subjects, objects, and relational nouns in the three languages. The analy­sis in this section makes the comparison systematic. In sum, the transitive light verb construction in Ch’ol increases the use of transitive verbs in that language relative to Mam and K’iche’. The use of motion verbs increases the use of intransitive verbs in Mam relative to Ch’ol and K’iche’. K’iche’ stands somewhere between Ch’ol and Mam in its use of transitive and intransitive verbs. The increased use of intransitive verbs in Mam results in a more frequent use of relational noun phrases. The frequent use of the applicative construction in Ch’ol further decreases the use of relational noun phrases in that language. Once again, K’iche’ stands somewhere between Ch’ol and Mam in the use of relational noun phrases. ­T hese comparisons account for the frequencies of use of subjects, objects, and relational noun phrases shown in Figure 9.1.

The Acquisition of Mayan Argument Structures

221

figure 9.1. ​Frequency of adult argument production in K’iche’, Mam, and Ch’ol

9.5 C ­ hildren’s Argument Structure in K’iche’, Mam, and Ch’ol The main question that arises in relation to the ­children’s argument structure is the degree to which it approaches the structures of the adult grammars. In order to address this question, I w ­ ill focus first on determining the ­children’s frequency of production for arguments and relational noun phrases before turning to the question of their contexts of use. Differences in the frequency of argument use among Ch’ol, Mam, and K’iche’ should guide the ­children’s use of subjects, objects, and relational noun phrases. 9.5.1 ­Children’s Argument Production in K’iche’ I analyze the K’iche’ ­children’s use of subjects, objects, and relational nouns separately with transitive and intransitive verbs and compare t­ hese results to the adult production in ­Table 9.7. TIY’s use of subjects and objects did not change significantly over the course of the nine-­month study. Like her ­mother, TIY uses overt subjects a l­ ittle more frequently with intransitive verbs than with transitive verbs. She uses overt objects more frequently than subjects like her ­mother does. ­T hese data show that TIY has acquired the discourse constraints on argument omission from the earliest sessions. Data from CHA and LIN are generally similar. Many of the objects that two-­year-­old K’iche’ ­children produce are demonstratives and pronouns. In (12), TIY produces an ambiguous form

222

chapter 9

­table 9.7 ​Noun phrase use in K’iche’ ­c hildren’s and ­mother’s speech Transitive Verbs TV Speaker LIN 2;0 TIY 2;1 TIY 2;2 TIY 2;3 TIY 2;7 TIY 2;10 CHA 2;9 CHA 2;10 ­Mother

Subject

Object

Relational

n

n

Percentage

n

Percentage

n

18 38 32 63 105 99 18 55 149

1 2 3 7 8 13 4 17 12

5.6 5.3 9.4 11.1 7.6 13.1 22.2 30.9 8.1

8 19 6 22 38 42 10 32 57

44.4 50 18.8 34.9 36.2 42.4 55.6 58.2 38.3

0 0 1 1 2 7 0 0 19

Percentage

3.1 1.6 2 7.1

12.8

that can be interpreted as a demonstrative or a pronoun. (She was showing me her chicken, which was getting away.) (12)  TIY’s object production (2;1.17)

chopeh le’, le!

 ​=  chachapa ­lare’  

ch-­ø -­a-­chap-­a       lee ­are’

 

​i mp-­abs3- ­erg2-­grab- ­depTV the he.

  ‘​Grab it’!

TIY produced some subjects of intransitive verbs as reduced noun phrases. An example of one of ­these subjects is shown in (13). Adults normally do not produce the indicative status suffix on verbs in this context. TIY’s production of this suffix is an overgeneralization. (13)  TIY’s intransitive subject production (2;1.17)

ek lon ­le’.

 ​=  x-­ø -­b’e-ik      joron ­le’  

cmp-­abs3-­go-­ind IV  water ­there

  ‘­Water went t­ here’.

­These results indicate that by the age of two years, K’iche’ c­ hildren produce a small number of transitive verbs with a range of objects and intransitive verbs with a range of subjects. The ­children and adults produce

The Acquisition of Mayan Argument Structures

223

Intransitive Verbs IV

Subject

Relational

n

n

Percentage

n

Percentage

24 32 33 62 82 133 39 108 118

5 4 5 23 18 22 9 18 17

20.8 12.5 15.2 37.1 22 16.5 23.1 16.7 14.4

0 1 1 1 1 7 2 6 18

3.1 3 1.6 1.2 5.3 5.1 5.6 15.3

subjects a l­ ittle more frequently with intransitive verbs than with transitive verbs, although CHA’s data show that discourse pressures can alter this tendency. The results support the hypothesis that discourse licenses the omission of subjects of transitive and intransitive verbs equally. T ­ here is no evidence for a significant effect for a dif­fer­ent mechanism for ergative and absolutive agreement on subject omission in K’iche’. The results show a significant difference between the omission of subjects and the omission of direct objects of transitive verbs. The c­ hildren exhibit the same asymmetry as adults do between the omission of subjects and objects. The difference between the production of subjects of intransitive verbs and the objects of transitive verbs is impor­tant ­because both are licensed grammatically by the absolutive agreement system. The K’iche data provide striking evidence that the absolutive agreement system develops in­de­pen­dently of argument omission. ­There is a large difference between the ­children and TIY’s m ­ other’s use of relational nouns with both transitive and intransitive verbs. TIY uses relational nouns in 2 to 3 ­percent of her verbal utterances, but her m ­ other uses relational nouns in 12 to 15 ­percent of her verbal utterances. LIN did not produce any utterances with relational nouns, and CHA did not produce relational nouns with transitive verbs. TIY’s use of relational nouns increases in the final sessions, indicating that her omissions in the earlier sessions ­were not licensed by the adult grammar. Her ­mother produces relational nouns at a rate that was equal to her frequency of subject production with both transitive and intransitive verbs. TIY’s production of relational nouns is much lower than her production of subject phrases.

224

chapter 9

­table 9.8 ​Noun phrase use in Mam ­c hildren’s speech Transitive Verbs TV Speaker WEN 2;0.2 WEN 2;0.25 WEN 2;1.7 JOS 2;6.16 Mam ­mother Mam text TIY’s ­mother

Subject

Object

Relational

n

n

Percentage

n

Percentage

n

Percentage

74 18 40 37 188 30 149

5 0 0 1 11 5 12

6.8

10 8 14 24 92 12 57

13.5 44.4 35 64.9 48.9 40 38.3

9 4 0 5 56 6 19

12.2 22.2

2.7 5.9 16.7 8.1

In example (14), A is reading TIY a story about a squirrel, and TIY is repeating the story. (14)  TIY’s locative preposition use A

k’oo jun ri



exist one that erg3-­carry in erg3-­hand t­ here



‘­T here is one that is carry­ing it in its hand t­ here.’



u-­k’am

pa u-­q’ab’

e.

TIY q’ab’.

  =  pa u-­q’ab’ in erg3-­ hand

‘In its hand.’

K’iche’ ­children produce few examples of relational noun phrases, and when they do, they frequently omit the leading preposition. The difference in TIY’s rates of omission for subjects and relational nouns provides further evidence that the agreement mechanism cited in pro-­drop theory does not account for all cases of omission in ­children’s language. It is always pos­si­ble that relational noun omission in the Mayan languages is subject to a dif­fer­ent licensing mechanism, but without a theory of relational noun omission, this possibility must be dismissed as ad hoc. Roger Brown’s (1973) claim that ­children selectively omit grammatical words in their speech accounts for the omission of relational nouns but does not explain the omission of subjects and objects in the speech of Mayan ­children. The ­children’s differential treatment of subjects and relational nouns requires a detailed investigation of their use of relational

13.5 29.8 20 12.8

The Acquisition of Mayan Argument Structures

225

Intransitive Verbs IV

Subject

Relational

n

n

Percentage

n

Percentage

69 49 45 87 92 74 118

7 20 10 38 38 33 17

10.1 40.8 22.2 43.7 41.3 44.6 14.4

20 8 6 14 28 23 18

29 16.3 14.3 16.1 30.4 31.1 15.3

nouns b ­ ecause the production of relational noun phrases is a particularly sensitive mea­sure of syntactic development. 9.5.2 ­Children’s Argument Production in Mam I analyzed the language samples of the Mam ­children in the same fashion as the K’iche’ language samples. ­Table  9.8 provides information on the use of overt verb arguments and relational nouns in ­t hese Mam language samples and compares the Mam production with that of the K’iche’ ­mother. WEN’s language samples for the ages 2;0.2 to 2;1.7 show a lot of variability in her production of intransitive verb subjects, but her average rate of production is 30 ­percent over this time period. Her rate of intransitive subject production exceeds that of the K’iche’ subjects with the exception of TIY for the period between 2;3.10 and 2;7.8. WEN’s m ­ other produces subjects with 41.3 ­percent of intransitive verbs, in contrast to TIY’s ­mother, who only produces subjects with 14.4 ­percent of her intransitive verbs. Example (15) provides a sample of WEN’s utterances with intransitive verb subjects. (15)  WEN’s utterance with an intransitive verb subject (2;0.2) ke ­i xh.  ​=  n- ­chi    skueela-­n ­b’ixh ​prog-­abs6 school-ap cl.fam

‘They are ­going to school’. (lit., ‘They are schooling’.)

226

chapter 9

WEN was discussing pictures in a book with her m ­ other and commenting on a picture of girls ­going to school. WEN produced an intransitive verb without the antipassive suffix -­n , which Mam requires for verbs borrowed from Spanish. WEN produced the classifier for familiar ­people. Many of the adult and ­children’s argument phrases ­were classifiers. A major difference between the clause structures in K’iche’ and Mam is manifested in the high proportion of relational noun phrases in Mam speakers’ conversation. WEN produces three intransitive verb utterances with relational noun phrases at 2;0.2. In contrast, TIY only produced one in her first three sessions, and LIN produced none at 2;0. WEN’s ­mother produced twice the number of relational noun phrases as TIY’s m ­ other, and the Mam ­children produced relational noun phrases twice as frequently as the K’iche’ ­children did. Thus the frequency data provide evidence of a significant difference in the use of relational noun phrases between K’iche’ and Mam. A closer look at WEN’s utterances with relational nouns explains their use in Mam. Example (16) provides a sample of one of her utterances with a relational noun phrase. (16)  WEN’s utterance with a relational noun (2;0.2)

n te’a yaa Nuya.

 ​= n  txi’  q-­ llamada t-uk’   nanyaa   Nuya ​prog abs3.go erg4-­call   erg3-to grand­mother Nuya ​‘Our call is ­going to grand­mother Nuya’.

WEN’s utterance contains part of the intransitive verb txi’ ‘it.go’ and part of the subject llamada ‘call’. It also includes the possessor of the relational noun nanyaa Nuya ‘grand­mother Nuya’, but she omitted the relational noun uk’ ‘to’ and the ergative possessive marker. WEN’s omission of the relational noun is similar to TIY’s omission of the locative preposition in (14). Although Mam c­hildren produce more relational noun phrases than K’iche’ ­children do, they feature similar omissions. On the ­whole, the Mam c­ hildren produced relational noun phrases half as frequently as WEN’s ­mother. 9.5.3 ­Children’s Argument Production in Ch’ol I analyzed the arguments four Ch’ol ­children between the ages of 2;0 and 4;0 produced. I analyzed four sessions for MAR between the ages of 2;0

The Acquisition of Mayan Argument Structures

227

to 3;0 and for EMA between the ages of 2;0 and 3;0. ­Table 9.9 compares ­these results with the Ch’ol m ­ other’s production. The arguments that the Ch’ol c­ hildren produced exhibit a developmental profile matching the frequency profiles in the adult speech. Adults produce direct objects with slightly less than 50 ­percent of their transitive verbs. Even the youn­gest ­children produced direct objects in their earliest sessions and continued to produce direct objects in ­later sessions at high frequencies. MAR produced direct objects with 44.5 ­percent of her transitive verbs at 3;0. EMA produced direct objects with 43.6  ­percent of his transitive verbs at 3;7, and MAN produced direct objects with 50 ­percent of his transitive verbs at 4;7. The sessions recorded when the ­children ­were between 2;0 and 3;0 show a gradual increase in their use of direct objects. Example (17) gives a sample of EMA’s direct object production. The object is a bare noun that does not have the obligatory possessor marker.

(17)  Object production by EMA (2;1.30) chu ­tyetya. ​=  k’ux-­u

a-­paleta

​eat-­impTV erg2-­lollypop ​‘Eat your lollypop’.

Just as adults produced subjects with intransitive verbs twice as frequently as subjects with transitive verbs, c­ hildren produced subjects with intransitive verbs earlier than with transitive verbs. This developmental pattern is clear in EMA’s data, and to a lesser extent in MAR’s data. MA and MAN did not produce any intransitive subjects, and so neither confirm nor disconfirm this profile. MAR and EMA generally produce subjects with intransitive verbs twice as frequently as with transitive verbs, in line with the relative frequency of subject production by adults. As with the direct objects, ­children gradually increase their production of subjects with both transitive and intransitive verbs between 2;0 and 3;0. Example (18) pres­ents a sample of one of EMA’s intransitive verb subjects. In this case the subject is also a bare noun.

MA 1;5 MAR 2;1 MAR 2;3 MAR 2;10 MAR 3;0 EMA 2;1 EMA 2;2 EMA 2;3 EMA 3;7 MAN 4;7 ­Mother Pedro Ch’ol texts

47 26 16 67 128 31 113 125 172 12 251 426 657

n

TV

1 0 0 6 7 0 2 9 11 1 22 38 85

n

1.8 7.2 6.4 8.3 8.7 8.9 12.9

9 5.5

2.1

Percentage

Subject

1 2 1 15 57 3 11 30 75 6 135 193 316

n 2.1 7.7 6.2 22.4 44.5 9.7 9.7 24 43.6 50 53.4 45.3 48.1

Percentage

Object

Transitive Verbs

­table 9.9 ​Noun phrase use in Ch’ol c­ hildren’s speech

0 0 0 0 4 0 0 0 2 3 11 10 182

n

1.2 25 4.4 2.3 27.7

3.1

Percentage

Relational

7 4 9 25 47 25 56 26 75 3 64 98 854

n

IV

0 0 0 4 12 4 5 4 18 0 13 10 198

n

20.3 10.2 23.2

16 25.5 16 8.9 15.4 24

Percentage

Subject

0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 2 0 6 4 237

n

Intransitive Verbs

9.4 4 27.7

2.7

Percentage

Relational

The Acquisition of Mayan Argument Structures

229

(18)  Intransitive subject production by EMA (2;1.30) weñoxo ­pem. ​= tyi i-­ñoch-­o

pejpem.

​cmp erg3-­stick-­indTV butterfly ​‘The butterfly is stuck’.

The production of relational noun phrases in the ­children’s speech is once again a sensitive mea­sure of their grammatical development. Ch’ol ­children only begin to use relational noun phrases a­ fter the age of 3;0. Even at this age, the production of relational noun phrases by the ­children does not match the frequency of production by adults. Only EMA’s recording at 3;6.30 includes the production of relational nouns with both transitive and intransitive verbs; like the adults, he produced relational nouns twice as frequently with intransitive verbs as with transitive verbs. Example (19) gives samples of EMA’s and MAR’s production of relational noun phrases. Like the relational noun phrases produced by K’iche’ and Mam ­children, EMA produced relational noun phrases that include the object of the preposition but omitted the preposition tyi ‘at’. MAR’s utterance in (19b) also omits the preposition tyi ‘at’. (19) ­Children’s relational noun phrases in Ch’ol a. EMA (3;6.30) päki oko ­nena. = tyi päjk’-­i

tyi ok’o aj nena

cmp soil-­ind IV at  mud the girl ‘The girl soiled herself with mud’. b. MAR (3;0.6) uxe ­ti’. ​=  mi j-­k’ux-­e’-­ø

tyi k-­tyi’

​cmp erg1-­eat-­indTV-­abs3 at erg1-­mouth ‘I eat it with my mouth’.

EMA did not begin to produce applicative verb forms ­until he started to produce relational noun phrases. The example in (20) shows one of EMA’s early applicative verb utterances. This utterance is unusual in that

230

chapter 9

it contains a subject, direct object, and indirect object indicated by the applicative suffix on the verb. (20)  EMA’s applicative verb utterance (3;6.30) tyi chibeñoñ juñ ­ajnena. ​​=  tyi

i- ­chi-­bey-­oñ   juñ aj nena

​cmp erg3-­take-­app-­abs1 paper the girl ‘The girl took the paper from me’.

Overall then, the frequency profiles seen in the speech of Ch’ol adults across a range of discourse styles are relatively stable. ­Children acquiring Ch’ol exhibit considerable sensitivity to t­ hese profiles and match their relative frequencies if not their absolute frequencies by the time they reach 2;2. Over the period between 2;0 and 3;6 c­ hildren gradually bring their absolute frequencies into line with the frequencies of production by the adults. It is pos­si­ble that one reason the c­ hildren appear to produce fewer arguments than adult speakers is that they produce fewer verbal utterances than adult speakers do. This hypothesis can be checked by using the adult frequency profiles to generate an expected frequency of use by the ­children. Using EMA’s ­mother’s frequency profile as a baseline, we would expect ­children to produce subjects with 8.7 ­percent of their transitive verbs and with 20.3 ­percent of their intransitive verbs. EMA produced 113 transitive verbs at 2;1.30, and he would then be expected to produce 9.8 subjects with transitive verbs ( = 8.7 ­percent of 113 transitive verbs). However, he only produced subjects with two transitive verbs. ­Table 9.10 compares the expected number of arguments with the number observed in the c­ hildren’s utterances. The m ­ other’s percentages and observed number of tokens are shown for each argument category. ­Table 9.10 shows that where the expected number of tokens was four or more, the ­children produced at least one argument. ­There are two exceptions to this observation. MAN produced a transitive verb subject even though the expected number of tokens was only one. The second exception occurs in the ­children’s production of relational noun phrases, where the ­children did not produce any relational nouns despite an expected number of four or more tokens. This comparison shows that MAR and EMA are gradually approaching the expected number of subject and object phrases up to and beyond the age of three years. MA has barely begun the production of verb arguments, and MAN is close to the adult level of argument production.

The Acquisition of Mayan Argument Structures

231

­table 9.10 ​Comparison of c­ hildren’s expected and observed production in Ch’ol Subject

MA 1;5 MAR 2;0.21 MAR 2;2.17 MAR 2;10.12 MAR 3;0.6 EMA 2;1.14 EMA 2;1.30 EMA 2;3.10 EMA 3;6.10 MAN 4;7.8 ­Mother

Object

Relational

Subject

Relational

TV

Exp

Ob

Exp

Ob

Exp

Ob

IV

Exp

Ob

Exp

Ob

47 26 16 67 128 31 113 125 172 12 251

4.1 2.3 1.4 5.8 11.1 2.7 9.8 10.9 15 1 8.7%

1 0 0 6 7 0 2 9 11 1 22

25.1 13.9 8.5 35.8 68.4 16.6 60.3 66.8 91.8 6.4 53.4%

1 2 1 15 57 3 11 30 75 6 135

2.1 1.1 0.7 2.9 5.6 1.4 5 5.5 7.6 0.5 4.4%

0 0 0 0 4 0 0 0 2 3 11

7 4 9 25 47 25 56 26 75 3 64

1.4 0.8 1.8 5.1 9.5 5.1 11.4 5.3 15.2 0.6 20.3%

0 0 0 4 12 4 5 4 18 0 13

0.7 0.4 0.8 2.4 4.4 2.4 5.3 2.4 7.1 0.3 9.4%

0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 2 0 6

­Table 9.10 shows that the largest discrepancy between the expected number of arguments and the observed number of arguments the ­children produced occurs in the ­children’s production of direct objects. This discrepancy is surprising b ­ ecause t­hese ­children frequently hear adults producing direct objects. Moreover, the ­children produce more direct objects than subjects. MAR at 2;10 and EMA at 2;3 ­were already producing close to the expected number of subjects with both transitive and intransitive verbs, but only half the expected number of direct objects. ­T hese ­children’s production of relational noun phrases is delayed relative to their production of subjects and objects. 9.5.4 Comparative Argument Structure in Child K’iche’, Mam, and Ch’ol We are now at the point where we can compare the c­ hildren’s argument structures in K’iche’, Mam, and Ch’ol. Figure 9.2 compares the argument structures given in the previous ­tables of two ­children for each of the three languages. In all three languages, the ­children’s production of subjects with intransitive verbs is greater than their production of subjects with transitive verbs. Most of the ­children’s production of intransitive verb subjects is similar to their production of transitive verb objects. LIN at 2;0 and JOS at 2;6.14 produced many more objects than intransitive verb subjects, but their production of intransitive verb subjects greatly exceeds their production of transitive verb subjects. ­T hese results support the hypothesis

232

chapter 9

that the ­children’s preferred argument structures reflect the distinction between the ergative subjects of transitive verbs and the absolutive arguments that include the subjects of intransitive verbs and the direct objects of transitive verbs. The c­ hildren’s argument frequencies are more similar than are the argument frequencies of the adult speakers. The c­ hildren’s argument frequencies most closely resemble the adult frequencies in Mam. The K’iche’ ­mother and male Ch’ol speaker only produced slightly more in­ hese results suggest transitive verb subjects than transitive verb subjects. T that ­children acquiring Mayan languages begin with an ergative argument structure and shift to the adult structures common to each community sometime ­after they are three years old. Although the ­children have similar argument structures, they are producing dif­fer­ent types of arguments in each language. K’iche’ c­ hildren use personal and demonstrative pronouns in most of their arguments. Mam ­children use classifiers for many of their arguments, and Ch’ol c­ hildren use bare nouns for their arguments. While the frequency of Mayan ­children’s arguments are similar, they produce the types of arguments that are frequent in the adult language. The ­children’s use of relational noun phrases is more complex than their use of verb arguments. The ­children acquiring all three languages display a low rate of production of relational noun phrases. Their rates of relational noun phrase production are even lower than their rates of

figure 9.2. ​Comparison of child argument structures in K’iche’, Mam, and Ch’ol

The Acquisition of Mayan Argument Structures

233

transitive subject production and much lower than the adult production. The ­children’s relational noun phrases have a similar structure in that the K’iche’ and Ch’ol c­ hildren omit the preceding preposition and Mam ­children omit the relational noun. ­T hese omissions are surprising for K’iche’ and Ch’ol in that K’iche’ only has two prepositions (pa ‘in, on’ and chi ‘at’) and Ch’ol only has one preposition (tyi ‘at’). K’iche’ and Ch’ol ­children strug­gle to produce the s­ imple set of prepositions in exactly the way that Mam ­children strug­gle to produce a much larger set of relational nouns. Nevertheless, t­ here is evidence that the frequency of relational noun use in the adult languages has a large effect on the c­ hildren’s frequency of use. The adult samples for Mam show that they use relational nouns twice as frequently as the adult K’iche’ speakers do, who in turn use relational nouns twice as frequently as the Ch’ol adults do. The ­children’s production of relational nouns shows a similar pattern of relative frequencies. While two-­year-­old Mam speakers are producing relational noun phrases, albeit without the relational nouns, Ch’ol ­children do not begin to produce relational noun phrases ­until the age of three years. The Ch’ol ­children acquire the applicative suffix on verbs at the time when they start producing relational noun phrases. The similar times of appearance are evidence that the applicative construction and the relational noun phrases are equally difficult for Ch’ol c­ hildren to produce.

9.6 Conclusion The comparative study of argument structure in K’iche’, Mam, and Ch’ol shows that although the three languages share a common set of structural features, the languages use dif­fer­ent features to fill ­these structures. All three languages have transitive verbs, but Ch’ol uses a transitive light verb construction in contexts where K’iche’ and Mam use intransitive verbs. Likewise all three languages have intransitive verbs, but Mam extends intransitive verbs to contexts where K’iche’ and Ch’ol use transitive verbs. One consequence of the increased use of intransitive verbs in Mam is an increased use of relational noun phrases. Although adult speakers of the three languages use subjects and objects at dif­fer­ent rates, ­children acquiring the three languages display an ergative pattern of argument use in which their production of transitive subjects is much less frequent than their production of direct objects and

234

chapter 9

intransitive subjects. The c­ hildren produced relational noun phrases at very dif­fer­ent frequencies in the three languages. The relative rates of the ­children’s relational noun phrase use matches the relative rates of relational noun phrase use in the adult languages. The c­ hildren acquiring Mam begin producing relational noun phrases a year earlier than the ­children acquiring Ch’ol, and at higher rates of use than the c­ hildren acquiring K’iche’.

chapter ten

Argument Realization in Mayan Languages

C

hapter 9 examined the frequency with which Mayan ­children and adults produce arguments with transitive and intransitive verbs. This chapter takes a closer look at the types of overt arguments that ­children and adults produce. Mayan languages have dif­fer­ent means of realizing the semantic roles of agents and themes. As the previous chapter showed, K’iche’ speakers use pronouns or noun phrases to express both agents and themes. Mam speakers use nominal classifiers or noun phrases, but they also express both agents and themes in relational noun phrases. Ch’ol does not have nominal classifiers and uses pronouns to focus on an agent or theme. This chapter investigates how ­children develop the specific means of argument expression that distinguish t­ hese three Mayan languages. I follow the comparative procedure by first presenting the argument types for the individual languages and then the comparison of the ­children’s use of verb arguments.

10.1 Argument Realization in K’iche’ For my analy­sis of argument realization in K’iche’, I divided the noun phrases into three groups: the in­de­pen­dent pronouns, the demonstrative pronouns, and the noun phrases. The in­de­pen­dent pronouns used in the Zunil variety of K’iche’ are shown in ­Table  10.1 (cf. Larsen 1988:100). K’iche’ has formal pronoun forms for the second-­person singular and plural, but they are not used in speech with ­children.

236

chapter 10 ­table 10.1 ​In­de­pen­dent pronouns in K’iche’ First-­person ­singular Second-­person ­singular Third-­person ­singular

in at are’

First-­person ­plural Second-­person ­plural Third-­person plural

uj ix a’re’

K’iche’ has a set of demonstrative pronouns that distinguish three degrees of separation (Larsen 1988:309). The demonstrative wa’ indicates something that is close to the speaker; le’ indicates something that is vis­ i­ble and in the vicinity of the speaker; and ri’ indicates something that is far away. The demonstrative rii’ is used when presenting something that can be in the hand of the speaker. The demonstrative lee’ is used when pointing to something further away. The articles in K’iche’ are similar to the demonstrative pronouns, but they precede the noun phrase they determine. The number word juun ‘one’ is used as an indefinite article in noun phrases. The exact interpretation of definiteness remains unresolved for K’iche’ (cf. Larsen 1988). Noun phrases constitute the third group of nouns that I tracked. This set includes both proper and common noun phrases. I included number phrases such as juun ‘one’ as noun phrases in order to keep the pronominal categories ­simple as well as to make it easier to classify the types of nouns. In several cases, the ­mother produced transitive verbs that ­were followed by complement clauses. I counted the complement clauses as noun phrases. Chapter 9 highlighted the role of relational nouns to indicate locative and syntactic relations. I did not include the relational nouns in my survey of argument realization ­because I want to focus ­here on the realization of subjects and direct objects. For the analy­sis of argument realization in adult K’iche’, I used the speech sample from TIY’s ­mother given in the previous chapter, the sample recorded at my first session with TIY. I counted the number of TIY’s ­mother’s personal pronouns, demonstrative pronouns, and other noun types used as subjects of transitive and intransitive verbs and ­those used as the direct objects of transitive verbs. As part of my comparison, I included a count of the number of null pronouns that TIY’s ­mother produced in each argument position. I excluded relational noun phrases and appositions from this analy­sis. The results appear in ­Table 10.2. In Chapter 9, I examined the degree to which Mayan speakers follow an ergative pattern of argument realization. An ergative pattern

Argument Realization in Mayan Languages

237

­table 10.2 ​Argument realization in adult K’iche’ Null Pronoun

Transitive subject Intransitive subject Transitive object

Noun Phrase

Pronoun

Demonstrative

n

Percentage

n

Percentage

n

Percentage

n

Percentage

143 102 100

92.3 87.9 64.5

8 11 44

5.2 9.5 28.4

4 1 3

2.6 0.9 1.9

0 2 8

1.7 5.2

would be seen if the same distribution of argument types w ­ ere seen for the subjects of intransitive verbs and the objects of transitive verbs. The distribution of argument types provides additional information to the analy­sis of how frequently speakers produce null pronouns. The K’iche’ results show that TIY’s ­mother did not follow a fully ergative pattern of argument realization, although the arguments she produced with intransitive verbs have a lot in common with the arguments she produced as direct objects. She only produced demonstrative pronouns as subjects of intransitive verbs and as direct objects. She produced more personal pronouns as subjects of transitive verbs than as subjects of intransitive verbs.

10.2 Argument Realization in Mam As for K’iche’, I divided the nouns that realize arguments in Mam into dif­fer­ent categories. The Mam categories do not match the K’iche’ categories b ­ ecause of lexical differences between the languages. One of the main differences is that while K’iche’ has in­de­pen­dent pronouns, Mam does not (­England 1983:155). Mam has a set of emphatic pronouns that indicate focus on one of the participants (157). The emphatic pronouns are preceded by a stative predicate that forms an in­de­pen­dent clause with the emphatic pronoun, for example, aa- ­qa, exist-­plural, ‘It is they’. The ­ able 10.3. emphatic phrases are shown in T Mam has a set of nominal classifiers that can be used in place of third-­ person noun phrases. The use of classifiers is optional, for the person markers on the verb are usually sufficient to indicate the main participants. ­England (157) provides the list of classifiers shown in (1).

238

chapter 10

(1)  Mam nominal classifiers (­England 1983:157) jal nonhuman ma man nu’xh baby

xu’j ­woman

xhlaaq’ child

swe’j

old man

b’ixh familiar

xnuq’

old man (respectfully)

q’a

young man

xhyaa’

old ­woman

txin

young ­woman

xuj

old w ­ oman (respectfully)

Mam also has a set of demonstratives that can be used as articles in noun phrases or appear by themselves. This set of demonstratives does not specify distance. A second set of demonstratives points to objects and includes distance information; it cannot be used in noun phrases as articles (­England 1983:149). ­Table 10.4 shows ­these two sets of demonstratives. Mam also uses the number juun ‘one’ as an indefinite article. E ­ ngland (147) notes that the indefinite article is used with possessed nouns to indicate a partitive or pleonastic form of possession. She adds that this use of indefinite articles is characteristic of sixteenth-­century Spanish and is still found in modern Guatemalan Spanish. Juun can be used without a following noun phrase. I counted the use of juun as a noun phrase to be consistent with the K’iche’ analy­sis.

­table 10.3 ​Mam emphatic pronoun phrases Singular

Plural

It is I

(aa) qiin-­a

It is you It is him, her, it

aa ya aa

It is us, inclusive It is us, exclusive It is you It is them

aa qo’ aa qo’ya aa qaya aa qa

­table 10.4 ​Mam demonstrative pronouns Demonstratives aj ajaj, aqaj mal naq ki

Pointers ‘this, that’ ‘­these, ­those’ ‘this, that’ ‘this, that’ ‘that’

Source: ­England (1983:149).

jluu’ ajkiina aj machii’w

‘this’ ‘that’ ‘that’ (more distant)

Argument Realization in Mayan Languages

239

For the Mam analy­sis, I divided the noun phrases into three groups: demonstrative pronouns, nominal classifiers, and other types of noun phrases. Once again, my analy­sis of argument realization did not include the relational noun phrases as a type of direct argument realization. I used the speech sample from WEN’s m ­ other presented in Chapter 9. This sample was recorded in my first session with WEN (1;8.21). I provide examples of the ­mother’s use of classifiers as a subject of a transitive verbs in (2) and as a subject of an intransitive verb in (3). In (2a), the classifier ma ‘male’ acts as the subject of the verb -­b’ate ‘do’. In (2b), the classifier jal ‘nonhuman’ is the subject of the verb -­kub’ ‘go down’ in a context of putting down something.

(2)  Classifier used as subject of a transitive verb in WEN’s ­mother’s speech a.  qal nb’ate m ­ a?

qal 

n-­b’ate ma



what prog-do he



‘What is he ­doing’? b.  taj ch’in tkiib’il ­txin.

t-aj

ch’in t-­kii-­b’il

txin.



erg3-­return ­little erg3-­see-­instr cl.young ­woman

‘She wants to see’. (lit., ‘Her seeing returns a l­ ittle’.)

(3)  Classifier used as subject of an intransitive verb i tkub’ ­jal. i

t-­kub’

jal

so_that erg3-­go_down cl.­thing ‘So that it is put down’. (lit., ‘So that it goes down’.)

I counted the number of demonstrative pronouns, nominal classifiers, and other noun types that WEN’s ­mother produced as subjects of transitive and intransitive verbs, and as the direct objects of transitive verbs. I also included a count of the number of null pronouns that WEN’s m ­ other produced in each argument position. I excluded relational noun phrases and appositions from this analy­sis. The results appear in T ­ able 10.5. As ­Table 10.5 shows, Mam speakers exhibit an ergative pattern of argument realization in their use of overt arguments as well as in their use of null arguments. WEN’s ­mother produced the same proportion of

240

chapter 10

­table 10.5 ​Argument realization in adult Mam (WEN’s ­mother) Null Pronoun

Transitive subject Intransitive subject Transitive object

Noun Phrase

Classifier

Demonstrative

n

Percentage

n

Percentage

n

Percentage

n

Percentage

160 54 92

93.6 56.3 54.1

3 30 57

1.8 31.3 33.5

8 12 15

4.7 12.5 8.8

0 0 6

3.5

noun phrases and classifiers as subjects of intransitive verbs and objects of transitive verbs. The arguments that she produced as subjects of transitive verbs ­were quite distinct from the subjects of intransitive verbs that she produced. The only difference between the m ­ other’s subjects of intransitive verbs and her objects of transitive verbs was her use of demonstrative pronouns as transitive verb objects.

10.3 Argument Realization in Ch’ol I divided the Ch’ol arguments into three categories. The first category is in­de­pen­dent pronouns. Vázquez Álvarez (2011:153) lists a set of in­de­pen­ dent pronouns he claims usually appear at the beginning of sentences, occupying a focus position. Mayan languages usually put focus phrases in a preverbal position. T ­ able 10.6 shows the Ch’ol pronouns. Ch’ol also has a set of demonstrative pronouns that can be used as determiners in noun phrases (4). (4)  Ch’ol demonstrative pronouns (Vázquez Álvarez 2011:169) ili ‘this’ jiñ

‘that’ (near to the ­addressee)

ix-­ä

‘that’ (far but vis­i­ble to both the speaker and hearer)

ibi

‘that’ (audible)

Vázquez Álvarez states that the demonstratives function as pronouns when they occur in the clause-­final position (154). In this position, the demonstratives may optionally host the clause-­fi nal clitic -­i. Vázquez Álvarez notes a distinction between the use of what he terms the short form jiñ and the long form jiñi (250). While other linguists have analyzed jiñi as a determiner (Martínez Cruz 2007; Coon 2004), Vázquez Álvarez

Argument Realization in Mayan Languages

241

­table 10.6 ​Ch’ol focus pronouns Singular

Plural

It is I

joñoñ

It is you It is him, her, it

jatyety jiñ

It is us, inclusive It is us, exclusive It is you It is them

joñoñla joñoñloñ jatyetyla jiñob

suggests that it is used as a hesitation marker when it occurs in nonfinal position. He supplies several examples of its use as a hesitation marker, including the example in (5). (5)  Use of long form jiñi as hesitation marker (Vázquez Álvarez 2011: 251) jiñi, ñichim mi y-­ajñ-­e

y-­ots-­añ-­ø -­o’.

hm, candle inc erg3-­go-nf erg3-­put-­derTV-­abs3-­pl3 ‘Hm, it is a candle they go to put in’.

Earlier in his dissertation Vázquez Álvarez comments that the clitic -­i serves as a topic marker when it occurs on an initial phrase (69). Thus it is pos­si­ble to construe the long form jiñi in (5) as a demonstrative that occurs in a topic clause (e.g., ‘As for that, it is a candle they go to put in’). A topic can be construed as a verb argument when it is not followed by a noun phrase as in (5). For this reason, I included the long form jiñi in nonfinal clause positions in my analy­sis of verb arguments. The En­glish translations that I am using to distinguish the topic and focus constituents in the Ch’ol example raise the question of ­whether topic and focus clauses are separate or form part of the same clause with the verb complex. An utterance produced by EMA’s ­mother provides some evidence regarding the clausal properties of preverbal arguments (6). (6)  EMA’s m ­ other’s use of a demonstrative pronoun with reportative clitic jimbi ­pasi. jiñ =  bi

tyi pas-­i-­ø

that  = reportative cmp sprout-­ind IV-­abs3 ‘It is said that that is what sprouted’.

Vázquez Álvarez says that the reportative clitic is one of the second position clitics found in Ch’ol (68). They follow the first word in the clause with

242

chapter 10

the verb. The first word is usually the aspect marker, but it can be other words, including the demonstrative that EMA’s m ­ other produced in a focus position. The use of the reportative clitic is evidence that EMA’s ­mother considered the preverbal demonstrative to be part of the main clause. Ch’ol also uses numbers as pronouns. The numbers are followed by numeral classifiers and then by the rest of the noun phrase. The number phrase may be preceded by a determiner. When the number phrases are used without a following noun phrase they act as pronouns. In (7), the number phrase juñ-­t yikil ‘one-­classifier’ functions as a pronoun. (7)  Ch’ol number phrase used as pronoun (Vázquez Álvarez 2011:157) ya’

tyi sajty-­i-­ø juñ-­tyikil  wä’ = bä ​ch’oy-­o -­ø iwä’.

­there cmp die-­ind IV-­abs3 one-cl ­here  =  rel live-­stat-­abs3 ­here ‘That is where one (person) who lived ­here died’.

The number words are followed by ­either a numeral classifier or a mea­ sure term. The numeral classifiers in Ch’ol should not be confused with the nominal classifiers in Mam. Numeral classifiers are used to form units for counting ­things, whereas noun classifiers are used to classify ­things for reference purposes—­not for counting. The numeral classifiers in Ch’ol group together objects on the basis of function (8). (8)  Numeral classifiers in Ch’ol (Vázquez Álvarez 2011:160) -­p’ej ‘generic’ - ­t yikil ‘person’ - ­kojty ‘animals’, ‘chili’ - ­tsijty

‘small, thin and large ­things’ (e.g., pencil, machete, fire ­wood)

-­k ’ej

‘flexible, square, rectangle or rounded t­ hings’ (e.g., sheet of p ­ aper)

- ­sejl

‘rounded t­ hings’ (e.g., ­griddle)

-­pijty

­ all) ‘spherical ­things’ (e.g., a b

-­lejch

‘somewhat flat t­ hings’ (e.g., banana tree l­eaf)

- ­t yejk ‘tree’

To maintain consistency with my analy­sis of K’iche’ and Mam, I counted the number phrases in Ch’ol as noun phrases. I therefore divided the Ch’ol arguments into focus pronouns, demonstrative pronouns, and noun phrases, and I counted the number phrases as noun phrases.

Argument Realization in Mayan Languages

243

­table 10.7 ​Argument realization in adult Ch’ol (EMA’s ­mother) Null Pronoun

Transitive subject Intransitive subject Transitive object

Noun Phrase

Focus Pronoun

Demonstrative

n

Percentage

n

Percentage

n

Percentage

n

Percentage

223 51 112

88.8 79.7 44.6

28 10 128

11.2 15.6 51.0

0 1 0

1.6

0 2 11

3.1 4.4

For the analy­sis of argument realization in adult Ch’ol, I used the speech sample from EMA’s ­mother presented in the previous chapter. This sample was recorded when EMA was 2;1.30. In this sample, EMA’s ­mother only produced one pronoun in the focus position with an intransitive verb (9). (9)  Ch’ol ­mother’s use of a focus ­pronoun jiñ-­äch

tyi sajty-­i.

That-­affirmative cmp lose-­ind IV ‘That is what was lost’.

I counted the number of focus pronouns, demonstrative pronouns, and other noun types that EMA’s m ­ other produced as subjects of transitive and intransitive verbs, and as the direct objects of transitive verbs. I also included a count of the number of null pronouns EMA’s ­mother produced in each argument position. I counted verb complement clauses as noun phrase objects and excluded relational noun phrases and appositions from the analy­sis. The results appear in T ­ able 10.7. Argument realization in Ch’ol appears odd b ­ ecause the production of null pronouns and noun phrases is similar for the subjects of transitive and intransitive verbs, but the production of demonstrative pronouns is similar for the subjects of intransitive verbs and the objects of transitive verbs. The demonstratives become more similar if we add the ­mother’s pronoun shown in (9) to the count for demonstratives in T ­ able  10.7. Vázquez Álvarez classifies the word jiñ as both personal pronoun and demonstrative. I characterize the Ch’ol results as displaying an accusative distribution of null pronouns and noun phrases, but an ergative distribution for demonstratives.

244

chapter 10

10.4 Comparing Argument Realization in K’iche’, Mam, and Ch’ol K’iche’, Mam, and Ch’ol most frequently realize arguments as null pronouns and noun phrases. They occasionally use demonstrative pronouns to realize arguments. The languages have dif­fer­ent contexts of use for pronouns, nominal classifiers, and numeral classifiers. Ch’ol restricts the use of personal pronouns to the preverbal focus position, while K’iche’ pronouns are not restricted to focus phrases. Mam has a set of emphatic pronouns but relies on nominal classifiers as a substitute for pronouns. While the use of null pronouns and noun phrases is grammatically similar in ­these languages, the use of pronouns is dif­fer­ent in each language. ­Table 10.8 compares the realization of arguments in the three languages. The results in T ­ able 10.8 show that Mam has an ergative pattern of argument realization distinct from the patterns of argument realization in K’iche’ and Ch’ol. The main difference between argument realization in K’iche’ and Ch’ol is that K’iche’ uses null pronouns more frequently while Ch’ol uses noun phrases more frequently, especially for direct objects. ­These differences in the frequency of use occurred despite the similar contexts of use for null pronouns and noun phrases in the three languages. The difference in the frequency of use of the pronouns and nominal classifiers reflects the dif­fer­ent contexts of use among the three languages. The use of nominal classifiers in Mam is more frequent than the use of pronouns in K’iche’ and Ch’ol. The ergative pattern of argument realization is also evident in the use of nominal classifiers in Mam. The Ch’ol m ­ other only produced a single instance that could be classified as a pronoun, but the K’iche’ m ­ other produced eight pronouns.

­table 10.8 ​Comparison of argument realization in adult K’iche’, Mam, and Ch’ol (percentage) Null Pronoun

Noun Phrase

Pronoun/Classifier

Speaker

TV Subj

IV Subj

TV Obj

TV Subj

IV Subj

TV Obj

TV Subj

IV Subj

TV Obj

K’iche’ Mam Ch’ol

92.3 93.6 88.8

87.9 56.3 79.7

64.5 54.1 44.6

5.2 1.8 11.2

9.5 31.3 15.6

28.4 33.5 51.0

2.6 4.7

0.9 12.5 1.6

1.9 8.8

Argument Realization in Mayan Languages

245

The use of demonstrative pronouns is one area of similarity across the three languages. The K’iche’, Mam, and Ch’ol ­mothers used demonstrative pronouns most frequently as direct objects. The K’iche’ and Mam m ­ others also produced demonstrative pronouns as the subjects of intransitive verbs. While the ­mothers did not use demonstrative pronouns frequently, the demonstratives exhibit an ergative pattern of use.

10.5 K’iche’ C ­ hildren’s Production of Verb Arguments I followed the procedure that I used to analyze the arguments in the adult speech for the K’iche’ ­children. I counted the number of personal pronouns, demonstrative pronouns, and other noun types that the c­ hildren produced as subjects of transitive and intransitive verbs, and as the direct objects of transitive verbs. I excluded relational noun phrases and appositions from this analy­sis. T ­ able 10.9a lists the number of tokens the c­ hildren produced and ­Table 10.9b shows the percentages. TIY’s ­mother did not produce overt arguments very frequently, but she did produce noun phrases and pronouns in each of the three main argument positions. She did not produce demonstrative pronouns as the subject of transitive verbs. The K’iche’ ­children followed this template to a degree, but they also diverged from the adult pattern in in­ter­est­ing ways. Example (10) provides samples of TIY’s use of noun phrases, pronouns, and demonstratives as subjects of intransitive verbs.

­table 10.9a ​The development of argument realization in K’iche’ (tokens) Null Pronoun

Noun Phrase

Pronoun

Speaker

TV Subj

IV Subj

TV Obj

TV Subj

IV Subj

TV Obj

TV Subj

IV Subj

TV Obj

LIN 2;0 TIY 2;1 TIY 2;2 TIY 2;3 TIY 2;7 TIY 2;10 ­Mother

17 36 29 56 97 87 143

18 28 28 39 64 112 102

10 19 26 41 67 57 100

0 1 1 3 5 5 8

3 1 2 12 14 7 11

7 3 3 19 30 38 44

1 1 2 3 3 7 4

2 3 3 2 1 10 1

0 2 0 0 0 0 3

246

chapter 10

­table 10.9b ​The development of argument realization in K’iche’ (percentage) Null Pronoun

Noun Phrase

Pronoun

Speaker

TV Subj

IV Subj

TV Obj

TV Subj

IV Subj

TV Obj

TV Subj

IV Subj

LIN 2;0 TIY 2;1 TIY 2;2 TIY 2;3 TIY 2;7 TIY 2;10 ­Mother

94.4 94.7 90.6 88.9 92.4 87.9 91.9

75.0 87.5 84.8 62.9 78.0 84.2 87.9

55.6 50.0 81.3 65.1 63.8 57.6 64.5

2.6 3.1 4.8 4.8 5.1 5.4

12.5 3.1 6.1 19.4 17.1 5.3 9.5

38.9 7.9 9.4 30.2 28.6 38.4 28.4

5.6 2.6 6.3 4.8 2.9 7.1 2.7

8.3 9.4 9.1 3.2 1.2 7.5 0.9

TV Obj

5.3

1.9

(10)  Examples of TIY’s intransitive verb subjects a.  Noun phrase (TIY 2;7)   tin e jun e se’p ­e’.

= k-­ ø -­atin

lee ​jun ​al sep ­lee’

  inc-­abs3-­bathe the one fam sep ­there   ‘Sep is bathing ­there’. b.  Pronoun (TIY 2;3)   kat lee ­le.

= x-­ ø -­k’at

are’

lee’

   cmp-­abs3-­burn him/her/it  there   ​‘It burned ­there’. c.  Demonstrative (TIY 2;3)    tik ­e’.

= x-­ ø -­pet-ik

lee’

   cmp-­abs3- ­come-­ind IV that   ‘That came’.

TIY’s noun phrase subject in (10a) is one of the few noun phrases she produced containing a determiner followed by a number. The use of a determiner and number with a name is common in adult K’iche’. The examples in (10a) and (10c) end in the vowel /e/, which I interpret as the demonstrative le’ indicating a t­hing or location. The c­ hildren produced this demonstrative as le’ or e’. In (10b), TIY produced the words lee le, which I interpreted as the third-­person singular pronoun are’ followed

Argument Realization in Mayan Languages

247

by the demonstrative le’. K’iche’ ­children usually pronounce /r/ as /l/ and omit the initial syllable, which changes /are’/ to /le’/. As the results in ­Tables  10.9a and 10.9b show, TIY did not produce noun phrases as frequently in her first six recording sessions as her ­mother did. Instead of producing noun phrases, TIY produced more pronominal arguments in ­these same six sessions. LIN also used pronouns more frequently than TIY’s ­mother did in his two recording sessions. The number of pronouns that the ­children produced is small. TIY produced only six pronouns in her first three sessions and five pronouns in her second three sessions. However, in her last sessions, TIY overused pronouns. One obvious gap in the ­children’s use of pronouns is their absence as direct objects. TIY only produced two pronouns in this position in her second session. LIN did not produce any pronouns as direct objects. The ­children produced more noun phrases as direct objects, which explains the relative infrequency of their pronoun production in this argument position. The ­children, like TIY’s ­mother, do not display an ergative pattern of use for noun phrases and pronouns. The c­ hildren’s use of pronouns is particularly telling in this regard, mostly confining their use of pronouns to the subjects of transitive and intransitive verbs. The results for the demonstratives tell a dif­fer­ent story. The ­children and TIY’s ­mother, with one exception, confined their demonstratives to the subjects of intransitive verbs and the direct objects of transitive verbs. The demonstratives follow an ergative pattern of argument realization for both the c­ hildren and m ­ other. ­Table 10.10 provides the results for the demonstratives. TIY produced one demonstrative as the subject of a transitive verb in her seventh session. Her utterance is ambiguous in that the demonstra-

­table 10.10 ​K’iche’ demonstrative argument use TV Subject Speaker

n

LIN 2;0 TIY 2;1 TIY 2;2 TIY 2;3 TIY 2;7 TIY 2;10 ­Mother

0 0 0 1 0 0 0

IV Subject

Percentage

n

1.6

0 0 0 9 3 4 2

TV Object

Percentage

n

Percentage

14.5 3.7 3.0 1.7

1 14 3 3 8 4 8

5.6 36.8 9.4 4.8 7.6 4.0 5.2

248

chapter 10

tive she produced can be interpreted as e­ ither indicating a place or a ­thing (11). The context of her utterance shows that the place interpretation is prob­ably correct, but to be conservative I have counted it as a pos­ si­ble demonstrative subject. (11)  TIY’s pos­si­ble use of a demonstrative as the subject of a transitive verb (2;3)   lon ya lon leh. =  jaron k-­ø -­u-ya’

jaron le’

  ­water inc-­abs3-­erg3-­give ­water that   ‘That puts ­water’. or ‘He/she puts w ­ ater ­there’.

In sum, the K’iche’ ­children generally follow the same pattern of argument realization as TIY’s ­mother does. K’iche’ speakers most frequently realize arguments as null pronouns, especially in the position of the subject of transitive verbs. The ­children’s use of noun phrases is similar to that of adults, but c­ hildren use pronouns more frequently than the ­mother does to indicate the subjects of both transitive and intransitive verbs. The ­children follow the adult use of demonstrative pronouns and restrict their use to the subjects of intransitive verbs and direct objects. Thus c­ hildren display an accusative pattern of use for personal pronouns while following an ergative pattern of use for demonstrative pronouns.

10.6 Mam ­Children’s Production of Verb Arguments For Mam, I counted the number of noun phrases, nominal classifiers, and demonstrative pronouns that the ­children produced as subjects of transitive and intransitive verbs, and as the direct objects of transitive verbs. I excluded relational noun phrases and appositions from this analy­ sis. ­Table 10.11a lists the number of tokens the ­children produced, and ­Table 10.11b shows the percentages. Like WEN’s ­mother, the Mam ­children followed an ergative pattern of argument realization. The ergative pattern is not obvious in WEN’s first recording at 2;0.2 ­because she used null pronouns and nominal classifiers at similar rates for the subjects of transitive and intransitive sentences. Her production of noun phrases, however, exhibits the ergative pattern. An ergative pattern of argument production becomes more salient in her second and third sessions. JOS’s argument production at

Argument Realization in Mayan Languages

249

­table 10.11a ​The development of argument realization in Mam (tokens) Null Pronoun

W 2;0.2 W2;0.25 W 2;1.7 J 2;6.14 J 3;0.10 ­Mother

Noun Phrase

Nominal Classifiers

TV Subj

IV Subj

TV Obj

TV Subj

IV Subj

TV Obj

TV Subj

IV Subj

TV Obj

69 18 40 36 82 170

62 29 36 49 121 54

64 10 25 13 10 101

0 0 0 0 2 3

3 9 3 24 61 30

6 0 12 18 55 57

5 0 0 1 0 8

4 11 6 10 49 12

2 9 0 6 8 15

­table 10.11b ​The development of argument realization in Mam (percentage) Null Pronoun

W 2;0.2 W2;0.25 W 2;1.7 J 2;6.14 J 3;0.10 ­Mother

Noun Phrase

TV Subj

IV Subj

TV Obj

93.2 100 100 97.3 97.6 93.9

89.9 59.2 80.0 56.3 46.2 56.3

86.5 55.6 62.5 35.1 11.9 55.8

Nominal Classifiers

TV Subj

IV Subj

TV Obj

TV Subj

IV Subj

TV Obj

8.1

6.8

5.8 22.4 13.3 11.5 18.7 12.5

2.7 50.0

2.4 1.7

4.3 18.4 6.7 27.6 23.3 31.3

30.0 48.6 65.5 31.5

2.7 4.4

16.2 9.5 8.3

2;6.14 clearly exhibits the ergative pattern of argument realization of WEN’s ­mother. The pattern of argument realization seen in WEN’s first session at 1;8.21 may be skewed ­because this was the first time that she was asked to interact with outsiders. This interaction may have resulted in a higher than usual use of argument omission. Her use of nominal classifiers may also reflect first-­day anx­i­eties. Example (12) provides samples of WEN’s production of intransitive subjects from her second session. (12)  WEN’s intransitive subjects (2;0.27) a.  Noun phrase subject   nooxh tan.

=  ti

tal

no’xh n-­ø -­tan

  what small worm prog-­abs3-­sleep   ‘The ­little worm is sleeping’.

250

chapter 10

­table 10.12 ​Mam demonstrative argument use TV Subject Speaker

n

W 2;0.2 W2;0.25 W 2;1.7 JOS 2;6.14 JOS 3;0.10 ­Mother

0 0 0 0 0 0

Percentage

IV Subject n 0 0 0 4 31 0

Percentage

4.6 11.8

TV Object n

Percentage

2 1 3 0 11 8

2.7 5.6 7.5 13.1 4.4

b. Nominal classifier subject    ’o’ ­ma.

= n-­ø -’oq’   ma

   prog-­abs3-­cry  cl.man   ‘He is crying’.

The Mam speakers did not use demonstratives very frequently. When they did, they usually produced them as direct objects. JOS is the exception to this pattern. He used demonstrative pronouns as the subjects of intransitive verbs, but not as direct objects. T ­ able 10.12 shows the Mam use of demonstratives. Example (13) gives a sample of JOS’s use of demonstrative subjects. (13)  JOS’s use of demonstrative pronoun as the subject of an intransitive verb   ma kalet k ­ i. = ma-­ø   k’al-­eet ki    rec-­abs3 tie-­pas that   ‘That is tied’.

In sum, the ergative pattern of argument realization emerges in the production of noun phrases and nominal classifiers, as well as with null pronouns. The ergative pattern emerges early in Mam; it is apparent in ­children as young as 2;1. The ergative pattern is not as clear in the use of demonstrative pronouns, but then Mam speakers seldom use demonstrative pronouns.

Argument Realization in Mayan Languages

251

10.7 Ch’ol C ­ hildren’s Production of Verb Arguments For Ch’ol, I counted the number of noun phrases, pronouns, and demonstrative pronouns that the c­ hildren produced as subjects of transitive and intransitive verbs, and as the direct objects of transitive verbs. I excluded relational noun phrases and appositions from this analy­sis. T ­ able  10.13a lists the number of tokens the ­children produced, and ­Table 10.13b shows the percentages. The results shown in T ­ ables 10.13a and 10.13b reflect a clear decrease in the use of null arguments and an increase in the production of noun phrase arguments between the ages of 2;0 and 4;0. While the older ­children approach the ­mother’s use of noun phrase arguments, they still ­table 10.13a ​The development of argument realization in Ch’ol (tokens) Null Pronoun

Noun Phrase

Pronoun

Speaker

TV Subj

IV Subj

TV Obj

TV Subj

IV Subj

TV Obj

TV Subj

IV Subj

TV Obj

MA 1;5 MAR 2;0 EMA 2;2 EMA 2;3 MAR 2;10 MAR 3;0 EMA 3;7 MAN 4;7 ­Mother

46 26 111 116 61 122 161 11 223

7 4 51 22 21 35 57 3 51

46 25 102 96 52 70 99 6 112

1 0 2 7 6 4 9 1 28

0 0 4 2 4 10 15 0 10

1 1 6 24 12 48 54 3 128

0 0 0 1 0 0 1 0 0

0 0 1 1 0 0 1 0 1

0 0 5 4 1 6 8 0 0

­table 10.13b ​The development of argument realization in Ch’ol (percentage) Null Pronoun

Speaker MA 1;5 MAR 2;0 EMA 2;2 EMA 2;3 MAR 2;10 MAR 3;0 EMA 3;7 MAN 4;7 ­Mother

Noun Phrase

TV Subj

IV Subj

TV Obj

TV Subj

97.9 100 98.2 92.8 91 95.3 93.6 91.7 88.8

100 100 91.1 84.6 84 74.5 76.0 100 79.7

97.9 92.2 90.3 76.0 77.6 54.7 57.6 50 44.6

2.1 1.8 5.6 9 3.1 5.2 8.3 11.2

Pronoun

IV Subj

TV Obj

7.1 7.7 16 21.3 20.0

2.1 3.8 5.3 19.2 17.9 37.5 31.4 25 51.0

15.6

TV Subj

IV Subj

TV Obj

0.8

1.8 3.8

0.6

1.3

4.4 3.2 1.5 4.7 4.7

1.6

252

chapter 10

rely more on null arguments than does EMA’s ­mother. The developing reliance on noun phrase arguments is most apparent for the c­ hildren’s direct objects and least obvious for their use of noun phrases as the subjects of transitive verbs. The ­children’s use of noun phrases as subjects of intransitive verbs is greater than their use of them as subjects of transitive verbs, but lags ­behind the their use as direct objects. While the Ch’ol ­children do not follow an ergative pattern of argument realization, neither do they follow an accusative pattern. Ch’ol ­children use noun phrases in a way somewhere between ergative and accusative patterns. Example (14) provides examples of EMA’s subjects. (14)  EMA’s intransitive verb subjects a.  Noun phrase subject (2;1.30)   weñoxo ­pem.

= tyi  ñoch-­o

pejpem

   cmp stick-­ind IV butterfly   ‘The butterfly is stuck’. b.  Pronominal subject (3;6.30)   mach joñoñ tyi choko

=  mach joñoñ tyi  k-­chok-­o -­ø

   neg 

I  

cmp erg1-­throw-­indTV-­abs3

  ‘It is not I that threw it’.

The results for the pronouns and demonstratives reflect the use of the third-­person pronoun/demonstrative jiñ and the demonstrative ili ‘this’. ­There ­were two uses of other pronouns and one use of another demonstrative. I counted the use of jiñ as a pronoun in order to be consistent in my analy­sis, but the contexts of the ­children’s use of jiñ show that they use it as a demonstrative rather than as a pronoun. The example in (15) is typical of the pos­si­ble ambiguity that occurs in interpreting the c­ hildren’s use of jiñ. (15)  EMA’s use of jiñ (2;3.10)   jiñe ­ety. = jiñ ​tyi   y-­äk’-­ety    this cmp erg3-­give-­abs2   ‘This is what she/he/it gave to you’.

MA 1;5 MAR 2;0 EMA 2;2 EMA 2;3 MAR 2;10 MAR 3;0 EMA 3;7 MAN 4;7 ­Mother

Speaker

0.8

0.6

1

Percentage

1

n

TV Subj

­table 10.14 ​Ch’ol usage of jiñ and ili

1.3 1.6

1

1.8 3.8

Percentage

1

1 1

n

IV Subj

jiñ

5 4 1 6 8

n

4.4 3.2 1.5 4.7 4.7

Percentage

TV Obj

0.8 1.6 0.6

2 2

Percentage

1

n

TV Subj

2

2 1

1

n

3.1

4.3 2.7

3.8

Percentage

IV Subj

ili

1 2 4 11 3 11

n

0.8 3.0 3.1 6.4 25 4.4

Percentage

TV Obj

254

chapter 10

EMA uses jiñ in a preverbal focus position. However, due to the ambiguity of jiñ, the focus could be on the giver or the given object. The context suggests that EMA was focusing on the object in this case. The use of the demonstrative ili ‘this’ is not ambiguous and the Ch’ol speakers used ili far more frequently than the other demonstratives with the exception of jiñ. My division between pronouns and demonstratives actually shows the difference between the use of jiñ and ili. ­Table 10.14 compares this usage. The comparison of jiñ and ili in ­Table 10.14 shows that the ­children use both words at similar rates in the three contexts. EMA produced jiñ and ili more consistently than the other ­children did, but MAR’s use of ­these words is similar to EMA’s. The c­ hildren used both words most frequently as direct objects and less frequently as the subjects of intransitive verbs. They used jiñ and ili least frequently as subjects of transitive verbs. I conclude from this comparison that the c­ hildren used jiñ as a demonstrative and that they only produced a total of two pronouns. They used demonstratives in the same way that they used noun phrases and most frequently as direct objects of transitive verbs.

10.8 Comparison of ­Children’s Argument Realization in K’iche’, Mam, and Ch’ol The comparison of c­ hildren’s argument realization in K’iche’, Mam, and Ch’ol shows how profoundly the grammar of the three languages guides the ­children’s use of overt arguments in the contexts of transitive and intransitive verbs. The three Mayan languages have similar argument types, which I divide into null pronouns, noun phrases, pronouns or nominal classifiers, and demonstratives. Every­thing e­ lse being equal, we would expect c­ hildren acquiring t­ hese three languages to produce noun phrases, pronouns, and demonstratives at similar rates in the three languages. If the c­ hildren follow an accusative pattern of argument realization, they should produce noun phrases, pronouns, and demonstratives at equal rates as the subjects of transitive and intransitive verbs. If they follow an ergative pattern of argument realization, they should produce noun phrases, pronouns, and demonstratives at equal rates as the subjects of intransitive verbs and direct objects. I first compared the ­children’s production of noun phrases in the contexts of use as the subjects of transitive and intransitive verbs and as

Argument Realization in Mayan Languages

255

­table 10.15 ​Comparison of noun phrase production in three contexts (percentage) Language

Child

Age

TV Subject

IV Subject

TV Object

K’iche’

TIY TIY TIY ­Mother

2;1 2;7 2;10

2.6 4.8 5.1 5.4

3.1 17.1 5.3 9.5

7.9 28.6 38.4 28.4

Mam

WEN JOS JOS ­Mother

2;0 2;6 3;0

2.4 1.7

4.3 27.6 23.3 31.3

8.1 48.6 65.5 31.5

EMA EMA MAR ­Mother

2;2 2;3 3;0

1.8 5.6 3.1 11.2

7.1 7.7 21.3 15.6

5.3 19.2 37.5 51.0

Ch’ol

direct objects. ­Table  10.15 compares the ­children’s production of noun arguments in ­these three contexts with the ­mothers’ productions. The results for the ­mothers show the end state for each language. The two-­year-­olds, with the exception of LIN, produced fewer noun phrase arguments than the ­mothers did. Between the ages of 2;0 and 3;0, the ­children approached the ­mothers’ rate of noun phrase production. The K’iche’ and Ch’ol ­mothers produced more noun phrases as direct objects than as subjects. Both of t­hese m ­ others produced noun phrases slightly more frequently as the subjects of intransitive verbs than as the subjects of transitive verbs. Their production of noun phrases follows an accusative pattern of argument realization. The K’iche’ and Ch’ol ­children followed this same pattern in their productions of noun phrases. One indication of this pattern is that the K’iche’ and Ch’ol ­children, with the exception of LIN, produced at least one subject of a transitive verb in each session in which they also produced a subject of an intransitive verb. In comparison with the K’iche’ and Ch’ol results, the Mam ­mother had a distinctively ergative pattern of noun phrase production. She produced noun phrases at similar frequencies for the subjects of intransitive verbs and direct objects. Her production of noun phrase subjects for transitive verbs was markedly dif­fer­ent. The noun phrase productions of the Mam ­children ­were also distinct from t­ hose of the K’iche’ and Ch’ol c­ hildren. The Mam c­ hildren produced fewer noun phrases as the subjects of transitive verbs than the K’iche’ and Ch’ol c­ hildren did and more noun phrases as direct objects than the K’iche’ and Ch’ol ­children did. The

256

chapter 10

noun phrase results show that Mayan c­ hildren knew the adult pattern of argument realization by the age of 2;0, even though they did not produce noun phrases as often as adult speakers did. The ­children’s use of pronominal arguments tells a similar story. The Mam ­children used nominal classifiers by 2;0 and follow the ergative pattern of use seen in the m ­ other’s speech. ­Children acquiring K’iche’ also used pronouns as arguments by 2;0, but they do not produce as many pronouns as the Mam ­children’s classifiers. T ­ able 10.16 displays the ­children’s use of pronominal arguments. The Ch’ol ­mother did not produce many pronominal arguments. I attribute the absence of pronoun use in the Ch’ol recordings to their restriction to contexts of focus rather than as verb arguments. The Ch’ol ­children produced pronouns less frequently as subjects than the K’iche’ ­children did and much less frequently than the Mam c­ hildren produced nominal classifiers. ­These results show that Mayan ­children follow language-­specific patterns of argument realization by the age of two years, even though they do not produce overt arguments as frequently as adult speakers do. K’iche’ ­children use pronouns, Mam ­children use nominal classifiers, and Ch’ol ­children use noun phrases. Mam ­children follow an ergative pattern of argument production; however, the K’iche’ and Ch’ol ­children follow an accusative pattern of argument production. The comparative evidence of language-­specific acquisition is all the more impressive ­because the K’iche’, Ch’ol, and Mam ­children are

­table 10.16 ​Pronominal argument use in K’iche’, Ch’ol, and Mam (percentage) Language

Child

Age

TV Subject

IV Subject

TV Object

K’iche’

TIY TIY TIY ­Mother

2;1 2;7 2;10

2.6 2.9 7.1 2.7

9.4 1.2 7.5 0.9

5.3

WEN JOS JOS ­Mother

2;0 2;6 3;0

6.8 2.7 4.4

5.8 11.5 18.7 12.5

2.7 16.2 9.5 8.3

EMA EMA MAR ­Mother

2;2 2;3 3;0

0.8

1.8 3.8

4.4 3.2 4.7

Mam

Ch’ol

1.6

1.9

Argument Realization in Mayan Languages

257

acquiring similar languages with similar degrees of argument omission. The c­ hildren acquiring t­hese three languages acquire similar forms of argument expression, despite the fact that ­these forms differ in their contexts of use. The difference is particularly salient in the c­ hildren’s use of pronouns. The ­children acquiring K’iche’ use pronouns to express subjects and objects. The c­ hildren acquiring Mam learn that the emphatic pronouns of Mam are not used in the same contexts that K’iche’ uses its pronouns. Instead, the Mam c­hildren learn the nominal classifiers that are used as the regular means of argument expression in Mam. The ­children acquiring Ch’ol likewise must learn that the pronouns in Ch’ol are used to focus arguments rather than to express unfocused arguments. C ­ hildren acquiring Ch’ol use noun phrases to express arguments. The comparison between the Mayan languages reveals how the common ele­ments are put to dif­fer­ent uses in the languages and shows how the dif­fer­ent contexts of use result in dif­fer­ent acquisition profiles.

10.9 Analy­sis or Synthesis We are now at a point where we can compare the Mayan c­ hildren’s use of agreement marking with their production of overt arguments. I focused on the ­children’s production of verb arguments in this chapter, but it is impor­tant to remember that the adult Mayan languages have obligatory cross-­reference marking for both the subjects and direct objects in the verb complex. The use of the cross-­reference markers mitigates the need for overt nominal arguments. Discourse requirements account for the higher frequency of nominal arguments as direct objects, although I also found a high frequency of nominal subjects for intransitive verbs in Mam. The choice between person marker and nominal argument marks the difference between analy­sis and synthesis. Mayan ­children who take an analytic approach to argument expression should prefer the use of nominal arguments. Mayan ­children who take a synthetic approach to argument expression should prefer the use of person markers. This section compares the use of person markers and nominal arguments in order to explore when ­children begin to f­avor the synthetic expression of arguments seen in the adult languages. ­T here are situations in the K’iche’ recordings where the ­children are prone to use nominal arguments. For example, LIN produced the utter-

258

chapter 10

ance in (16a) when we w ­ ere blowing b ­ ubbles and popping them. In this utterance, he is asserting that he wants to be the one that pops the next ­bubble. LIN used the first-­person pronoun in the preverbal focus position to assert his agency. This focus use requires a focus antipassive construction with the first-­person absolutive subject marker. LIN produces the focused pronoun but omits the absolutive agreement marker. (16)  Focus pronoun use by LIN (2:0) a.  in in ­chup

=  in 

in   k-­in-­chup-­uw-­ik

   abs1 abs1  inc-­abs1-­pop-­foc.ap-­ind IV   ‘I ­w ill pop it’. b.  in, in i­ nkowinik.

=  in, 

in   k-­in-­kowin-­ik

   abs1 abs1  inc-­abs1-­can-­ind IV   ‘I can’.

The utterance in (16a) was followed a short time l­ ater by the utterance in (16b). LIN is still trying to tell his aunts and me that he can blow the ­bubbles. In this utterance, he produced both the focused pronoun as well as the absolutive person marker on the intransitive verb. ­T hese examples show that two-­year-­old K’iche’ ­children make use of both the agreement markers and nominal expressions to indicate verb arguments. The production of nominal arguments in the preverbal focus position is evidence that the c­ hildren understand the grammar of focus even though they do not always produce the agreement markers and the focus antipassive suffix on transitive verb stems. None of the K’iche’ ­children displays an overwhelming preference for analy­sis over synthesis. The Mam and Ch’ol ­children also demonstrate equal skill with the dif­fer­ent modes of argument expression in their languages. In (17), the Mam child WEN announced that she was getting down from the investigator’s lap. She produced the combination of two directional verbs and a relational noun with the first-­person ergative possessive marker, but she omitted the first-­person absolutive marker from the verb complex. As we have seen, the use of relational nouns is especially frequent in Mam, and WEN’s utterance is typical.

Child

TIY TIY TIY

WEN JOS JOS

EMA EMA MAR

Language

K’iche’

Mam

Ch’ol

2;2 2;6 3;0

2;0 2;6 3;0

2;2 2;7 2;10

Age

8 4 4

10 1 9

1 13 19

n

19 33 27

33 11 24

4 19 25

Percentage

Ergative

2 7 4

1

1 5 5

n

2 6 3

1

3 5 5

Percentage

NP A

1

5 1 1

1 3 7

n

Transitive Verb Utterances

1

7 3 1

3 3 7

Percentage

Pronoun A

­table 10.17 ​Comparison of child production of subject markers and verb arguments

1 3 12

7 56 78

4 8 19

n

8 50 75

26 79 98

36 40 36

Percentage

Absolutive

10

4

3 24 35

1 14 7

n

21

7

4 28 13

3 17 5

Percentage

NP S

1

4 10 25

3 1 10

n

Intransitive Verb Utterances

2 4

6 12 9

9 1 8

Percentage

Pronoun S

260

chapter 10

(17)  WEN (2;0.25)   kuux wey’. = n  chin kuu-­ x     w-­ eky’    prog abs1 do.down-­away  erg1-­poss   ‘I’m getting down’.

In (18), the Ch’ol child MA complains that her siblings threw rocks at her. She produced a complete verb complex that includes the absolutive marker for the direct object as well as the plural suffix. She omitted the ergative marker for the subject and a nominal subject argument. (18)  MA (1;11.18)    tyi ­juloño’. =  tyi 

i-­jul-­uy-­oñ-­o’

   cmp erg3-­shoot-­indTV-­abs1-­pl   ‘They shot me’.

­Table 10.17 compares the c­ hildren’s development of subject expression. Even though the third-­person zero absolutive agreement marker greatly reduces the use of overt person marking, the ­children generally produced subject markers on their verbs more frequently than nominal subject arguments. ­T here is no evidence of a stage at which Mayan ­children use nominal subjects in place of the subject cross-­reference markers on verbs. Mayan ­children demonstrate an early awareness of polysynthesis in their target languages.

chapter eleven

Conclusion

T

his book demonstrates how the comparative method derived from historical linguistics can be redeployed in research on language acquisition. While the goal of the comparative method in historical linguistics is to reconstruct the history of genet­ically related languages, the comparative method can be repurposed in acquisition research to identify units of comparison relative to their contexts of use. By redirecting the focus of acquisition research away from forms and functions to contexts of use, the comparative method controls the prob­lem that nonequivalent units create for crosslinguistic comparisons. Confining the comparisons to genet­ically related languages facilitates the identification of contexts of use and shows how ­these contexts vary across languages over time. It is precisely this idea of systematic comparison that the comparative method of acquisition research inherits from the traditional comparative method of historical linguistics. Systematic comparison provides a new impetus for the crosslinguistic investigation of language acquisition. Crosslinguistic comparison reminds investigators that linguistic features are the accidents of the unique history of each language rather than attributes of universal grammar. Precisely defined contexts of use are the necessary basis for comparing how ­children acquire dif­fer­ent languages. Once a comparison has been made between two related languages, it can be extended to the other languages in the same language ­family. Systematic comparison leads to a cumulative investigation of the units of comparison across an entire language ­family. L ­ ater studies can build on the results of previous studies in a comprehensive manner. The comparative method facilitates a language-­external perspective on language acquisition in contrast to the language-­internal perspective of

262

chapter 11

the monolingual approach. Re­orienting acquisition research to the idea that results from one language must be compared to results from another language helps researchers to see their results in the broader context of the language ­family. Replication of results in multiple languages reduces the confirmation bias that derives from narrow conceptual frameworks applied within a single language. Awarding priority to the contexts of use breaks the tradition of investigating how ­children acquire linguistic abstractions such as “pronoun,” “subject,” or “determiner.” In acquiring language, c­ hildren learn to identify the contexts in which each form is used. Language acquisition consists of creating generalizations across contexts of use supported by the forms that occur in ­these contexts. Identifying a linguistic form as a pronoun does not help a learner who needs to learn w ­ hether to use pronouns in specific contexts. Adults who already know a language can use labels such as “pronoun” for linguistic abstractions ­because they have internalized the contexts in which such forms are used within that par­tic­u­lar language. But dif­fer­ent languages use pronouns differently, and comparing the acquisition of pronouns without identifying their contexts of use misses the basic prob­lem of language acquisition. T ­ hese prob­lems become vastly more severe in research on historically unrelated languages, for ­there is no reason to assume c­ hildren acquire pronouns similarly in languages that use pronouns in quite dif­fer­ent contexts. Investigating how c­ hildren identify contexts of use rather than the acquisition of theoretically defined linguistic abstractions absolves researchers of the need to identify spurious connections between linguistic abstractions in unrelated languages. The use of theoretical constructs such as “pronoun” invariably leads to confirmation biases as researchers focus on common features between linguistic forms and ignore differences in their contexts of use. Comparing how K’iche’ c­ hildren acquire the plural marker taq with Mam ­children’s acquisition of the plural marker qa ­w ill be more productive than comparing the acquisition of e­ ither of ­these markers with the En­glish plural suffix -­s. The Mayan and En­glish plural markers have such distinct contexts of use that a comparison of their acquisition is pointless, whereas a comparison between the acquisition of the K’iche’ and Mam plural markers yields insight into the development of Mayan plural marking. The Mayan languages are both geo­graph­i­cally and historically remote from Eu­ro­pean languages, and as a consequence have few features in

Conclusion

263

common with the more frequently studied Eu­ro­pean languages. One major difference between the two language families is that whereas subjects and objects are obligatory in the Germanic languages, apart from topic drop, they are optional in Mayan languages due to the robust agreement markers in the Mayan verb complex. This difference typifies the differences between analytic and synthetic languages. The acquisition of analytic languages is devoted to learning how word o ­ rders express syntactic relations, whereas the acquisition of synthetic languages is based on learning the parts of the verb complex. All of the theoretical apparatuses devoted to explaining why c­ hildren acquiring En­glish sometimes omit subjects or produce pronouns with a default case cannot predict how ­children acquire the ergative and absolutive markers in the Mayan verb complex (Pye and Pfeiler 2017). ­Because the Mayan languages are genet­ically related, they preserve a number of common features. I have described the acquisition of many common features for K’iche’, Mam, and Ch’ol: lexical categories, intransitive and transitive verbs, ergative and absolutive agreement markers in the verb complex, and verb arguments relative to the development of agreement marking. A major result of this comparative proj­ect was the discovery that common features of Mayan languages do not predict the ­children’s language development. Although the languages share the same general lexical categories, the languages use t­ hese categories in dif­fer­ent ways, and the ­children produce them at dif­fer­ent rates. Although the structure of the verb complex is similar across the languages, ­there are features that differ and that affect the ­children’s production of dif­fer­ent parts of the verb complex. Although the languages share the same general ergative alignment system, ­there are differences in how the languages use ergative marking that affect the ­children’s use of the person markers. Fi­nally, although the languages have a lexical category of relational nouns, they use relational nouns in dif­ fer­ent contexts that effect the ­children’s production of relational nouns. Although I found major differences among the ­children acquiring K’iche’, Mam, and Ch’ol, I also found substantial similarities among the ­children acquiring each language. All of the K’iche’ c­ hildren display an early use of the status suffixes on verbs that are characteristic of K’iche’. All of the Mam c­ hildren use the incorporated motion verbs and nominal classifiers that characterize Mam. All of the Ch’ol ­children make use of the adverbial clitics that are an impor­tant feature of Ch’ol. Thus the

264

chapter 11

shared linguistic features of ­children acquiring each language supply an essential perspective on the differences between ­children acquiring dif­ fer­ent languages. A pattern of range-­bound variation characterizes the similarities between c­ hildren acquiring the same language and the differences between c­ hildren acquiring dif­fer­ent languages. The crosslinguistic differences demonstrate that linguistic generalizations such as “finite verb,” “ergative,” or “subject” do not predict how c­ hildren deploy the language-­ specific instantiations of such generalizations. Ultimately, each language is composed of such a unique blend of interwoven features that its common components are realized in remarkably dif­fer­ent contexts of use. The fundamental contribution of the comparative method in ­these studies is the precise characterization of the contexts of use for each linguistic feature in ­these three Mayan languages. The comparison of the acquisition of three Mayan languages reveals details about the use of common features that differ between ­these languages. Mam has overt third-­person absolutive markers that the other languages lack. Ch’ol makes extensive use of agentive nouns in place of the intransitive verbs found in K’iche’ and Mam. Comparison of how ­children learn historically related languages enables investigators to see how their differences affect the acquisition of their shared linguistic features. The comparative method exposes differences between cognate features in historically related languages that remain hidden in crosslinguistic studies of unrelated languages. Over time, language history has dissolved any features that h ­ uman languages may have once shared and supplanted them with new linguistic ele­ments. The changes to language structure revealed by historical linguistics should remind us that no feature of language is impervious to historical change. Rather than relying on linguistic absolutes in the form of language universals, ­children must be flexible enough to take what­ever ele­ments they encounter and make use of them in their appropriate contexts. The acquisition of extended ergative marking in the Mayan languages is a textbook demonstration of c­ hildren’s flexibility in learning the unique environments in which languages extend ergative subject markers to intransitive verbs. Mapping the contexts of use for the linguistic features in the Mayan languages produces a guide to the natu­ral ecol­ogy of the Mayan language ­family. Each language defines its own region in which the ancestral lin-

Conclusion

265

guistic features have evolved distinct ecological functions. K’iche’, Mam, and Ch’ol represent three distinct branches of the Mayan language ­family, but preserve many similar traits. K’iche’ has a balance of traits that Mam and Ch’ol exaggerate to one degree or another. K’iche’ has a medium number of transitive verbs. Mam uses fewer transitive verbs and Ch’ol uses more transitive verbs. K’iche’ employs both ergative and absolutive subject markers, where Mam uses more absolutive markers, and Ch’ol uses more ergative markers. K’iche’ uses a modicum of relational nouns, whereas Mam uses them profusely and Ch’ol only rarely. Thus, even though the three languages have many traits in common, they put them to dif­fer­ent uses. The variation between t­ hese languages provides an ideal basis for research employing the comparative method. I demonstrated how differences in the contexts of use of the linguistic features in K’iche’, Mam, and Ch’ol lead to differences in the speech of adults and c­ hildren. ­Table 11.1 combines information from several of the chapters on the form of subject cross-­referencing in the three languages to show the contexts for the use of the ergative and absolutive subject markers. The contexts in which the languages use the ergative or absolutive person markers are determined by aspect, mood, adverbial phrases, verb complement constraints, and idiosyncratic features of the lexicon. Mam, for example, only uses some verbs in the passive voice (e.g., ‘find’) and some verbs in the antipassive (e.g., ‘sing’). Meanwhile, Ch’ol only uses

­table 11.1 ​Subject person marking in K’iche’, Mam, and Ch’ol Context

K’iche’

Mam

Ch’ol

Completive aspect Incompletive ­aspect Progressive Want-­same ­subject Want-­d ifferent subject Purpose clause When clause ‘Finish’ complement Subject of ‘find’ Subject of ‘take’ Subject of ‘sing’ Controlled action Imperative subject No. of absolutive contexts

Absolutive Absolutive Absolutive Absolutive Absolutive Absolutive Absolutive Ergative Ergative Ergative Absolutive Absolutive Absolutive 10

Absolutive Absolutive Absolutive Absolutive Ergative Ergative Ergative Absolutive Absolutive Absolutive Absolutive Absolutive Not marked 9

Absolutive Ergative Ergative Ergative Ergative Absolutive Absolutive Ergative Ergative Ergative Ergative Ergative Not marked 3

266

chapter 11

agentive intransitive verbs such as ‘sing’ in a light verb construction with the verb ‘do’ that requires ergative subject marking. The verb complex has dif­fer­ent features in each Mayan language. The Mayan verb complex contains at least one verb root and a series of obligatory inflections. Verb complexes in Mam include one or more motion verbs, whereas verb complexes in Ch’ol incorporate vari­ous adverbial clitics. The bonds between the morphemes within the Mayan verb complex are looser than the bonds between the morphemes in En­glish and Spanish verbs. The looseness of the bonds within the Mayan verb complex is evidenced by the insertion of motion verbs in K’iche’ and Mam, and by the insertion of second-­position clitics and adverbs in Ch’ol. The challenge to understanding how c­ hildren acquire the verb complex is to work out how such features as motion verbs and adverbial clitics alter the prosodic structure of the verb complex in the individual languages. Research on the acquisition of Mayan verb complexes is significant precisely b ­ ecause it shows how ­children ­handle mismatches among the semantic, prosodic, and syntactic levels of the grammar that are unique to each Mayan language. The acquisition of the Mayan verb complex is a prime example of the ways in which the study of language acquisition of Mam and Ch’ol informs our understanding of the acquisition of K’iche’. The Mayan verb complex may be a single word at the syntactic level, but it consists of separate words at the prosodic level. The variation in the structure of the verb complex in K’iche’, Mam, and Ch’ol interacts with the variation occurring in the argument structure of the three languages. An in­ter­est­ing feature of this variation is that while individual speakers of a language exhibit variation in their use of relational noun phrases, more general ­factors such as language and age also contribute to the use of relational noun phrases. Mam speakers use more relational noun phrases than Ch’ol and K’iche’ speakers do, while adults use more relational noun phrases than c­ hildren. Thus, the range of variation in the production of relational noun phrases by K’iche’ speakers is dif­fer­ent from the range of variation for relational noun phrases found in Mam and Ch’ol. The variable realization of grammatical features in the three languages reinforces the importance of documenting the acquisition of all three Mayan languages. Grammatical features that may be rare in one language can be frequent in other languages. Comparative research on the acquisition of related languages provides an impor­tant alternative to the method of dense sampling as a means to investigate the acquisition of rarely used constructions. I have made this point previously in regard to research

Conclusion

267

on the acquisition of passives (Pye and Quixtan Poz 1988), but the comparative studies in this book provide evidence of significant differences in the frequency of use of many grammatical constructions in the Mayan languages. The dif­fer­ent structures of the verb complexes in K’iche’, Mam, and Ch’ol result in dif­fer­ent rates of production for features within the verb complexes such as the ergative person markers. While the use of ergative markers on intransitive verbs does not affect the ­children’s use of ergative markers on transitive verbs, the use of vowel-­initial and consonant-­initial verb roots makes an enormous difference in the c­ hildren’s production of ergative markers. I found this effect in all three languages, and my colleagues and I have demonstrated the same effect in other Mayan languages (Brown et al. 2013). I attribute this effect to the difference in syllable structure created by the attachment of ergative markers to the root syllable of the verb with vowel-­initial verb roots, or to a preceding syllable in the case of consonant-­initial verb roots. The larger point ­here is that acquisition data from other Mayan languages is necessary to differentiate general acquisition features from t­ hose specific to an individual Mayan language. A systematic comparison of acquisition data permits the aggregating of data to construct an analy­sis for an entire ­family of languages. The results for the acquisition of the preconsonantal ergative allomorphs for Mam and Ch’ol add new information to what we know about the acquisition of ergative person marking in K’iche’, Yucatec, Tzeltal, and Tzotzil (Brown et al. 2013). B ­ ecause we have employed the same methods in our studies of ­these languages, it is easy to add the results for Mam and Ch’ol to the results from ­these published studies. Figure 11.1 compares the acquisition of the preconsonantal ergative markers on transitive verbs in K’iche’, Mam, Ch’ol, Tzeltal, Tzotzil, and Yucatec. Such results anticipate a time when we ­will have similar comparisons for many other aspects of Mayan language acquisition. Research into the acquisition of the lexicon, the verb complexes, and argument realization in other Mayan languages can employ the same techniques that I have used in my studies of K’iche’, Mam, and Ch’ol. Studies of other Mayan languages ­will produce a comprehensive picture of how ­children acquiring Mayan languages balance the forms of their verb complexes with the demands of argument structure and aspect marking. However, achievement of such a comprehensive picture w ­ ill require primary research documenting how ­children acquire each Mayan language.

268

chapter 11

figure 11.1. ​Preconsonantal ergative marker production in six Mayan languages

The development of the comparative method of language acquisition research also remains a work in pro­gress. An aspect of the comparative method that I have not yet investigated fully is the relation between historical change and language acquisition. One cannot use the comparative method without being aware that the dif­fer­ent contexts of use reflect historical changes in each language. Linguists have long speculated about ­children’s part in language change (Aitchison 2003; Labov 2001; Lightfoot 1991), but without data on how c­ hildren actually acquire the languages, linguists could not reach a definitive conclusion. The comparative acquisition data for the Mayan languages fi­nally provides the data needed to address this topic. Consider the indicative transitive verb complex in K’iche’, Mam, and Ch’ol (1) from ­Table 7.1. Assuming that the verb complex in K’iche’ preserves the main parts of the Proto-­Mayan verb complex (Kaufman 1990), we see that Mam made the inclusion of a motion verb practically obligatory, resulting in the addition of the dependent verb suffix to indicate the origin of the transitive verb root in a complement clause. Mam also simplified its person marking paradigm by adding an enclitic ­after the verb complex. Ch’ol optionally indicates motion in a separate clause and preserves the indicative status suffix. The absolutive object marker moved to the end of the Ch’ol verb complex. (1)  Indicative transitive verb complexes in K’iche’, Mam, and Ch’ol

Conclusion

269

K’iche’

asp-­abs-(motion)-­erg-­root-­indTV

Mam

asp-­abs-­motion erg-­root-­dep (enclitic)

Ch’ol

asp erg root-­indTV-­abs

If ­children ­were responsible for such changes, we would expect to find K’iche’ ­children producing instances of the Mam or Ch’ol forms of the verb complex, not to mention Mam and Ch’ol c­ hildren producing instances of the K’iche’ form of the verb complex. K’iche’ ­children producing the Mam verb complex would add a motion verb and a dependent verb suffix. K’iche’ ­children producing the Ch’ol verb complex would put the absolutive marker at the end of the verb complex. Mam ­children should omit the motion verb and innovate an indicative verb suffix. Ch’ol c­ hildren should produce the absolutive marker as a verb prefix. ­T here is no evidence that the c­ hildren’s production of the verb complex parallels ­these historical changes. The ­children’s productions depart from the adult models, but not in the ways predicted by the historical changes shown in (1). C ­ hildren acquiring Mam use the incorporated motion verbs from the start, whereas c­ hildren acquiring K’iche’ and Ch’ol do not (2). Mam ­children do not add an indicative verb suffix: K’iche’ and Ch’ol ­children do. ­Children acquiring all three languages omit the aspect and ergative markers that are obligatory in the adult languages. (2)  Indicative transitive verb complexes in the ­children’s ­languages K’iche’

(erg)-­root-­indTV

Mam

motion (erg)-­root-­dep

Ch’ol

(erg) root-­indTV

I conclude from this example that Mayan ­children ­were not the ones who originated the historical changes in the languages. It is surprising to find that the Mayan languages have preserved the ergative subject markers on verbs for more than 4,000 years, despite c­ hildren’s repeated efforts to omit them. Obviously this topic requires further study, but then so do all aspects of Mayan language acquisition.

270

chapter 11

11.1 Broader Implications An understanding of how c­ hildren acquire Mayan languages requires an appreciation of how all the features in a language work together. A knowledge of ergative agreement, object drop, status suffixes, the use of relational nouns and extended ergativity is necessary in order to determine what ­children acquire and when they acquire ­these features. Mayanists readily explore the intricate features of Mayan grammars, but they rarely consider the broader implications of their research for the acquisition of other languages. Research on the acquisition of non-­European languages is essential to learn how ­children acquire linguistic features that do not occur in Eu­ ro­pean languages (Hale 1998). Mayan languages have a polysynthetic morphology and ergative agreement systems not pres­ent in Eu­ro­pean languages. Research on Mayan language acquisition shows how ­children acquire an ergative agreement system that is an integral feature of the Mayan verb complex. In order to accomplish this feat, Mayan ­children must grapple with a polysyllabic verb complex that makes a fundamental division between transitive and intransitive verb forms. Studies of Mayan language acquisition provide crucial insights into how c­ hildren acquire transitivity expressed on polysyllabic verb forms. The acquisition of transitivity cannot be investigated in Eu­ro­pean languages in the level of detail that the Mayan languages afford. Part of what makes the study of the Mayan languages special is the polysynthetic structure of the verb complexes. Whereas most of the high frequency verbs in En­glish contain just one syllable, the verb complexes in Mayan languages contain many syllables with varying degrees of prosodic integration across the languages. The prosodic structure of the verb complexes in the Mayan languages is many times more complex than the prosodic structure of verbs in Eu­ro­pean languages. The qualitative difference in the degree of prosodic complexity between the Mayan and Eu­ro­ pean languages affords a domain of investigation that cannot be addressed through studies of Eu­ro­pean languages alone. At pres­ent, we know very ­little about two-­year-­olds’ ability to analyze and produce polysynthetic verb complexes. Ultimately, the Mayan verb complexes challenge our preconceptions about the nature of words. Linguists define a word as an in­de­pen­dent morpheme that is not bound to other morphemes in a sentence. A single

Conclusion

271

word in En­glish cannot express a complete proposition. A subject must be added to a verb to form a sentence except in the case of imperatives where the imperative mood supplies the subject. The Mayan verb complex is a single word composed of vari­ous obligatory inflections. At the same time, the Mayan verb complex can be used as a sentence b ­ ecause it expresses a complete proposition by itself. The study of Mayan language acquisition shows how ­children acquire words with propositional content. Two-­year-­olds strug­g le to produce complete verb complexes just as they strug­gle to produce complete sentences. The question is ­whether the pro­cesses that direct c­ hildren’s elaboration of the verb complex also direct their elaboration of sentences. The elaboration of the verb complex occurs at the lexical level where syllable structure and prosody are dominant f­ actors. The effects of syllable structure are obvious in two-­year-­old Mayan ­children’s lexical productions as they produce syllables rather than morphemes or verb roots. The effect of prosody is also clear as Mayan ­children typically produce the most prominent syllable(s) in the verb complex. Thus, the elaboration of the verb complex is clearly lexical in nature as the construction of the verb complex reflects the syllable structure and prosody of the complex. If c­ hildren acquired En­glish as a polysynthetic language, they might begin by producing single syllables and assume that the syllable expresses a complete proposition. The result would sound like the one-­word utterances produced by many two-­year-­old En­g lish speakers. ­C hildren acquiring En­g lish would diverge from polysynthesis when they begin adding noun phrase subjects and objects to their verbs. The use of noun phrases—­specifically noun phrases as subjects—is a sensitive indicator of when ­children recognize the analytic or polysynthetic character of the adult language. Pronominal subjects and objects have an ambiguous status, for ­children may treat pronouns as clitics or agreement markers rather than as noun phrases. ­Children who produce utterances such as “see it doggie” have not learned the En­glish constraints on pronoun use. The concept of a polysynthesis pa­ram­e­ter as a ­simple dichotomy between analytic and polysynthetic languages fails to recognize the many intermediate levels of inflection that are found in the world’s languages. The rich subject agreement paradigm of verb inflection in Spanish, for example, places Spanish in a position that is between the bare system of subject agreement in En­glish and the full system of subject and object agreement

272

chapter 11

in K’iche’. The position of Spanish can be determined by assessing the use of noun phrase subjects and objects in the language. Languages with mixed analytic and polysynthetic traits demonstrate that c­ hildren must determine the degree of polysynthesis that is pres­ent in the adult language rather than assuming that polysynthesis is an all-­or-­nothing feature. ­Children acquiring En­glish have many more options than pure polysynthesis. The study of Mayan language acquisition, therefore, reveals features of the acquisition pro­cess not found in the acquisition of Eu­ro­pean languages. The discovery of new acquisition features is a fundamental part of understanding ­children’s capacity for language acquisition. Each discovery about the acquisition of polysynthesis, transitivity, ergativity, nominal classifiers, relational nouns e­ tc., also enhances our appreciation of how quickly c­ hildren determine the specific features of En­glish. ­Children have many reasons to acquire En­glish as an ergative, polysynthetic language, but quickly recognize the features of En­glish that differentiate it from the Romance and Mayan languages.

11.2 Theoretical Implications For the most part, I have not addressed the implications the Mayan data hold for language acquisition theories b ­ ecause I felt it more impor­tant to provide a clear pre­sen­ta­tion of the acquisition of K’iche’, Mam, and Ch’ol than to discuss theories largely unsuited to the study of Mayan languages. I ­will close with a brief discussion of my findings’ implications for two leading theories of language acquisition. Usage-­based theories emphasize the importance of the constructions that ­children encounter in the adult language, especially if the constructions occur frequently at the ends of sentences (Ambridge and Lieven 2011). ­C hildren learning En­g lish ­w ill frequently encounter expressions such as “Watch her fix it” and “I can fix it” and produce the final phrase “fix it” as an in­de­pen­dent utterance. In this way, usage-­based theories explain why c­ hildren learning En­glish omit subjects and auxiliary verbs. ­Children acquiring Mayan languages ­will hear adults producing well-­ formed verb complexes with dif­fer­ent degrees of internal cohesion. If usage-­based theories assume that Mayan ­children treat the entire verb complex as a word, then the theories predict that Mayan c­ hildren ­will produce the entire verb complex. This prediction is obviously wrong, so the Mayan evidence forces usage-­based theories to refine their prediction to fit

Conclusion

273

the Mayan data. Usage-­based theories currently lack a principled way to predict the parts of the verb complex that Mayan c­ hildren produce. S ­ imple theories such as predicting that Mayan c­ hildren ­will produce the final syllables of the verb complex are not supported by the data from Mam and Ch’ol. The Mam person enclitic has special significance for usage-­based theories due to its phrase-­fi nal position and its absence from ­children’s utterances. Identifying the f­actors that predict the forms of Mayan ­children’s verb complexes remains a leading issue for research on Mayan language acquisition. The Mayan results also have significant implications for structure-­based theories of language acquisition that search for a link between grammatical structure and the verb forms that ­children produce. A common assumption of structure-­based theories is that ­children cannot initially access functional projections for tense and agreement that dominate the verb phrase (Radford 1998; Wexler 1998). This mechanism explains why two-­year-­olds learning En­g lish and German omit tense and agreement suffixes on verbs. Mayan languages challenge structure-­based theories to account for the structure of the adult Mayan languages. The princi­ple prob­lem in extending structure-­based theories to the Mayan languages concerns the nature of the ergative alignment system. Structure-­based theories employ the same mechanisms for the subjects of transitive verbs and the subjects of intransitive verbs. In order to explain the separate inflections for ergative and absolutive subjects in the Mayan languages, structure-­based theories resort to ad hoc stipulations that complicate the theory without providing significant generalizations (Pye 2001, 2007a). Coon, Mateo Pedro and Preminger (2014), for example, account for the Mayan systems of ergative alignment by identifying the absolutive markers in Mayan languages with nominative case marking in Eu­ro­pean languages. According to their account, the absolutive object markers move to the tense projection in order to check their tense feature just as nominative subjects in En­glish move to the tense feature to check their tense feature. The ergative subjects of transitive verbs check an inherent case feature on the verb and do not move to the tense phrase. While Coon et al. account for both regular and extended ergative marking in a number of Mayan languages, they do not account for ­every feature of ergative marking in the Mayan languages. For example, their model does not account for double ergative marking on transitive verbs in Mam. The ­ ecause the person enclitic in Mam once again poses a significant prob­lem b

274

chapter 11

structure-­based account has separate mechanisms for the ergative and absolutive markers, but the person enclitic is used with both. Coon et al. do not provide a satisfactory account of inherent case marking and why the Mayan languages would extend the inherent case marker rather than the nominative marker. Nonetheless, Coon et al.’s work is an impor­tant attempt to reconcile structure-­based theories with the Mayan language facts. Assuming that their model is basically correct permits us to apply structure-­based accounts of inflectional development to the Mayan languages. Their theory identifies the absolutive markers in Mayan languages with nominative case in Eu­ro­pean languages. Assuming that Mayan c­ hildren cannot access the functional projection for tense and agreement predicts that they ­will optionally omit the aspect and absolutive markers in the verb complex. ­There are a number of obvious prob­lems with such a prediction. While two-­year-­old ­children certainly omit the aspect and absolutive markers in the verb complex, they also omit the ergative markers and sometimes even omit the verb root. The most obvious prob­lem for the structure-­based theory is that it assumes the verb complex has a similar structure in Mayan languages, and therefore ­children should display similar developmental patterns in their acquisition of the verb complex. Figure 11.1 shows that this is not the case. The structure-­based theory could be weakened by appealing to extraneous ­factors such as prosodic structure to explain the differences between ­children acquiring dif­fer­ent Mayan languages. Such appeals lessen the need to invoke the structure-­based theory in the first place. I stress the importance of not letting theoretical discussions distract attention from the primary acquisition data. ­T here is no scientific basis for assuming that any acquisition theory predicts how ­children acquire ­ uman languages. The time that we give to debating acquisition all 7,000 h theories is time not devoted to documenting the acquisition of more languages. Documenting the acquisition of new languages is the only way to discover features of the acquisition pro­cess unimagined by acquisition theories. ­There are many linguistic features in K’iche’, Mam, and Ch’ol that challenge fundamental assumptions of current acquisition theories. ­These features include the /tq/ and /tt/ syllable onsets in Mam, the positional and relational noun lexical classes, the verb complex, the status suffix, incorporated motion verbs, the multiple passive and antipassive constructions, the person enclitics of Mam, and ergativity. ­Every time we document the acquisition of a new language, we expand our understanding of ­children’s

Conclusion

275

capacity for acquiring language as well as widen the scope of theoretical debates. One pernicious feature of theoretical discussions is that they focus attention on a single feature of the grammar, such as lexical types, verb and noun morphology, or word order. We assume that other parts of the grammar ­will have l­ ittle effect on the acquisition of the feature u ­ nder discussion and that crosslinguistic studies of verb inflection, for example, can ignore the predicate types that occur in the language, the phonology of the inflections, and their contexts of use. However, the use of transitive verbs is connected to the use of relational noun phrases as well as to the use of the ergative person markers. The Mayan ­children’s verb use is directly related to their production of noun phrases, which in turn is connected to their use of pronouns and nominal classifiers. An integrated perspective is necessary to investigate how ­children manage the balance of trade-­offs between dif­fer­ent levels of the adult grammar. Mam’s attention to motion increased its use of intransitive verbs and resulted in a proliferation of passive constructions and the use of relational noun phrases. Ch’ol made a transitive turn and extended the use of the transitive construction to intransitive activities. Ch’ol also expanded the use of the applicative construction, which decreased its reliance on the use of relational noun phrases. C ­ hildren acquiring Mayan languages quickly determine the character of the adult language and adjust their output accordingly. While individual ­children follow dif­fer­ent maturational schedules and demonstrate dif­fer­ent conversational styles, ­there are clear differences between the ­children’s use of relational noun phrases in the dif­fer­ent Mayan languages. The urgent need for research documenting the world’s endangered languages far exceeds the need to test specific theoretical models. Theory-­ ­ ntil we have basic information about how c­ hildren testing must wait u acquire a representative sample of diverse languages. The critical importance of this research mandates the use of methods that have maximum efficiency in order to reduce cost and maximize the number of languages that can be documented. The most efficient method to document the acquisition of the complete language in an integrated fashion is to rec­ord individual ­children over a period of one to two years, as described in Slobin’s (1967) manual for field research. Once the recordings have been made, ­there is a further need for ef­ here is no substitute for ficient methods of transcription and analy­sis. T

276

chapter 11

finding native speakers, preferably the ­children’s parents, who can produce the primary transcriptions with translations into another language. Traditional transcription practices, such as the Ch’ol practice of transcribing aspect particles as in­de­pen­dent words, provide invaluable clues about the native speaker’s understanding of the utterance. Inefficient transcription practices, such as adding morpheme glosses and En­glish translations, should be deprecated. Lexical concordances provide most of the information that can be gleamed from morpheme glosses at a fraction of the effort. The end goal should be to produce an inventory of the types of phonemes, lexemes, morphemes, arguments, and sentences that ­children produce across a range of ages as well as an analy­sis of how their productions differ from adult usage. Such a database for a sizeable fraction of the world’s languages is necessary for the scientific investigation of language acquisition. The comparative method supplies a practical approach to this prob­lem by focusing on the study of language families. U ­ ntil this database becomes available, we should reject any acquisition theory that does not account for the acquisition of K’iche’, Mam, and Ch’ol.

Acknowl­edgments

T

his book was made pos­si­ble through the incredible generosity of the many Mayan families who have welcomed me and my fellow investigators into their homes through the years. The parents, grandparents, siblings, aunts, and u ­ ncles ­were instrumental in calming ner­vous two-­year-­ olds and encouraging them to talk. Pedro Mateo Pedro came to the University of Kansas in 2005 and encouraged me to undertake the proj­ect of documenting how ­children acquire the Mayan languages Q’anjob’al, Mam, and Ch’ol. He helped me find and recruit Ana Elizabeth López Ramirez to guide the Mam investigation and Pedro Gutiérrez Sánchez to guide the Ch’ol investigation. His mother-­in-­law kindly opened her ­house to us for an initial training session in the summer of 2005. Ana and Pedro Gutiérrez ­later welcomed us to their homes when the proj­ect team traveled to the field sites for the Mam and Ch’ol proj­ects in San Ildefonso Ixtahuacán, Guatemala, and Tila, Mexico, respectively. Pedro Mateo also made his parents’ ­house available to the proj­ect when we visited the Q’anjob’al field site in Santa Eulalia, Guatemala. ­T hese trips gave all of us a better idea of the differences and similarities between ­these three Mayan languages and cultures. Pedro Mateo helped me devise a training manual for the proj­ect and solve many technical issues involved in digitizing the miniDVD recordings. Recording, transcribing, and translating the c­ hildren’s speech was made pos­si­ble through the efforts of the team of the K’iche’ investigators: Augustin Huix Huix, Pedro Quixtan Poz, Emilio Quiej Huix, and Santos Quiej Huix; the Mam investigators: Ana Elizabeth López Ramirez, Juana Isabel López Morales, Sheny Ortíz García, and Luis Hernandez López Ramirez; the Ch’ol investigators: Pedro Gutiérrez Sánchez, Asunción López Pérez, Euripides Lopez Gutierrez, and Melba del Carmen

278

Acknowl­edgments

Martinez Perez; and the Q’anjob’al investigators: Flora García, Diego Martínez Esteban, Francisco Pedro Mateo, Pedro Martínez Esteban, Efraín Ramón de León, Basilio Luin Bernabé, and Basilio Sebastian Basilio. Data collection for K’iche’ was supported by grants from the Organ­ ization of American States and the Wenner Gren Foundation. Data collection for Ch’ol, Mam, and Q’anjob’al was funded by grants from the National Science Foundation (BCS-0613120 and BCS-0515120) and the University of Kansas General Research Fund. A sabbatical leave from the University of Kansas and a Fulbright scholar award in 2015 enabled me to complete this proj­ect. The comparative acquisition proj­ect was partly inspired by my time working in the Proj­ect for the Documentation of the Languages of Mesoamerica directed by Terrence Kaufman, John Justeson, and Roberto Zavala Maldonado. This opportunity enabled me to envision a proj­ect documenting the acquisition of multiple languages. I was also fortunate in meeting and collaborating with my colleagues on the Mayan Language Acquisition Proj­ect: Barbara Pfeiler, Penelope Brown, Lourdes de León, and Pedro Mateo Pedro. Our joint investigations on the acquisition of Mayan languages provided crucial insights on the need for developing techniques for investigating the acquisition of dif­fer­ent Mayan languages. I thank the late Christopher L. Rhodes for his early enthusiasm and support for this proj­ect, and Christie Henry, the Editorial Director for Science, Social Science, and Reference at the University of Chicago Press for her support through the final stages of this proj­ect. My wife, Deborah, helped edit the final version of the manuscript and supported innumerable fieldwork trips over the years. Barbara Pfeiler helped with her comments on a final version of the book. I also benefitted from the suggestions on the pre­sen­ta­tion of the comparative method from four anonymous reviewers. I am solely responsible for any remaining errors.

Abbreviations ø

zero morpheme

1

first person singular

2

second person singular

3

third person singular

4

first person plural

5

second person plural

6

third person plural

A

subject of transitive verb

abs absolutive acc accusative add additive adj adjective agt agent ap

antipassive voice

app applicative asp

aspect marker

ATOM

Agreement/Tense Omission Model

C consonant caus causative cl classifier cmp

completive aspect

cn

common noun

dat dative

280 Abbreviations

dem demonstrative dep dependent der derived dim diminutive emph emphatic enc enclitic erg ergative exist existential fam familiar foc focus foc.ap

focus antipassive voice

imp imperative impf

imperfective aspect

inc

incompletive aspect

inch inchoative ind indicative inf infinitive instr instrumental IP

inflectional phrase

IV

intransitive verb

N noun n

number of tokens

neg negative nf nonfinite nh nonhuman nm nominalizer nom nominative ns

not significant

O

object of transitive verb

obj

direct object

part particle pas

passive voice

perf

perfect aspect

Abbreviations

pl plural pos positional pres

pres­ent tense

pro pronoun PRO

null subject in infinitive clauses

prog

progressive aspect

propn

proper noun

pros prospective rec recent rel relative rn

relational noun

S

subject of intransitive verb

Spec specifier stat state subj subject TV

transitive verb

V1

first ­vowel

V vowel T-­T IY, L-­LIN, C-­C HA W-­W EN, C-­CRU, J-­JOS % ­percent

281

References Aitchison, J. 2003. Psycholinguistic perspectives on language change. In B. D. Joseph and R. D. Janda (eds.), The Handbook of Historical Linguistics, 736–43. Oxford: Blackwell. Ambridge, B., and E. V. M Lieven. 2011. Child Language Acquisition: Contrasting Theoretical Approaches. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. Aulie, H. W., and E. W. de Aulie. 1978. Diccionario Ch’ol de Tumbalá, Chiapas, con variaciones dialectales de Tila y Sabanilla. Tlalpan, D.F., México: Instituto Lingüístico de Verano. [Re-­edited by Emily F. Scharfe de Stairs, 1996.] Baker, M. 1988. Incorporation: A Theory of Grammatical Function Changing. Chicago: University of Chicago Press. —­—­—. 2001. The Atoms of Language. New York: Basic Books. —­—­—. 2015. Case: Its Princi­ples and Its Par­a meters. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. Bates, E., S. McNew, B. MacWhinney, A. Devescovi, and S. Smith. 1982. Functional constraints on sentence pro­cessing: A cross-­linguistic study. Cognition 11: 245–99. Bavin, E. L., and S. Stoll (eds.). 2013. The Acquisition of Ergativity. Amsterdam: Benjamins. Bennett, R. 2016. Mayan phonology. Language and Linguistics Compass 10: 469–514. Berman, R. 2014. Cross-­l inguistic comparisons in child language research. Journal of Child Language 41(S1): 26–37. Berthiaume, S. C. 2003. A Phonological Grammar of Northern Pame. Doctoral dissertation, The University of Texas at Arlington. Bittner, D., W. U. Dressler, and M. Kilani-­Schoch (eds.). 2003. Development of Verb Inflection in First Language Acquisition: A Cross-­linguistic Perspective. Berlin: Mouton de Gruyter. Bittner, M., and K. Hale. 1996. The structural determination of case and agreement. Linguistic Inquiry 27: 1–68.

284 References

Bloom, L. 1970. Language Development: Form and Function in Emerging Grammars (2nd ed.). Cambridge, MA: MIT Press. —­—­—. 1973. One Word at a Time. The Hague: Mouton. Bloom, P. 1990. Subjectless sentences in child language. Linguistic Inquiry 21: 491–504. Blount, B. G. 1969. Acquisition of Language by Luo ­Children. Doctoral dissertation, University of California at Berkeley. Bobaljik, J. 1993. Nominally absolutive is not absolutely nominative. In  J. Mead (ed.), Proceedings of the Eleventh West Coast Conference on Formal Linguistics, 44–60. Stanford, CA: Center for the Study of Language and Information. Bohnemeyer, J. 1998. Time Relations in Discourse: Evidence from a Comparative Approach to Yukatek Maya. Wageningen: Ponsen & Loojien. Bowerman, M. 1985. What shapes ­children’s grammars? In  D. I. Slobin (ed.), The Crosslinguistic Study of Language Acquisition, vol. 2: Theoretical Issues, 1257–319. London: Erlbaum. —­ —­ —. 1990. Mapping thematic roles onto syntactic functions: Are c­hildren helped by innate linking rules? Linguistics 28: 1291–330. —­—­—. 2011. Linguistic typology and first language acquisition. In J. J. Song (ed.), The Oxford Handbook of Linguistic Typology, 591–617. Oxford: Oxford University Press. Bowerman, M., and S. Choi. 2001. Shaping meanings for language: Universal and language-­specific in the acquisition of semantic categories. In M. Bowerman and S. C. Levinson (eds.), Language Acquisition and Conceptual Development, 475–511. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. Braine, M. D. S. 1963. The ontogeny of En­glish phrase structure: The first phase. Language 39: 1–14. Brasseur de Bourbourg, C. É. 1862. Grammaire de la Langue Quichée. (Collection de Documents dans les Langues Indigenes de l’Amérique Ancienne, 2, pt. 1.) Paris: Arthus Beztzand. Bricker, V. 1981. The source of the ergative split in Yucatec Maya. Journal of ­Mayan Linguistics 2(2): 83–127. Bricker, V. R., E. Po’ot Yah, and O. Dzul de Po’ot. 1998. A Dictionary of the Maya Language: As Spoken in Hocabá, Yucatán. Salt Lake City: University of Utah Press. Brown, C. H., and S. Wichmann. 2004. Proto-­Mayan syllable nuclei. International Journal of American Linguistics 70(2): 128–86. Brown, P. 1994. The INs and ONs of Tzeltal locative expressions: The semantics of static descriptions of location. Linguistics 32: 743–90. —­—­—. 1997. Isolating the CVC root in Tzeltal Mayan: A study of c­ hildren’s first verbs. In E. V. Clark (ed.), Proceedings of the 28th Annual Child Language Research Forum, 41–52. Stanford, CA: CSLI/University of Chicago Press.

References

285

—­—­—. 1998. C ­ hildren’s first verbs in Tzeltal: Evidence for an early verb category. Linguistics 36: 713–53. —­—­—. 2001. Learning to talk about motion UP and DOWN in Tzeltal: Is t­ here a language-­specific bias for verb learning? In M. Bowerman and S. C. Levinson (eds.), Language Acquisition and Conceptual Development, 512–43. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. —­—­—. 2008. Verb specificity and argument realization in Tzeltal child language. In M. Bowerman and P. Brown (eds.), Crosslinguistic Perspectives on Argument Structure: Implications for Language Acquisition, 167–89. Mahwah, NJ: Erlbaum. Brown, P., B. Pfeiler, L. de León, and C. Pye. 2013. The acquisition of agreement in four Mayan languages. In E. Bavin and S. Stoll (eds.), The Acquisition of Ergativity, 271–305. Amsterdam: John Benjamins. Brown, R. 1973. A First Language: The Early Stages. Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press. Bybee, J., and D. Slobin 1982. Rules and schemas in the development and use of the En­glish past tense. Language 58(2): 265–89. Cameron-­Faulkner, T., E. Lieven, and A. Theakston. 2007. What part of no do ­children not understand? A usage-­based account of multiword negation. Journal of Child Language 33(2): 251–82. Campbell, L. 1998. Historical Linguistics: An Introduction. Cambridge, MA: MIT Press. Campbell, L., and T. Kaufman. 1985. Mayan linguistics: Where are we now? Annual Review of Anthropology 14: 187–98. Choi, S. 1988. The semantic development of negation: A cross-­l inguistic longitudinal study. Journal of Child Language 15(3): 517–31. Chomsky, N. 1965. Aspects of the Theory of Syntax. Cambridge, MA: MIT Press. —­—­—. 1982. Some Concepts and Consequences of Government and Binding Theory. Cambridge, MA: MIT Press. —­—­—. 1995. The Minimalist Program. Cambridge, MA: MIT Press. Clancy, P. M. 1985. The acquisition of Japa­nese. In D. I. Slobin (ed.), The Crosslinguistic Study of Language Acquisition, vol. 1: The Data, 373–524. Hillsdale, NJ: Erlbaum. Coon, J. 2004. Roots and Words in Chol (Mayan): A Distributed Morphology Approach. BA thesis, Reed College. —­—­—. 2013. Aspects of Split Ergativity. Oxford: Oxford University Press. —­—­—. 2016. Mayan morphosyntax. Language and Linguistics Compass 10: 515–­50. Coon, J., P. Mateo Pedro, and O. Preminger. 2014. The role of case in A-­bar extraction asymmetries: Evidence from Mayan. Linguistic Variation 14(2): 179–242. Corbett, G. G. 2006. Agreement. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. Corver, N., and D. Delfitto 1993. Feature asymmetry and the nature of pronoun movement. Ms., Tilburg University, University of Utrecht.

286 References

Courtney, E. H., and M. Saville-­Troike. 2002. Learning to construct verbs in Navajo and Quechua. Journal of Child Language 29: 623–34. Crago, M. B., and S. E. M. Allen. 1998. Acquiring Inuktitut. In O. Taylor and L. Leonard (eds.), Language Acquisition across North Amer­i­ca: Cross-­cultural and Cross-­linguistic Perspectives. San Diego, CA: Singular Publishing. Crystal, D. 2000. Language Death. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. Dąbrowska, E. 2001. Learning a morphological system without a default: the Polish genitive. Journal of Child Language 28: 545–74. Darwin, C. 1871. On the Descent of Man and Se­lection in Relation to Sex. London: J. Murray. —­—­—. 1877. A biographical sketch of an infant. Mind: A Quarterly Review of Psy­chol­ogy and Philosophy 2(7) (July): 285–94. Davies, W. D., and S. Dubinsky. 2004. The Grammar of Raising and Control: A Course in Syntactic Argumentation. Malden, MA: Blackwell Publishing. Dayley, J. P. 1981. Voice and ergativity in Mayan languages. Journal of Mayan Linguistics 2: 3–82. —­—­—. 1985. Tzutujil Grammar. Berkeley, CA: University of California Press. de León, L. 1994. Exploration in the acquisition of geocentric location by Tzotzil ­children. Linguistics 32: 857–84. —­—­—. 1999a. Verb roots and caregiver speech in early Tzotzil acquisition. In B. A. Fox, D. Jurafsky, and L. A. Michaelis (eds.), Cognition and Function in Language, 99–119. Stanford, CA: Stanford University Center for Language and Information. —­—­—. 1999b. Verbs in Tzotzil early syntax. International Journal of Bilingualism 3: 219–40. —­—­—. 2001. Why Tzotzil (Mayan) ­children prefer verbs: The role of linguistic and cultural f­ actors over cognitive determinants. In M. Almgren, A. Barrena, M.-­J. Ezeizabarrena, I. Idiazabal, and B. MacWhinney (eds.), Proceedings of the 8th Conference of the International Association for the Study of Child Language, 947–69. Somerville, MA: Cascadilla Press. —­—­—. 2007. A preliminary view at Ch’ol (Mayan) early lexicon: The role of language and cultural context. In B. Pfeiler (ed.), Learning Indigenous Languages: Child Language Acquisition in Mesoamerica, 85–102. Berlin: Mouton de Gruyter. Demuth, K. 1994. On the ‘underspecification’ of functional categories in early grammars. In B. Lust, M. Suñer, and J. Whitman (eds.), Syntactic Theory and First Language Acquisition: Cross-Linguistic Perspectives, 119–34. Hillsdale, NJ: Erlbaum. De Saussure, F. 1916 (1st ed.). Cours de linguistique generale. Paris: Pavot, 1955 (5th ed.). En­glish translation by W. Baskin, Course in General Linguistics. New York: Philosophical Library, 1959. Dixon, R. M. W. 1979. Ergativity. Language 55: 59–138.

References

287

—­—­—. 1994. Ergativity. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. Dressler, W. U. (ed.). 1997. Studies in Pre-­and Protomorphology. Vienna: Verlag der Österreichischen Akademie der Wissenschaften. —­—­—. 2005. Morphological typology and first language acquisition: some mutual challenges. In G. Booij, E. Guevara, A. Ralli, S. Sgroi, and S. Scalise (eds.), Morphology and Linguistic Typology. On-­line proceedings of the Fourth Mediterranean Morphology Meeting (MMM4), Catania, 21–23 September 2003. University of Bologna. Drozd, K. F. 2002. Negative DPs and elliptical negation in child En­glish. Language Acquisition 10(2): 77–122. Dryer, M. 1986. Primary objects, secondary objects, and antidative. Language 62(4): 808–45. Dryer, M. S., and M. Haspelmath (eds.). 2013. The World Atlas of Language Structures Online. Leipzig: Max Planck Institute for Evolutionary Anthropology. (Available online at http://­wals​.­info​.­) Du Bois, J. W. 1987. The discourse basis of ergativity. Language 63: 805–55. Durbin, M., and F. Ojeda. 1978. Basic word order in Yucatec Maya. In N. C. ­England (ed.), Papers in Mayan Linguistics, 69–77. Columbia: University of Missouri. ­England, N. C. 1976. The development of the Mam person system. International Journal of American Linguistics 42: 259–61. —­—­—. 1983. A Grammar of Mam, A Mayan Language. Austin: University of Texas Press. —­—­—. 1994. Autonomia de los idiomas Mayas: Historia e identidad. Guatemala City: Editorial Cholsamaj. —­—­—. 2001. Introducción a la gramática de los idiomas mayas. Guatemala City: Cholsamaj. ­England, N. C., and Laura Martin. 2003. Issues in the comparative argument structure analy­sis in Mayan narratives. In J. W. Du Bois, L. E. Kumpf, and W. J. Ashby (eds.), Preferred Argument Structure, 130–55. Amsterdam: John Benjamins. Evans, N., and S. C. Levinson. 2009. The myth of language universals: Language diversity and its importance for cognitive science. Behavioral and Brain Sciences 32: 429–92. Ferguson, C. A., and D. I. Slobin (eds.). 1973. Studies of Child Language Development. New York: Holt, Rinehart, and Winston. Fortescue, M., and L. L. Olsen. 1992. The acquisition of West Greenlandic. In D. I. Slobin (ed.), The Crosslinguistic Study of Language Acquisition, vol. 3, 111–219. Hillsdale, NJ: Erlbaum. Freudenthal, D., J. M. Pine, and F. Gobet. 2009. Simulating optional infinitive errors in child speech through the omission of sentence-­internal ele­ments. In  B. G. Bara, L. Barsalou, and M. Buchiarelli (eds.), Proceedings of the

288 References

Twenty-­S eventh Annual Meeting of the Cognitive Science Society, 708–13. Mahwah, NJ: Erlbaum. Furbee-­L osee, L. 1976. The Correct Language: Tojolabal. A Grammar with Ethnographic Notes. New York: Garland. Gentner, D. 1982. Why nouns are learned before verbs: linguistic relativity vs. natu­ral partitioning. In S. A. Kuczaj, II (ed.), Language Development, vol. 2: Language, Thought, and Culture, 301–34. Hillsdale, NJ: Erlbaum. Gentner, D., and L. Boroditsky. 2001. Individuation, relativity, and early word learning. In M. Bowerman and S. Levinson (eds.), Language Acquisition and Conceptual Development, 215–56. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. Gleitman, L., and E. Wanner. 1982. Language acquisition: The state of the art. In E. Wanner and L. R. Gleitman (eds.), Language Acquisition: The State of the Art, 1–48. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. Grammont, M. 1902. Observations sur le langage des enfants. Paris: Mélanges Meillet. Greenberg, J. (ed.) 1963. Universals of Language. Cambridge, MA: MIT Press. Greenfield, P. M., and J. H. Smith. 1976. The Structure of Communication in Early Language Development. London: Academic Press. Grégoire, A. 1933. L’apprentissage de la parole pendant les deux premières années de l’enfance. Journal de Psy­chol­ogy 30: 375–89. —­—­—. 1937. L’Apprentissage du Language: Les Deux Premieres Annees. Liege and Paris: Droz. Grinstead, J. 2000. Case, inflection and subject licensing in child Catalan and Spanish. Journal of Child Language 27: 119–55. —­—­—. 2004. Subjects and interface delay in child Spanish and Catalan. Language 80: 40–72. Gutiérrez Sánchez, P. 2004. Las clases de verbos intransitivos y el alineamiento agentivo en el Chol de Tila, Chiapas. MA thesis, CIESAS, México. Gvozdev, A. 1927. Usvoenie rebenkom rodnogo jazyka. In N. Rybnikov (ed.), Detskaya Reč. Moscow. Haas, M. 1944. Men’s and ­women’s speech in Koasati. Language 20: 142–49. Haegeman, L. 1998. Root infinitives, clitics and truncated structures. In H. Clahsen (ed.), Generative Perspectives on Language Acquisition, 271–307. Amsterdam: John Benjamins. Hale, K. 1970. The passive and ergative in language change: The Australian case. In S. A. Wurm and D. C. Laycock (eds.), Pacific Linguistic Studies in Honour of Arthur Capell, 757–81. Canberra, Australia: Linguistics Circle of Canberra. —­—­—. 1998. On endangered languages and the importance of linguistic diversity. In L. A. Grenoble and L. J. Whaley (eds.), Endangered Languages: Language Loss and Community Response, 192–216. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.

References

289

Hamann, C. 2002. From Syntax to Discourse: Pronominal Clitics, Null Subjects and Infinitives in Child Language. Dordrecht, the Netherlands: Kluwer. Hamann, C., and K. Plunkett. 1998. Subjectless sentences in child Danish. Cognition 69: 35–72. Henderson, R. 2016. Mayan semantics. Language and Linguistics Compass 10: 551–88. Hoekstra, T., and N. Hyams. 1998. Aspects of root infinitives. Lingua 106(1–4): 81–112. Horn, L. R. 1989. A Natu­ral History of Negation. Chicago: University of Chicago Press. Huang, C.-­T. J. 1984. On the distribution and reference of empty pronouns. Linguistic Inquiry 15: 531–74. Hyams, N. 1986. Language Acquisition and the Theory of Par­ameters. Dordrecht, the Netherlands: D. Reidel. —­—­—. 1991. A reanalysis of null subjects in child language. In J. Weissenborn, H. Goodluck, and T. Roeper (eds.), Theoretical Issues in Language Acquisition, 249–67. Hillsdale, NJ: Erlbaum. —­—­—. 2008. The acquisition of inflection: A parameter-­setting approach. Language Acquisition 15(3): 192–209. —­ —­ —. 2011. Missing subjects in early child language. In  J. de Villiers and T. ­Roeper (eds.), Handbook of Generative Approaches to Language Acquisition, 13–52. Dordrecht, the Netherlands: Springer. Hyams, N., and K. Wexler. 1993. On the grammatical basis of null subjects in child language. Linguistic Inquiry 24: 421–59. Imai, M., and D. Gentner. 1997. A cross-­linguistic study of early word meaning: Universal ontology and linguistic Influence. Cognition 62(2): 169–200. Imedadze, N. V. 1960. K psikhologicheskoy prirode rannego dvujazichiya [On the psychological nature of early bilingualism]. Voprosy Psihologii 1: 60–68. Ingram, D. 1989. First Language Acquisition: Method, Description and Explanation. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. Jaeggli, O. A., and N. M. Hyams. 1988. Morphological uniformity and the setting of the null subject pa­ram­e­ter. In Proceedings of the NELS 18, 239–253. Amherst: University of Mas­sa­chu­setts, GLSA. Jakobson, R. 1941/1968. Child Language, Aphasia and Phonological Universals. The Hague: Mouton. [Translated into En­glish by A. R. Keiler, originally published in 1941 as Kindersprache, Aphasie und allgemeine Lautgesetze.] Jakubowicz, C. 1996. Crosslinguistic investigation. In D. McDaniel, C. McKee, and H. S. Cairns (eds.), Methods for Assessing ­Children’s Syntax, 257–85. Cambridge, MA: MIT Press. Jelinek, E. 1984. Empty categories and non-­configurational languages. Natu­ral Language and Linguistic Theory 2: 39–76.

290 References

Johns, A., D. Massam, and J. Ndayiragije (eds.). 2006. Ergativity: Emerging ­Issues, Studies in Natu­ral Language and Linguistic Theory. Dordrecht, the Netherlands: Springer. Kaufman, T. 1971. Tzeltal Phonology and Morphology. University of California Publications in Linguistics 61. Berkeley: University of California Press. —­—­—. 1976. Proyecto de alfabetos y ortografías para escribir las lenguas mayances. Ediciones idiomas guatemaltecos. Guatemala: Ministerio de Educación. —­—­—. 1990. Algunos rasgos estructurales de los idiomas Mayances con referencia especial al K’iche’. In N. C. E ­ ngland and S. R. Elliott (eds.), Lecturas Sobre la Lingüística Maya, 59–114. La Antigua Guatemala: Cirma. Kaufman, T., and W. M. Norman. 1984. An outline of Proto-­Cholan phonology, morphology and vocabulary. In J. Justeson and L. Campbell (eds.), Phoneticism in Mayan Hieroglyphic Writing, 77–166. Albany: Institute for Mesoamerican Studies, State University of New York. Kayne, R. S. 1975. French Syntax. Cambridge, MA: MIT Press. —­—­—. 2000. Par­a meters and Universals. Oxford: Oxford University Press. Kernan, K. T. 1969. The Acquisition of Language by Samoan C ­ hildren. Doctoral dissertation, University of California, Berkeley. Keuleers, E., D. Sandra, W. Daelemans, S. Gillis, G. Durieux, and E. Martens. 2007. Dutch plural inflection: The exception that proves the analogy. Cognitive Psy­chol­ogy 54(4): 283–318. Kinkade, M. D. 1964. Phonology and morphology of Upper Chehalis. International Journal of American Linguistics 29: 181–95, 345–56; 30: 32–61, 251–60. Klima, E., and Bellugi, U. 1966. Syntactic regularities in the speech of ­children. In J. Lyons and R. Wales (eds.), Psycholinguistic Papers, 183–208. Edinburgh: Edinburgh University Press. Kramer, R. 2014. Clitic doubling or object agreement: The view from Amharic. Natu­ral Language and Linguistic Theory 32: 593–634. Kroeber, A. L. 1916. The speech of a Zuñi child. American Anthropologist 18: 529–34. Laaha, S., D. Ravid, K. Korecky-­K röll, G. Laaha, and W. U. Dressler. 2006. Early noun plurals in German: Regularity, productivity or default? Journal of Child Language 33: 271–302. Labov, W. 2001. Princi­ ples of Linguistic Change: Social ­ Factors. Oxford: Blackwell. Lakoff, G. 1987. W ­ omen, Fire and Dangerous ­T hings. Chicago: University of Chicago Press. Larsen, T. W. 1988. Manifestations of Ergativity in Quiché Grammar. Doctoral dissertation, University of California, Berkeley. Larsen, T. W., and W. M. Norman. 1979. Correlates of ergativity in Mayan grammar. In F. Plank (ed.), Ergativity: ­Towards a Theory of Grammatical Relations, 347–70. New York: Academic Press.

References

291

Legate, J. A. 2006. Split absolutive. In A. Johns, D. Massam, and J. Ndayiragije (eds.), Ergativity: Emerging Issues, Studies in Natu­ral Language and Linguistic Theory, 143–71. Dordrecht, the Netherlands: Springer. Lightfoot, D. W. 1991. How to Set Par­ameters: Arguments from Language Change. Cambridge, MA: MIT Press. Locke, J. L. 1983. Phonological Acquisition and Change. New York: Academic Press. Lust, B. 2006. Child Language: Acquisition and Growth. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. MacLaury, R. 1989. Zapotec body-­part locatives: Prototypes and meta­phoric extensions. International Journal of American Linguistics 55(2): 119–54. MacWhinney, B. 2000. The CHILDES Proj­ect: Tools for Analyzing Talk (3rd ed.). Mahwah, NJ: Erlbaum. —­—­—. 2014. What we have learned. Journal of Child Language 41(S1): 124–31. MacWhinney, B., and C. Snow. 1990. The Child Language Data Exchange System: An update. Journal of Child Language 17: 457–72. Mallory, J. P., and D. Q. Adams. 2006. The Oxford Introduction to Proto-­Indo-­ European and the Proto-­Indo-­E uropean World. Oxford: Oxford University Press. Manning, C. D. 1996. Ergativity: Argument Structure and Grammatical Relations. Stanford, CA: CSLI. Marantz, A. P. 1984. On the Nature of Grammatical Relations. Cambridge, MA: MIT Press. Marcus, G. F., S. Pinker, M. Ullman, M. Hollander, T. J. Rosen, and F. Xu. 1992. Overregularization in language acquisition. Monographs of the Society for Research in Child Development 57(4): 1–165. Martínez Cruz, V. 2007. Los Adjetivos y Conceptos de Propiedad en Chol. Mexico City: CIESAS. Mateo Pedro, P. 2015. The Acquisition of Inflection in Q’anjob’al Maya. Amsterdam: Benjamins. Mikès, M. 1967. Acquisition des categor des grammaticales dans le language de l’enfant. Enfance 20: 289–98. Mills, A. E. 1985. The acquisition of German. In D. I. Slobin (ed.), The Crosslinguistic Study of Language Acquisition, vol. 1: The Data, 141–254. London: Erlbaum. Mithun, M. 1989. The acquisition of polysynthesis. Journal of Child Language 16: 285–312. —­—­—. 1999. The Languages of Native North Amer­i­ca. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. Mondloch, J. L. 1978. Basic Quiche Grammar. Albany: Institute for Mesoamerican Studies, State University of New York. —­—­—. 1981. Voice in Quiche-­Maya. Doctoral dissertation, State University of New York, Albany.

292 References

Nelson, K. 1973. Structure and strategy in learning to talk. Monographs of the Society of Research in Child Development 38, no. 149. Newmeyer, F. J. 2005. Pos­si­ble and Probable Languages: A Generative Perspective on Linguistic Typology. Oxford: Oxford University Press. Nichols, J. 1992. Linguistic Diversity in Space and Time. Chicago: Chicago University Press. Norcliffe, E., A. C. Harris, and T. F. Jaeger. 2015. Crosslinguistic psycholinguistics and its critical role in theory development: Early beginnings and recent advances. Language, Cognition, and Neuroscience 30(9): 1009–32. DOI: 10.1080​ /23273798.2015.1080373 Norman, W. 1976. Quiché text. In L. Furbee-­L osee (ed.), Mayan Texts I, vol. 1, no. 1, 40–60. International Journal of American Linguistics Native American Texts Series. Chicago: University of Chicago Press. O’Grady, W. 1997. Syntactic Development. Chicago: Chicago University Press. Pascual, A. F. 2007. Transitividad y dependencia sintáctica y discursiva en Q’anjob’al. MA thesis, Centro de Investigaciones y Estudios Superiores en Antropología Social, México. Paul, H. 1889. Princi­ples of the History of Language. New York: Macmillan & Co. Pfeiler, B. 2003. Early acquisition of the verbal complex in Yucatec Maya. In D. Bittner, W. U. Dressler and M. Kilani-­Schoch (eds.), Development of Verb Inflection in First Language Acquisition, 379–99. Berlin: Mouton de Gruyter. Pfeiler, B., and Enrique Martín Briceño. 1997. Early verb inflection in Yucatec Maya. Poznán Studies in Con­temporary Linguistics (PSiCL) 33: 117–25. Pfeiler, B., C. Pye, P. Mateo, A. E. López, and P. Gutiérrez. 2008. Adquisición de consonantes iniciales en cinco lenguas mayas: un análisis fonológico. In  R. M. Ortiz  C. (ed.),  Memorias del IX Encuentro Internacional de Lingüística en el Noroeste, Tomo 2, pp. 73–88. Hermosillo, Sonora: Editorial Unison. Pinker, S. 1984. Language Learnability and Language Development. Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press. Plank, F. (ed.). 1979. Ergativity: ­Towards a Theory of Grammatical Relations. New York: Academic Press. Plunkett, K., and S. Strömqvist. 1992. The acquisition of Scandinavian languages. In D. I. Slobin (ed.), The Crosslinguistic Study of Language Acquisition, vol. 3, 457–556. Hillsdale, NJ: Erlbaum. Poeppel, D., and K. Wexler. 1993. The full competence hypothesis. Language 69: 1–33. Polian, G. 2013. Gramática del Tseltal de Oxchuc. México, D.F.: CIESAS. Preyer, W. 1889. The Mind of the Child. New York: Appleton. [Translation of original German edition of 1882.]

References

293

Puppel, S. 2001. A Bibliography of Writings on the Acquisition of First Language. Age Long Research on Child Language and H ­ uman Cognition: A Tribute to the XXth C ­ entury Studies of Man. Poznań: Wydawnictwo Naukowe. Pye, C. 1979. The acquisition of Quiché (Mayan). Current Anthropology 20: 459–60. —­—­—. 1980. The Acquisition of Grammatical Morphemes in Quiché Mayan. Doctoral dissertation, University of Pittsburgh. —­—­—. 1983. Mayan telegraphese: intonational determinants of inflectional development in Quiché Mayan. Language 59: 583–604. —­—­—. 1986. Quiché Mayan Speech to C ­ hildren. Journal of Child Language 13: 85–100. —­—­—. 1989. The focus antipassive in Quiché Mayan. Kansas Working Papers in Linguistics 14: 88–97. —­—­—. 1990. The acquisition of ergative languages. Linguistics 28 (6): 1291–330. —­—­—. 1992. The acquisition of K’iche’ (Maya). In D. I. Slobin (ed.), The Crosslinguistic Study of Language Acquisition, vol. 3, 221–308. Hillsdale, NJ: Erlbaum. —­—­—. 2001. The acquisition of finiteness in K’iche’ Maya. In  A. H.-­J. Do, L. Domínguez, and A. Johansen (eds.), BUCLD 25: Proceedings of the 25th Annual Boston University Conference on Language Development, 645–56. Somerville, MA: Cascadilla Press. —­—­—. 2007a. Explaining ergativity. In Barbara Pfeiler (ed.), Learning Indigenous Languages: Child Language Acquisition in Mesoamerica, 47–68. Berlin: Mouton de Gruyter. —­—­—. 2007b. The ge­ne­tic matrix of Mayan three-­place predicates and their acquisition in K’iche’ Mayan. Linguistics 45(3): 653–82. —­—­—. 2009. Cycles of complementation in the Mayan languages. In Elly van Gelderen (ed.), Cyclical Change, 265–84. Amsterdam: John Benjamins. —­—­—. 2011. Mayan stative predication. In K. Shklovsky, P. Mateo Pedro, and J. Coon (eds.), Proceedings of Formal Approaches to Mayan Linguistics, 191–207. MIT Working Papers in Linguistics 63. Cambridge, MA: MIT Press. —­—­—. 2012. The poverty of the Mayan stimulus. Journal of Child Language 39: 611–36. —­—­—. 2016. Mayan negation cycles. In Elly van Gelderen (ed.), Cyclical Change Continued, 219–47. Amsterdam: John Benjamins. Pye, C., D. Ingram, and H. List. 1987. A comparison of initial consonant acquisition in En­glish and Quiché. In K. Nelson and A. van Kleeck (eds.), ­Children’s Language, vol. 6, 175–90. Hillsdale, NJ: Erlbaum. Pye, C., and B. Pfeiler. 2014. The comparative method of language acquisition research: A Mayan case study. Journal of Child Language 41: 382–415. —­—­—. 2017. A comparative study of the acquisition of nominative and ergative agreement in Eu­ro­pean and Mayan languages. In D. Massam, L. Travis, and

294 References

J. Coon (eds.), The Oxford Handbook of Ergativity, 665–89. Oxford: Oxford University Press. Pye, C., B. Pfeiler, L. de León, P. Brown, and P. Mateo. 2007. Roots or edges? A comparative study of Mayan c­ hildren’s early verb forms. In B. Pfeiler (ed.), Learning Indigenous Languages: Child Language Acquisition in Mesoamerica, 15–46. Hannover, Germany: Verlag für Ethnologie, Colección Americana X. Pye, C., B. Pfeiler, and P. Mateo Pedro. 2013. The acquisition of extended ergativity in Mam, Q’anjob’al and Yucatec. In  E. Bavin and S. Stoll (eds.), The Acquisition of Ergativity, 307–35. John Benjamins: Amsterdam. —­—­—. 2017. The acquisition of Mayan languages. In  J. Aissen, N. E ­ ngland, and R. Zavala Maldonado (eds.), The Mayan Languages, 19–42. London: Routledge. Pye, C., and P. Quixtan Poz. 1988. Precocious passives (and antipassives) in Quiché Mayan. In E. V. Clark (ed.), Papers and Reports on Child Language Development, vol. 27, 71–80. Stanford, CA: Dept. of Linguistics, Stanford University. Quine, W. V. 1968. Ontological relativity. Journal of Philosophy 65: 185–212. Radford, A. 1998. T ­ owards a structure-­building model of acquisition. In H. Clahsen (ed.), Generative Perspectives on Language Acquisition, 43–89. Amsterdam: John Benjamins. Rankin, R. 2006. Siouan tribal contacts and dispersions evidenced in the terminology for maize and other cultigens. In J. Staller, R. Tykot, and B. Benz (eds.), The Histories of Maize: Multidisciplinary Approaches to the Prehistory, Linguistics, Biogeography, Domestication, and Evolution of Maize, Part V, The Language of Maize, 563–75. Amsterdam: Academic Press. Rizzi, L. 1986. Null objects in Italian and the theory of pro. Linguistic Inquiry 17: 501–57. —­—­—. 1993/1994. Some notes on linguistic theory and language development: The case of root infinitives. Language Acquisition 3: 371–93. Robertson, J. S. 1992. The History of Tense/Aspect/Mood/Voice in the Mayan Verbal Complex. Austin: University of Texas Press. Rūķe-­Draviņa, V. 1959. Zur Entstehung der Flexion in der Kindersprache. International Journal of Slavic Linguistics and Poetics 1/2: 201–22. [Translated by R. Syare and reprinted in C. Ferguson and D. Slobin (eds.), Studies of Child Language Development, 252–267. 1973.] Rumelhart, D. E., and J. L. McClelland. 1986. Learning the past tenses of En­glish verbs: Implicit rules or parallel distributed pro­cessing? In  B. MacWhinney (ed.), Mechanisms of Language Acquisition, 195–248. Hillsdale, NJ: Erlbaum. Sano, T., and N. M. Hyams. 1994. Agreement, finiteness, and the development of null arguments. In S. Powers and C. Hamann (eds.), Acquisition of Scrambling and Cliticization, 345–96. Dordrecht, the Netherlands: Kluwer. Sapir, E. 1949. Edward Sapir: Selected Writings in Language, Culture and Personality, edited by D. G. Mandelbaum. Berkeley: University of California Press.

References

295

Schmidt, P. 1926. Die Sprachfamilien und Sprachenkreise der Erde. Heidelberg: C. Winter. Schuchardt, H. 1895. Über den passiven Charakter des Transitivs in den kaukasischen Sprachen: Sitzungsberichte de Kais. Akademie der Wissenschaften, phil.-­h ist. Klasse, vol. 133. Vienna: Akademie der Wissenschaften. [Facsimile edition, Munich: Lincom-­Europa, 2012.] Schütze, C., and K. Wexler. 1996. Subject case licensing and En­g lish root infinitives. In A. Stringfellow, D. Cahana-­A mitay, E. Hughes and A. Zukowski (eds.), BUCLD 20, Proceedings of the 20th Annual Boston University Conference on Language Development, 670–81. Somerville, MA: Cascadilla Press. Siewierska, A. 2004. Person. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. —­—­—. 2011. Person marking. In J. J. Song (ed.), The Oxford Handbook of Linguistic Typology, 322–45. Oxford: Oxford University Press. Slobin, D. I. (ed.). 1967. A Field Manual for Cross-­Cultural Study of the Acquisition of Communicative Competence. Berkeley: Language Be­hav­ior Research Laboratory, University of California. —­—­—. 1972. Leopold’s Bibliography of Child Language, revised and augmented edition. Bloomington: Indiana University Press. —­—­—. 1973. Cognitive prerequisites for the development of grammar. In C. A. Ferguson and D. I. Slobin (eds.), Studies of Child Language Development, 175– 208. New York: Holt, Rinehart, and Winston. —­—­—. 1985. Crosslinguistic evidence for the language-­making capacity. In D. I. Slobin (ed.), The Crosslinguistic Study of Language Acquisition, vol. 2: Theoretical Issues, 1157–256. Hillsdale, NJ: Erlbaum —­ —­ —. 1997. The origins of grammaticizable notions: Beyond the individual mind. In D. I. Slobin (ed.), The Crosslinguistic Study of Language Acquisition, vol. 5: Expanding the Contexts, 265–323. London: Erlbaum. —­—­—. 2014. Before the beginning: The development of tools of the trade. Journal of Child Language 41(S1): 1–17. Slobin, D. I., M. Bowerman, P. Brown, S. Eisenbeiss, and B. Narasimhan. 2011. Putting ­things in places: Developmental consequences of linguistic typology. In J. Bohnemeyer and E. Pederson (eds.), Event Repre­sen­ta­t ion in Language and Cognition, 134–65. New York: Cambridge University Press. Soja, N. N., S. Carey, and E. S. Spelke. 1991. Ontological categories guide young ­children’s inductions of word meaning: Object terms and substance terms. Cognition 38(2): 179–211. Spencer, A., and A. R. Luís. 2012. Clitics: An Introduction. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. Stassen, L. 2011. The prob­lem of cross-­linguistic identification. In J. J. Song (ed.), The Oxford Handbook of Linguistic Typology, 90–99. Oxford: Oxford University Press.

296 References

Stern, C., and W. Stern. 1907. Die Kindersprache. Leipzig, Germany: Barth. Stoll, S., and E. Lieven. 2014. Studying language acquisition cross-­linguistically. In H. Winskel and P. Padakannaya (eds.), South and Southeast Asian Psycholinguistics, 19–35. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. Stross, B. 1969. Language Acquisition by Tenejapa Tzeltal ­C hildren. Working Paper 20. Berkeley: Language Be­hav­ior Research Laboratory, University of California. Suppes, P. 1974. The semantics of ­children’s language. American Psychologist 29: 103–14. Szagun, G. 2001. Learning dif­fer­ent regularities: The acquisition of noun plurals by German speaking ­children. First Language 21: 109–41. Taine, H. 1876. Note sur l’acquisition du langage chez les enfants et dans l’espèce humaine. Revue Philosophique no. 1: 5–23. —­—­—. 1877. Acquisition of language by c­ hildren. Mind 2: 252–59. Tomasello, M. 2000. Do young ­children have adult syntactic competence? Cognition 74(3): 209–53. Valian, V. 2014. Arguing about innateness. Journal of Child Language 41(S1): 78–92. Vanvik, A. 1971. The phonetic-­phonemic development of a Norwegian child. Norsk Tidskrift for Sprogvidenskap 24: 269–325. Vázquez Álvarez, J. J. 2002. Morfología del verbo de la lengua Ch’ol de Tila, Chiapas. Master’s thesis, Centro de Investigaciones y Estudios Superiores en Antropología Social, México, D.F. —­—­—. 2011. A Grammar of Chol, a Mayan Language. Doctoral dissertation, University of Texas, Austin. Vázquez Álvarez, J. J., and R. Zavala Maldonado. 2013. La estructura argumental preferida en el chol, una lengua agentiva. Memorias del VI Congreso de Idiomas Indígenas de Latinoamérica, 24–26 de octubre de 2013, Universidad de Texas en Austin, http://­w ww​.­ailla​.­utexas​.­org​/­site​/­events​.­html. Wedgwood, H. 1866. On the Origin of Language. Philadelphia: J. B. Lippincott. Wexler, K. 1998. Very early pa­ram­e­ter setting and the unique checking constraint: A new explanation of the optional infinitive stage. Lingua 106: 23–79. Wexler, K., and M. R. Manzini. 1987. Par­a meters and learnability in binding theory. In T. Roeper and E. Williams (eds.), Pa­ram­e­ter Setting, 41–76. Dordrecht, the Netherlands: Reidel. Wilson, S. 2003. Lexically specific constructions in the acquisition of inflection in En­glish. Journal of Child Language 30: 1–41. Woolford, E. 2000. Ergative agreement systems. University of Mary­land Working Papers in Linguistics 10: 157–91.

Index Adams, D. Q., 17 adjective, 8, 22, 62, 66, 76–77, 87–90, 102, 104–5, 107, 109–10 adverb, 24–25, 76–77, 83, 88–89, 91, 108, 157, 158–59, 172, 182, 192–93, 264–66 agreement, xi, 4–5, 8–9, 19–20, 24–26, 28, 36–37, 40, 42, 44, 49, 66, 74–75, 94, 100–103, 120–21, 126, 129, 134–35, 206–7, 216, 224, 258, 263, 271, 273–74 absolutive, xi, 24, 26, 43, 74, 76, 78–83, 85, 87, 92–94, 121–23, 129, 131, 134–35, 138, 140–41, 145, 147–52, 154, 158, 161, 165, 172, 175, 177, 180, 182, 186–87, 193, 197, 203–10, 213, 216, 223, 232, 258–60, 263–65, 268–69, 273–74 accusative, 42, 49, 135 ergative, 24–26, 28, 43, 74, 76, 78–87, 92, 94, 102, 104, 117, 119, 122–23, 129, 135, 138, 147–50, 152–54, 162, 166, 169, 171–72, 174–75, 177–80, 182, 185–93, 196–98, 201–4, 206–10, 223, 263–65, 270, 273–74 extended ergative, 24–26, 29, 83–84, 87, 92–93, 133, 135, 187, 192, 197, 200, 202–5 Aitchison, J., 268 Allen, S. E. M., 44 Ambridge, B., 2, 6, 12, 24, 27, 66, 272 analytic, 12–13, 34, 73–75, 79, 85, 94, 257, 263, 271–72 animacy, 12, 13, 39, 46, 94, 187

aspect, xi, 12, 23–25, 40, 43, 45, 61, 63, 67, 76–78, 83–89, 92–94, 100, 104, 106, 108, 118, 133–36, 138, 141, 143, 145–47, 150–54, 158–62, 164, 168, 171–72, 174, 177–80, 182–84, 192–93, 195, 197–98, 200, 202–5, 242, 265, 267, 269, 274, 276 completive, 76, 86, 106, 118, 133–36, 138, 145, 152, 154, 156–58, 164, 180, 192, 198, 205, 265 generic, 23, 67 habitual, 23, 67 imperfective, 47 incompletive, 24–25, 61, 63, 77, 83, 85–87, 92–93, 106, 133, 135–36, 138, 145, 152, 154, 156–58, 164, 179–80, 193, 195, 198, 200, 202–5, 265 perfect, 23, 66–67, 69, 86–87, 89–90, 106–7 perfective, 12, 43, 47 potential, 61, 106, 198 progressive, x, 22–25, 46, 66–67, 69–70, 83–85, 91, 136–38, 146, 152, 154, 156, 192–95, 200, 202–5, 265 supine, 66–67 volitive, 106 Athabaskan, 11, 15, 18, 44 Aulie, H. W., 121, 158 Austronesian, 11 Baker, M., 5, 42, 80, 95 Baltic, 40 Bantu, 44

298 Index Basque, 43 Bates, E., 39 Bavin, E. L., 42 Bellugi, U., 53, 58 Bennett, R., 72, 139 Berman, R., 1, 14, 30, 62 Berthiaume, S. C., 10 Bittner, D., 3, 40–41 Bittner, M., 96 Bloom, L., 58, 60, 101 Bloom, P., 94 Blount, B. G., 33 Bobaljik, J., 96 Bohnemeyer, J., 87 Boroditsky, L., 96, 101 Bowerman, M., 3, 8, 30, 34–35, 96 Braine, M. D. S., 27, 33 Brasseur de Bourbourg, C. É., 161 Bricker, V. R., 84, 93 Brown, C. H., 72 Brown, P., xi, 29, 34, 77, 96, 98, 101–2, 120, 123–26, 142, 159, 183, 186, 188–89, 191, 204, 267 Brown, R., ix, x, 34, 63–64, 140, 143, 166, 224 Bybee, J., 9 Cameron-Faulkner, T., 53–55, 57–58 Campbell, L., 50, 72 Carey, S., 3 case, 20, 44, 185 accusative, 20, 42, 66, 79–80, 84, 135, 185–86 allative, 44 ergative, 42–43, 186 genitive, 35, 185–86 illative, 44 instrumental, 35 locative, 43–44 nominative, 42, 66, 79–80, 84, 185–86, 273–74 Chilcotin, 15, 16 Child Language Data Exchange System (CHILDES), 48, 68 Chinese, 10, 34, 37 Chintang, 43 Choi, S., 30, 35, 54, 60 Ch’olan, 72–73, 86–87 Chomsky, N., ix, 1, 5, 30, 33, 36, 75, 96 Clancy, P. M., 59–60

clitic(s), 4, 5, 8, 42, 55, 67, 74–75, 101, 148–52, 157–58, 160–64, 166, 172–75, 177, 184, 189, 198, 240–42, 264, 266, 268–69, 271, 273–74 cognate, xi, 51–52, 160, 264 Columbian Salish, 11 comparative method, xi, xii, xiii, 17–22, 24–29, 38, 48, 49–53, 55, 58–60, 62, 64–65, 69–71, 73, 101, 121, 130, 132, 159, 183, 261, 264–65, 268, 276 context(s) of use, 7, 18–35, 43, 49–52, 54–56, 58–64, 66–70, 83, 121, 126, 132, 136–38, 145, 186–87, 195–98, 203–5, 216, 219, 221, 244–45, 247–48, 254, 256–57, 261–62, 264–65, 268, 275 Coon, J., 72, 88, 120, 240, 273–74 Corbett, G. G., 75 Corver, N., 4 Courtney, E. H., 44–46 Crago, M. B., 44 crosslinguistic, xi, 1–8, 10, 14, 16, 17–18, 24–26, 29, 30, 33, 38–39, 42, 44, 48–50, 54, 60, 62, 66, 69, 93, 101, 261, 264, 275 Crystal, D., 11 Dąbrowska, E., 9 Darwin, C., 1, 31–32, 38 Davies, W. D., 19 Dayley, J. P., 87, 92, 95 de Aulie, E. W., 121, 158 de León, L., xi, 29, 77, 96, 98, 101, 113 Delfitto, D., 4 demonstrative, 11, 108–11, 113, 115, 121–25, 144–45, 221–22, 232, 235–48, 250–52, 254 Demuth, K., 44 de Saussure, F., 32 determiner, ix, x, 10, 53, 55, 63, 121, 145, 240, 246, 262 directional, 74, 77, 108, 141, 145, 148, 150, 152, 157, 159, 163, 166, 173–78, 199, 258 discourse, xii, 8, 13, 37, 49, 51–61, 70, 89, 124–26, 206–7, 209, 214, 221, 223, 230, 257 Dixon, R. M. W., 96, 186 Dressler, W. U., 3, 30, 39–40

Index Drozd, K. F., 53, 55, 58, 60 Dryer, M., 48, 95 Dubinsky, S., 19 Du Bois, J. W., 94 Duna, 43 Durbin, M., 94 Dzul de Po’ot, O., 93 Eastern Mayan, 72–73, 95 Eisenbeiss, S., 34 enclitic, 45, 74, 77–79, 82, 104, 133–34, 147–52, 160, 162–64, 166, 172–75, 177, 184, 189, 198, 268–69, 273–74 endangered languages, xii, 7–8, 17, 275 England, N. C., xiii, 6, 50, 61, 72, 76–77, 82, 84, 87, 90, 94–95, 103, 111, 120, 122, 133, 148–51, 189, 192–93, 198–99, 211–13, 219, 237–38 Ervin Tripp, S., 33 Eskimoan, 44 Yup’ik, 12 Inuit, 44 Inuktitut, 43, 44 West Greenlandic, 44 Estonian, 32 Evans, N., 10 Ferguson, C. A., 30 Fijian, 8, 11, 13, 20, 21 Finnish, 34, 40, 43–44 focus, 7, 52, 76, 94–95, 120–26, 129–32, 179, 218, 240–44, 254, 256–58 Fortescue, M., 44–45 frequency, 9, 32–34, 42–43, 51, 55, 60, 64, 70, 83, 96, 118, 124, 130, 136–37, 147, 190, 192–96, 203, 207, 210–11, 217, 219–21, 223, 226–27, 229–30, 232–35, 244, 247, 255, 257, 267, 270 Freudenthal, D., 23 Frisian, 18 functional, ix, x, 19, 21, 54, 60, 140–41, 145, 273–74 Furbee Losee, L., 87 Gentner, D., 3, 96, 101 Georgian, 34, 35

299 Germanic, 4, 18, 20–21, 24, 27–28, 38, 40, 52, 55, 58–62, 64–65, 69–70, 108, 120, 122, 130, 263 Austrian, 40 English, x, xi, 2, 3, 5, 8, 15, 18–25, 27–28, 30, 31–37, 39–40, 42–44, 49, 52–60, 62–63, 65–70, 72–75, 77, 79–80, 88, 94, 104, 106, 108, 120, 126, 131, 134, 185–86, 262 Danish, 32, 37, 55–58, 69 Dutch, 18, 20, 24, 30, 32, 38–40, 65, 69 German, 4, 5, 9, 11, 18–20, 24, 32, 34, 37–40, 43, 58–60, 62, 65–66, 69–70, 273 Norwegian, 32, 55–56, 58, 69 Scandinavian, 18, 27, 55–58, 60, 62, 64, 69–70 Swedish, 27, 32, 55–58, 65–67, 69 Gleitman, L., 64 Gobet, F., 23 Grammont, M., 32 Greater K’iche’an, 73 Greater Mamean, 73 Greater Q’anjob’alan, 72–73 Greater Tzeltalan, 72–73, 86–87, 131 Greek, 39–40 Greenberg, J., 33 Greenfield, P. M., 64 Grégoire, A., 32 Grimm’s law, 17 Grinstead, J., 19, 206 Gutiérrez Sánchez, P. 29, 84, 215 Gvozdev, A., 32 Haas, M., 14 Haegeman, L., 4 Hale, K., 96, 186, 270 Hamann, C., 37, 206 Harris, A. C., 10 Haspelmath, M., 48 Helenic, 40 Henderson, R., 72 Hindi, 43 historical linguistics, 17, 50, 261, 264 Hoekstra, T., 9 Horn, L. R., 52 Huang, C.-T. J., 37 Hungarian, 34 Hyams, N. M., 5, 9, 36–37, 58, 206

300 Index Imai, M., 3 Imedadze, N. V., 34, 35 Indian, 32 Indo-European, 17, 40–41, 43, 63 Indo-Iranian, 18 Ingram, D., 2, 32, 147 Iroquioan, 44 Jaeger, T. F., 10 Jaeggli, O. A., 37 Jakobson, R., 32 Jakubowicz, C., 4, 5, 30 Japanese, 3, 32, 59–61 Jelinek, E., 44, 74 Johns, A., 80 juncture, 150, 152, 160–61, 164, 184 Kaluli, 43 Kaufman, T., ix, xiv, 72–73, 75, 82, 86–87, 102, 108, 134, 138, 268 Kayne, R. S., 4, 5 Kernan, K. T., 33 Keuleers, E., 9 K’iche’an, 72 Kilani-Schoch, M., 3 Kinkade, M. D., 8 Kiowa, 11 Klima, E., 53, 58 Koasati, 14 Korean, 11, 30, 35, 37 Kramer, R., 75 Kroeber, A. L., 32 Kurmanji Kurdish, 43 Ku Waru, 43 Kwakiutl, 11 Laaha, S., 9 Labov, W., 268 Lakoff, G., 20 language loss, xii, 14 language universals, 7, 10, 30, 33, 34, 264 Larsen, T. W., xiii, 6, 76, 83, 103, 141, 146, 161, 187, 235–36 Latvian, 65 Legate, J. A., 186 Levinson, S. C., 10 Lieven, E. V. M., 2, 6, 12, 24, 27, 30, 53, 66, 272 Lightfoot, D. W., 268

List, H., 147 Lithuanian, 39–40 location, x, 21, 35, 77, 90, 102–3, 107–8, 211, 218, 246 Locke, J. L., 33 López, A., 29 Luís, A. R., 75 Luo, 33 Lust, B., 2, 14 MacLaury, R., 103 MacWhinney, B., 30, 48, 63 Madurese, 8, 13 Mallory, J. P., 17 Manning, C. D., 96 Manzini, M. R., 96 Marantz, A. P., 186 Marcus, G. F., 9 Martin, L., 82, 111, 211 Martín Briceño, E., 98 Martínez Cruz, V., 240 Massam, D., 80 Mateo Pedro, P., xi, xii, 24, 29, 61, 91, 98, 188, 192, 204, 273 Mayan, ix–xiv, 6, 11, 22, 24–26, 28, 29, 40, 43, 50–52, 61–63, 71–73, 75–91, 93–98, 101–2, 104–8, 113, 120–23, 130–33, 136, 138–40, 147, 149, 157, 159, 160–66, 173–74, 183–84, 185–93, 196–97, 203–7, 224, 232, 235–36, 240, 254, 256–57, 260, 262–75 Awakatek, 148 Ch’ol, xi–xiv, 11, 29, 48, 61, 73, 75–79, 81–91, 94, 98–100, 102–8, 113–21, 123–26, 130–39, 152–54, 156–66, 178–84, 187–206, 212, 214–21, 226–35, 240–45, 257–60, 263–69, 272–76 Chontal, 135 Chorti, 93 Chuj, 98 Jakaltek, 187 Kaqchikel, 16 K’iche’, ix–xiv, 6, 7, 13, 16, 29, 34, 42–48, 50–51, 63–64, 73, 75–79, 81–87, 89–96, 98, 102–11, 113–23, 128–50, 152–53, 159–62, 163–67, 169–72, 178, 183–91, 197–200, 202–14, 216, 218–26, 229,

Index 231–38, 242, 244–48, 254–59, 262–69, 272, 274, 276 Mam, xi–xiv, 6–8, 16, 24–25, 29, 43, 48, 61–62, 72–79, 81–85, 87, 89–91, 93–96, 98–99, 102–8, 112–17, 119–22, 126–27, 130–34, 136–39, 146–53, 159–66, 172–78, 183–84, 187–206, 210–14, 216–21, 224–26, 229, 231–35, 237–40, 242, 244–45, 248–50, 254–59, 262–69, 272–76 Mocho, 187 Mopan, 187 Popti’, 50–51, 187 Proto-Ch’olan, 86 Proto-Mayan, 50–51, 73, 82, 86, 135, 138, 268 Q’anjob’al, xi, xii, xiv, 24–25, 42–43, 50–51, 61, 72, 83–85, 87, 91, 93–94, 98, 139, 192–95, 204–6 Teenek, xii, xiii, 8, 85, 93–94, 97 Tzeltal, xi, 33, 43–44, 85, 93, 96, 98, 101–2, 120–21, 123–26, 131–32, 139, 191, 204, 267 Tzotzil, xi, 43, 93, 96, 98, 101, 131, 139, 191, 204, 267 Wastek, xii Yucatec, xi, xii, 24–25, 40–41, 43, 83–85, 87, 91–94, 97, 131, 136, 139, 141, 160–61, 191–95, 197–99, 204, 267–68 McClelland, J. L., 9 Melonesian, 32 metrical structure, 139, 143, 150 Mikès, M., 34 Mills, A. E., 58 Mithun, M., 12, 44–45 Mohawk, 12, 34, 44–47 Mondloch, J. L., xiii, 91–92, 94–95, 120, 122, 141, 148, 208 monolingual approach, 1, 5, 10, 33, 262 mood, 45, 61, 65, 76–77, 79, 86–87, 105–7, 133–35, 138, 147, 149, 152, 159, 162–65, 183, 199, 213, 265, 271 dependent, 47, 74, 78, 86–87, 91, 106, 133, 136–38, 140–41, 143, 145, 162–63, 166, 172, 178, 192, 268–69 hortative, 106

301 imperative, 20, 42, 46, 61, 65, 69, 70, 86–87, 106–7, 133–38, 140–41, 143, 147–49, 152–53, 156–60, 162–67, 172–74, 177–79, 182–84, 198, 208, 265, 271 indicative, 42, 63–64, 78, 83–84, 86, 105–7, 133–34, 137–39, 141, 143–44, 146–47, 149, 152–54, 156, 159–60, 163–66, 172, 174, 178, 183, 193, 197–201, 222, 268–69 nominalized, 84–86, 91–93, 133–34, 136–38, 140, 147, 149, 152–54, 156, 158–59, 162–65, 174, 179, 183, 197 optative, 106 subjunctive, 88–89 Narasimhan, B., 34 Navajo, 11, 44–47 Ndayiragije, J., 80 negation, 28, 40–41, 52–55, 57–61, 70–71, 90–91 discourse, 52–61, 70 existential, 59–61 predicate, 53–59 stative, 61, 91 term, 53, 55–56, 58 Nelson, K., 101 Newmeyer, F. J., 5, 38 Norcliffe, E., 10, 14, 30 Norman, W., 82–83, 86–87, 134, 138, 143, 187, 207 noun(s), 10, 22, 44, 46, 54, 62, 76–77, 87–88, 90, 93, 96, 102, 104, 109–14, 121–22, 125–26, 130–31, 149, 236–39, 243, 245, 264, 275 noun classifier, 8, 76, 95, 120, 122–23, 126–28, 131–32, 146, 172, 206, 211, 214, 226, 232, 235, 237–40, 244, 248–50, 254, 256–57, 264, 272, 275 noun phrase, 19, 43, 53, 55, 68, 75, 94, 108, 122, 129, 145, 206–8, 210–11, 214–16, 218, 222, 224, 228, 235–52, 254–57, 271–72, 275 number, x–xi, 12–13, 46, 65, 82–83, 102, 188, 198, 236, 238, 242, 246 numeral classifier, 3, 242, 244

302 Index O’Grady, W., 75 Ojeda, F., 94 Olmec, 15 Olsen, L. L., 44–45 operating principles, 34–35, 46 orthography, xiv Otomanguean, 8, 18 Northern Pame, 10, 15–16 Pame, 8, 11, 16 Zapotec, 103 parameter, 5, 30, 36–38, 42, 271 particle, 76–77, 102, 108–10, 123–24, 133, 141, 145, 157, 159, 161–62, 169, 179, 193, 276 Paul, H., 50 person marker(s), xi, 4, 6, 13–14, 27–28, 64, 74–75, 77, 81–84, 87, 93–94, 119, 121–23, 138, 143, 145–50, 159–62, 168, 171–72, 174, 177, 183–84, 186–89, 192–93, 195–98, 200, 202–04, 206, 237, 257–58, 263, 265, 268, 275 Pfeiler, B., xi, xii, xiv, 9, 24, 29, 97–98, 136, 141–42, 160, 171, 186, 192, 263 Pine, J. M., 23 Pinker, S., 36, 43, 140, 143, 204 Pitjantjara, 11 Plank, F., 80 Plunkett, K., 27, 37, 55, 57, 60, 69–70 plural, x, xi, xii, 10, 12, 45, 63, 65, 82–83, 130, 148, 151, 158, 178, 188–89, 198–99, 210, 235–38, 241, 260, 262 Poeppel, D., 37 Polian, G., 121, 123 Polynesian, 32 polysynthesis, 44, 47, 260, 271–72 Po’ot Yah, E., 93 Preminger, O., 273 premorphology, 41 preposition, x, 8, 43–44, 63, 76–77, 104, 117–18, 211, 219, 224, 226, 229, 233 Preyer, W., 31, 32 pro-drop, 5, 36–37, 64, 130, 206–7, 224 productivity, 28, 41, 95, 141–42, 156, 171, 182–83 pronoun, 4–8, 11, 13, 42–43, 49, 63–68, 72, 75–77, 79–80, 94, 103, 109, 119–26, 128–32, 179, 185, 194,

206, 216, 221–22, 232, 235–52, 254, 256–59, 262–63, 271, 275 protomorphology, 41 Puppel, S., 14 Pye, C., ix, x, xiv, 9, 15, 24–25, 29, 42, 44, 61, 63–64, 83–84, 86–87, 91, 94, 96, 98, 128–29, 131, 136, 139–43, 147, 149, 160, 167, 171, 174, 186–88, 192, 204, 207, 218, 263, 267, 273 Q’anjob’alan, 16, 72 Quechua, 44–47 Quechuan, 44 Quine, W. V., x Quixtan Poz, P., 96, 267 Radford, A., 140, 143, 273 Rankin, R., 17 relational noun, 76–77, 87, 95, 102–4, 109, 111, 113–19, 121, 126, 146, 149, 177, 207–8, 210–11, 213, 215–16, 218–26, 229–36, 239, 243, 245, 248, 251, 258, 263, 265–66, 270, 272, 274–75 right-edge advantage, 139 Rizzi, L., 36, 96 Robertson, J. S., 77 Romance, 4, 18, 24, 38, 40, 64–65, 272 Catalan, 38 French, 4, 5, 8, 24, 32, 37, 39–40, 64–65 Italian, 5, 9, 36–37, 39–40 Spanish, 5, 8, 9, 15, 16, 19, 21–25, 37–40, 43, 64–67, 93, 99, 226, 238, 266, 271–72 Rūķe-Draviņa, V., 18, 65 Rumelhart, D. E., 9 Samoan, 33 Sano, T., 37 Sapir, E., 11 Saville-Troike, M., 44–46 Schmidt, P., 32 Schuchardt, H., 80, 186 Schütze, C., 66 Sesotho, 44 Siewierska, A., 4, 5, 8, 13, 132 singular, xi, 10, 27, 36, 45, 65, 74, 82, 131, 148, 178–80, 188–89, 195, 198–99, 235–36, 238, 241, 246

Index Siouan, 17 Slavic, 18, 39–40 Bulgarian, 32, 34 Croatian, 40 Czech, 32 Polish, 32, 34 Russian, 24, 32–35, 40, 43 Serbocroatian, 32, 34 Slobin, D. I., 2, 3, 9, 14, 30, 33–35, 43, 46, 275 Smith, S., 64 Snow, C., 48 Soja, N. N., 3 Spelke, E. S., 3 Spencer, A., 75 Stassen, L., 6, 8 status, 6, 29, 63–64, 76–79, 85–87, 90, 106–7, 133–34, 136, 138–45, 147, 152–53, 156, 158–60, 162–66, 168, 171, 178–80, 182–84, 197–201, 222, 263, 268, 270, 274 completive, 136, 156, 158 dependent, 47, 74, 78, 86–87, 106, 140–41, 143, 145, 162–63, 172, 268–69 derived, 6–7, 77, 90, 101–2, 106–7, 163–67, 169, 171–72, 178–79, 182 imperative, 86, 106–7, 133–38, 141, 147, 152–53, 156–59, 163–65, 167, 172–74, 177, 179, 182–83 incompletive, 156–58, 164 indicative, 105–7, 134, 137–39, 141, 143–44, 146, 153, 156, 159–60, 163–66, 172, 178, 183, 197–201, 222, 268–69 intransitive, 86–87, 92, 105–7, 134–36, 139–42, 144, 153–54, 156–60, 171, 197–200 nominalized, 85–86, 91–93, 134, 136–38, 152–54, 156, 158–59, 163, 165, 180, 183 perfect, 86–87, 90 plain, 86 Stern, C., 32 Stern, W., 32 Stoll, S., 30, 42 stress, 39, 47, 139, 143, 149–50, 152, 158–61, 164–66, 171, 184 Strömqvist, S., 27, 55, 57, 60, 69–70 Stross, B., 33

303 structural, x–xi, 19, 21, 24, 36, 41, 60, 74, 93 Suppes, P., 63 synthetic, 12–13, 28, 34, 64, 73–75, 77, 79, 85, 94, 257, 263 Szagun, G., 9 Taine, H., 1, 31–32, 38 Tasmanian, 32 tense, ix, 8–10, 22–24, 27, 37, 40–41, 43, 46, 49, 63–70, 72, 85, 88, 138, 151, 187, 273–74 future, 12, 23, 193 immediate future, 67 past, 8, 9, 45–46, 69, 136–37, 212 present, 22–24, 27, 63, 65–70, 106, 136–38, 187 recent past, 74, 151, 172, 175, 177, 193 Theakston, A., 53 Thompson Salish, 15 Tomasello, M., 141 topic drop, 37, 263 Turkik, 40 Turkish, 2, 40–41, 43, 44 Tzeltalan, 72, 95 unit(s) of comparison, 8, 9, 17, 18–19, 24, 26, 28, 64, 261 Upper Chehalis, 8 Uralic, 40 usage-based approach, 26–27, 55, 272 Valian, V., 9–10 Vanvik, A., 69 Vázquez Álvarez, J. J., xiii, 61, 76–77, 81, 89, 103–4, 134–35, 158, 216–17, 219, 240–43 verb, x–xi, 5–6, 8–13, 19, 21–26, 28, 40–41, 43, 49, 57, 59, 62, 64–67, 69–70, 72, 74–77, 79, 83, 85, 88–89, 93–96, 100, 102, 104–5, 117, 121, 126–27, 129–31, 133, 137, 139–41, 147, 149–54, 158–59, 162–74, 177–84, 186–94, 197–200, 207–13, 215–16, 218–19, 222, 226, 229–30, 233, 237, 239, 242, 260, 263–64, 266–67, 269–71, 273–75 ambivalent, 134–35, 215–16 auxiliary, ix–x, 19, 27, 42, 55, 57, 63, 66–70, 83, 152, 158, 173, 175, 272

304 Index verb (cont.) copula, x, 21–22, 27, 57, 61–63, 66–69, 104 ditransitive, 46 evidential, 100, 145 existential, x, 20, 21, 27, 61, 76–77, 90, 100–101, 107, 109, 135, 218 infinitive, 6, 9, 65–66, 69, 96, 133, 136 irregular, 8, 9, 34, 151, 158 intransitive, x, 6, 19, 24–26, 28, 41–43, 46, 63, 72, 76–77, 80–81, 83–84, 86–87, 91–93, 96, 101–2, 104–7, 109–14, 128–29, 133–42, 144–47, 149–54, 156–60, 162–64, 171, 173, 177, 184, 186–87, 192–206, 208–17, 219–23, 225–37, 239–40, 243, 245–52, 254–55, 257, 259, 263–64, 266–67, 270, 273, 275 light, 134–35, 215–17, 220, 233, 266 motion, 34, 45–46, 78–79, 106, 133, 152, 157, 162–65, 169, 176–77, 211–12, 220, 263, 266, 268–69, 274 movement, 7, 153 positional, x, 44, 76–77, 90, 101–2, 107, 109, 135, 145, 153, 218, 274 progressive, x, 22–25, 46, 66–67, 69–70, 83–85, 91, 136–37, 146, 152, 154, 156, 192–95, 200, 202–5, 265 regular, 8, 9, 34, 66, 69 stative, 20, 23, 61, 77, 87–91, 101, 107, 121–22, 126, 128 transitive, x, 6, 7, 19, 24–26, 28, 41–43, 47, 72, 74, 76–80, 82, 91–92, 101–2, 105–7, 109–16, 119, 128–30, 134, 136, 145, 162–86, 190, 196–97, 201–3, 206, 208–14, 216–18, 220–24, 227–33, 235–37, 239–40, 243, 245, 247–48, 251–52, 254–55, 258–59, 263, 265, 267–70, 273, 275 derived transitive, 6, 7, 101, 107, 163–67, 169, 171–72, 178–79, 182 root transitive, 6, 7, 101, 107, 130, 136, 163–67, 171, 179, 182 verbal noun(s), 92–93, 134–35

verb argument, 8, 102, 122, 127, 213, 225, 230, 232, 235, 241, 245, 248, 251, 256–59, 263 object, x, xi, 4, 5, 8, 13, 26, 42, 44, 46, 65, 73–80, 92, 94–95, 108, 116, 185–86, 206–10, 213–16, 218–24, 227–33, 236–37, 239–40, 242–48, 250–52, 254–57, 260, 263, 271–72 subject, x–xi, 4–9, 18–20, 24–28, 36–37, 42–44, 46, 49, 54, 63, 65–66, 68, 72–80, 84, 87, 91–92, 94–95, 116, 128–30, 133, 145, 154, 162, 174, 185–87, 192, 198–99, 203, 206– 34, 236–37, 239–40, 243, 245–52, 254–57, 260, 262–65, 271–73 verb complement(s), 84–86, 88, 213, 243 verb complex, 16, 44–48, 73–74, 77–81, 85, 87–88, 91–94, 100–101, 105, 133, 136, 138–46, 150–52, 154, 158–67, 169, 171–72, 174–78, 180, 183–84, 187, 206, 241, 257, 260, 263, 266–74 verb paradigm, 41 voice active, 130 antipassive, 72, 91–93, 96, 145, 211–12, 226 focus antipassive, 129–30, 258 passive, 6, 7, 25, 91–93, 95–96, 107, 156, 211–12, 266–67, 274–75 Wanner, E., 64 Warlpiri, 13, 42 Wastekan, 72–73 Wedgwood, H., 31 Wexler, K., 6, 9, 37, 66, 85–86, 96, 136, 273 Wichmann, S., 72 Wilson, S., 27–28, 63–64, 68–70 Woolford, E., 80, 96 World Atlas of Language Structures (WALS), 48 Yucatecan, 72–73, 87 Zavala Maldonado, R., 216–17, 219 Zoque, 15 Zuñi, 32