‘did you-all block the road coming from Conkal?’ (Ciudad Real 1600?: fol. 112r)
(24e) v molahob vuc xac y alatah v xelolob
‘they gathered seven baskets of pieces that were left over’ (Ciudad Real 1600?: fol. 213v)
-ah was also suffixed to transitive stems derived from nouns by -t (tzen-t ‘support’ < tzen ‘food’; bo(l)-t
‘pay’ < bool ‘payment’; and ɔib-t ‘write’ < ɔib ‘writing’), as well as causatives derived from root intransitives
by -ez (ɔoc-ez ‘finish’ < ɔoc ‘end’):
(25a) t
in tzentah ix in yum xan
‘and I supported my father also’ (DZ587A-045)
(25b) yan ix v ppax in yum in bo(l)tah tin hunal xan
‘and there is the debt of my father that I alone paid also’ (DZ587A-020A-B)
(25c) ca ix t in ɔibtah in firma te
‘and then I wrote my signature there’ (DZ587B-110A-B)
(25d) ma
v ɔocezah
‘he did not finish it’ (DZ587A-076)
The imperfective suffix of root transitives was -ic (phonetic [-ik]) in Colonial Yucatec:
(26)
Singular
Plural
1st
in haɔ-ic-Ø ‘I whip him/her’
ca haɔ-ic-Ø ‘we whip him/her’
2nd
a haɔ-ic-Ø ‘you whip him/her’
a haɔ-ic-ex-Ø ‘you-all whip him/her’
3rd
u haɔ-ic-Ø ‘he/she whips him/her’
u haɔ-ic-ob-Ø ‘they whip him/her’
Some examples of the use of the imperfective stem suffix with haɔ ‘to whip’ in context appear below:
(27a) v xuxul v haɔic v mehen lay y ohel
‘every day that he whips his son, he knows it’ (Ciudad Real 1600?: fol. 452v)
(27b) yan
a haɔic a cħuplil
‘do you whip your wife?’ (Ciudad Real 1600?: fol. 214v)
(27c) lay v chun licil in haɔicech a puɔul loe
‘that is the reason why I whip you: you run away’ (Ciudad Real 1600?: fol. 267r)
TENSE/ASPECT AND MOOD 75
(27d) manan v nic v haɔicen
‘there is no end to him whipping me’ (Ciudad Real 1600?: fol. 327v)
-ic was also suffixed to transitive stems derived from nouns by -t (tzec-t ‘preach, correct, punish’ < tzeec
‘punishment, correction, penance, penitence’) and causatives derived from root intransitives by -(e)ç (cim-ç
‘kill’ < cim ‘die’; kah-ç ‘remind, mention, invoke’ < kah ‘remember’; oc-ç ‘introduce, insert’ < oc ‘enter’):
(28a) t
u tzecticoon tac sipil xan
‘he punishes us for our sins also’ (MID567:fol. 365, lines 28–29)
(28b) he ix ma haalil cie yan ix v cimçic vinic
‘as for pure wine without water, it must kill a man’ (Ciudad Real 1600?: fol. 215v)
(28c) coon
ca kahçicob sansamal hab la
‘it is we who remind them daily this year’ (MID567:fol. 365, lines 19–20)
(28d) lic ix y ocçic ha t u holob ca mehenob
‘and he usually baptizes our children’ [literally, ‘and he usually introduces water on the heads of our
children’] (MID567:fol. 366, lines 32–33)
The present perfect aspect was marked by -ma with both root and derived transitives in Colonial
Yucatec. The Calepino de Motul contains a few examples of the use of this suffix with transitive roots (çiɔ ‘to
desire,’ mach ‘to seize by the hand,’ macħ ‘to calm, chill, benumb,’ and nac ‘to bore, bother’):
(29a) a hach çiɔma va a tohcabte a keban
‘have you greatly desired to confess your sins?’ (Ciudad Real 1600?: fol. 106r)
(29b) v machmaob cuchi
‘they have seized them by the hand then’ (Ciudad Real 1600?: fol. 285v)
(29c) v macħmaech ceel
‘the cold has benumbed you’ (Ciudad Real 1600?: fol. 285v)
(29d) v macħmaen ceel
‘the cold has benumbed me’ (Ciudad Real 1600?: fol. 285v)
(29e) v nacmaen baxal
‘playing has bored me’ (Ciudad Real 1600?: fol. 316r)
It also contains a handful of examples of the use of -ma with derived transitive stems, among them naat ‘to
understand’ and ohel ‘to know /something/’:
(30a) in naatma yaabil in pay tech
‘I have understood that I owe you much’ (Ciudad Real 1600?: fol. 324v)
76
TENSE/ASPECT AND MOOD
(30b) ma
c ohelma va bal ti olil licil u mentabal
‘we have not known for what reason it is being done’ (Ciudad Real 1600?: fol. 349r)
(30c) ma bal y ohelma
‘he has known nothing’ (Ciudad Real 1600?: fol. 345r)
(30d) vohelmaech
‘I have known you’ (Ciudad Real 1600?: fol. 345v)
The subjunctive or optative mood in Colonial Yucatec was expressed by suffixing -Vb to root transitive
stems, -Ø to causative stems, and -e to transitives derived from nouns (McQuown 1967:232). The vowel in
-Vb was usually a copy of the vowel in the transitive root:
(31a) bin a pay-ab ah canan colob ti doctrina ti hun-hun=vazil
‘you will call the guardians of the field to catechism from time to time’ (Ciudad Real 1600?: fol. 198v)
(31b) mex tan in key-eb
‘I won’t scold you-all’ (Ciudad Real 1600?: fol. 244r)
(31c) he cuch-teelbil cahe v nah v tzic-ib v chun u tħan
‘as for the subject town here, it should obey its chief’ (Ciudad Real 1600?: fol. 87r)
(31d) bin a ppo-ob a nok çamal
‘you will wash your clothes tomorrow’ (Ciudad Real 1600?: fol. 257v)
(31e) bin in mux-ub v bal in ba ca in çijb ti y otoch ku
‘I will liquidate my possessions and offer them to the church’ (Ciudad Real 1600?: fol. 314r)
However, -Vb was realized as -ab when suffixed to il ‘to see’:
(32a) v ppatahen ti bay hi maac y ohelen bin u ppatbech ti bay hi ma bahun y il-ab-ech
‘he abandoned me as though he did not know me, and he will abandon you as though he had never
seen you’ (Ciudad Real 1600?: fol. 419r)
(32b) bicx hi a tħan ca av il-ab y ichintic naranjas v cheel on
‘what would you say if you see that an avocado tree bears oranges?’ (Ciudad Real 1600?: fol. 184v)
(32c) ma a benel ti ma au il-ab-en ti ma a hanal t u hoppol
‘don’t go without seeing me or without eating first!’ (Ciudad Real 1600?: fol. 422v)
These examples suggest that -Vb was originally -ab or, more likely -əb, the schwa having been more sus-
ceptible to copying (V. Bricker and Orie 2014).
The subjunctive suffix of causative transitives was -Ø in Colonial Yucatec:
(33a) ma chaanen in cambez Juan
‘I cannot teach John’ (Ciudad Real 1600?: fol. 137r)
TENSE/ASPECT AND MOOD 77
(33b) a nah va a ɔoyez Juan
‘will you dare to overcome John?’ (Ciudad Real 1600?: fol. 319r)
(33c) bin
v manez ichil v tzeec v talanil man=kinal
‘he will discuss in his sermon the mysteries of the festival’ (Ciudad Real 1600?: fol. 407r)
(33d) ma tan y ocez ti y oli
‘he doesn’t believe it’ (Ciudad Real 1600?: fol. 300r)
(33e) cunx ca a takanez hanal
‘it would be good if you would let the food ripen!’ (Ciudad Real 1600?: fol. 404v)
(33f) ma y oklal a mananil vaye binil in tubezex
‘it is not because you are not here that I will forget you-all’ (Ciudad Real 1600?: fol. 295r)
The subjunctive stems of transitives derived from nouns and adjectives by -t were marked by -e
( phonetic [-eh]):
(34a) ma bahun in ɔibte hun tech
‘I never wrote a letter to you’ (Ciudad Real 1600?: fol. 129v)
(34b) a kati au atante Maria
‘you want to marry Mary’ (Ciudad Real 1600?: fol. 37v)
(34c) olac ma in naate
‘I almost did not understand it!’ (Ciudad Real 1600?: fol. 349v)
(34d) va bin xijc vinic ti caane bin v matante hun-kul cici-olali
‘if the man goes to heaven, he will receive eternal bliss there;
heuac va bin xijc mitnale hun-kul num-ya bin v matantei
but if he goes to Hell, he will receive eternal misery there’ (Ciudad Real 1600?: fol. 300r)
1.2.2. ASPECTUAL INFLECTION OF TRANSITIVE VERBS IN MODERN YUCATEC. The aspectual stem suffixes of
both root and derived transitives in Modern Yucatec are -ah (perfective), -ik (imperfective), -mah (present
perfect), and -eh (subjunctive). The subjunctive suffix -eh is the one that occurred only with transitives de-
rived from nouns and adjectives in Colonial Yucatec, but it has come to replace -Ø with causative stems and
-Vb with root transitive stems.2 However, it surfaces only when the verb appears at the end of a phrase with
the third-person singular form of the direct object (Blair and Vermont-Salas 1965:251–252). Furthermore,
because of the recent merger of velar and laryngeal “h” into phonetic [h] (see 2.1.1. in Chapter 2 and Orie
and V. Bricker 2000), both the perfective and present perfect suffixes now end in [h]: [-ah] and [-mah].
The following paradigm illustrates the use of the pefective suffix, -ah, with ʔil ‘to see’:
(35)
Singular
Plural
1st
t iŋw il-ah-Ø ‘I saw him/her’
t ʔil-ah-Ø ‘we saw him/her’
2nd
t aw il-ah-Ø ‘you saw him/her’
t aw il-ah-éʔeš-Ø ‘you-all saw him/her’
3rd
t uy il-ah-Ø ‘he/she saw him/her’
t uy il-ah-óʔob’-Ø ‘they saw him/her’
78
TENSE/ASPECT AND MOOD
Some examples of the use of ʔilah with the clitic subject pronouns appear below:
(36a) téʔe čéen miš máak t inw ilah
‘not even a single person did I see there’ (V. Bricker 1981a:235, line 480)
(36b) máaš k uy áʔalik b’áʔaš t aw ilah
‘who would say what you saw’ (V. Bricker 1981a:251, line 1219)
(36c) káʔah t uy ilah téʔe béentanáaʔ
‘and he saw it there in this window’ (EBT979B)
The following examples illustrate the use of -ah with other transitive stems, both root and derived:
(37a) la káʔah t u čukah dòoseh
‘then it reached twelve’ (EBT979A)
(37b) míin miš hum p’éel k’oháʔanil t u ȼ’áah tíʔob’ yah hmm
‘I don’t think a single illness gave them pain’ (EBT979B)
(37c) t
u láah kíinsah le máakóoʔ
‘they murdered all those people’ (EBT979C)
(37d) t u mèen y ohéeltah
‘because he learned of it’ (V. Bricker 1981a:230, line 263)
However, in fast speech, -ah may disappear before the terminal deictic, iʔ, that closes a negative frame
introduced by máʔ ‘not,’ as in (38a), or before a pronominal suffix like -en ‘me,’ as in (38b) below:
(38a) máʔ t inw áʔal_iʔ oʔ tíiyoh
‘isn’t that what I said, Uncle?’ (EBT979C)
(38b) peroh máʔ t u kanáant_eniʔ
‘but he did not help me’ (EBT979A)
The imperfective suffix, -ik, refers to actions that have not been completed in the present, the past, and
the future. Its use with the clitic pronouns and ʔil ‘to see’ is shown in the paradigm below:
(39)
Singular
Plural
1st
k iŋw il-ik-Ø ‘I see him/her’
k ʔil-ik-Ø ‘we see him/her’
2nd
k aw il-ik-Ø ‘you see him/her’
k aw il-ik-éʔeš-Ø ‘you-all see him/her’
3rd
k uy il-ik-Ø ‘he/she sees him/her’
k uy il-ik-óʔob’-Ø ‘they see him/her’
Some examples of the use of ʔilik appear in context below:
(40a) máʔ k aw ilikóʔob’ teč
‘you didn’t see them’ (V. Bricker 1981a:233, line 406).
TENSE/ASPECT AND MOOD
79
(40b) k uy ilik b’iš uy úučul tiʔ e hèentéoʔ
‘he observed what was happening to those people’ (V. Bricker 1981a:252, lines 1257–1258)
(40c) táan k ʔilikeʔ lìibreh ʔanilóʔon
‘we are seeing that we are free’ (V. Bricker 1981a:248, lines 1042–1043)
Additional examples of the imperfective suffix, this time with other transitive stems, both root and derived,
appear in (41a–i):
(41a) k u huč’ik tíʔ kaʔ
‘she ground it on a grinding stone’ (EBT979A)
(41b) k u k’ub’ik kàahaʔ káʔah šíʔik
‘he turned over this town and left!’ (V. Bricker 1981a:239, lines 671–672)
(41c) héʔeš k iŋw áʔalik tečoʔ
‘as I tell you’ (V. Bricker 1981a:243, line 828)
(41d) tiʔ k aw úʔuyik u péekiʔ
‘there you feel it move’ (EBT979B)
(41e) b’áʔaš k u b’èetik
‘what is he doing?’ (V. Bricker 1981a:231, line 315)
(41f) b’ey k u tàasik
‘so he brought it’ (V. Bricker 1981a:237, line 588)
(41g) k inw áantik túun téʔe hùuč’ b’eyaʔ
‘I helped her then there with the corn dough like this’ (EBT979A)
(41h) pwes téʔe k in kaštik u láak’ màas in čan séentabóiʔ
‘well, there I found a few more pennies’ (EBT979A)
(41i)
tun mèentik hum p’éel nušiʔ káalderoh saʔ k’úʔum b’eyaʔ
‘she was making a large pot of maize gruel like this’ (EBT979A)
As in Colonial Yucatec, the present perfect aspect is signalled by -mah with both root and derived tran-
sitives in Modern Yucatec. The following paradigm illustrates its use with ʔil ‘to see’ and the direct object
suffixes:3
(42)
Singular
Plural
1st
uy il-mah-en ‘he/she has seen me’
uy il-mah-óʔon ‘he/she has seen us’
2nd
uy il-mah-eč ‘he/she has seen you’
uy il-mah-éʔeš ‘he/she has seen you-all’
3rd
uy il-mah-Ø ‘he/she has seen
uy il-mah-óʔob’ ‘he/she has seen them’
him/her/them’
80
TENSE/ASPECT AND MOOD
Examples of this construction with other transitive verbs appear below:
(43a) le a ʔéenemìigoh u k’almah u pàač a kàahal
‘this enemy of yours has besieged your town’ (V. Bricker 1981a:250, lines 1163–1164)
(43b) le súʔuk u kučmahoʔ
‘that hay that he has carried’ (after Andrade 1940:3.2.1. )
The subjunctive suffix for root transitives in Colonial Yucatec, -Vb (phonetic [-Vb’]), has not survived into
Modern Yucatec. Instead, root transitives now employ the same subjunctive suffix as derived transitives:
-eh. However, -eh appears only when the suffixed pronoun is -Ø:
(44)
Singular
Plural
1st
uy il-Ø-en ‘he/she might see me’
uy il-Ø-óʔon ‘he/she might see us’
2nd
uy il-Ø-eč ‘he/she might see you’
>
uy il-Ø-éʔeš ‘he/she might see you-all’
3rd
uy il-eh-Ø ‘he/she might see him/her’
uy il-Ø-óʔob’ ‘he/she might see them’
A further restriction on the occurrence of -eh today is that the transitive verb in question must be at the
end of the phrase:
(45a) tak u walkilaʔ miš b’áʔal k ʔileh
‘until now, we have seen nothing’ (V. Bricker 1981a:248, lines 1040–1041)
(45b) t in kaštah k’íinah ȼ’àakóʔob’ b’ey inw uk’eh
‘I searched for strong medicines so that I could drink it like so’ (EBT979B)
(45c) k’ab’éeh túun b’ey máaš y òohl u ȼ’akeh
‘someone is needed then, who knows how to cure like this’ (EBT979B)
(45d) kén a č’úuyeh k a páasmartik
when you lift it off, you chill it’ (EBT979A)
(45e) t u mèen wáah máʔ uy oheh šòok máakeʔ pwes leloʔ heláʔan kén u mèenteh
Because if someone does not know how to read, well that one, he will behave differently’ (CHK979)
(45f) k in tàal in šíimb’ateh
‘I come to visit him’ (Blair and Vermont-Salas 1965:251)
(45g) iŋ k’áat in maneh
‘I want to buy it’ (Blair and Vermont-Salas 1965:251)
The last two examples can be contrasted with those in (46a–b), where the verbs man ‘to buy’ and ʔáant ‘to
help’ do not occur at the end of the phrase and therefore do not have -eh suffixed to them:
(46a) kim b’in iŋw áant_ iŋw éet tàal
‘I go to help my companion’ (Blair and Vermont-Salas 1965:251)
TENSE/ASPECT AND MOOD 81
(46b) máʔ iŋ k’áat in man_ le b’áʔalóʔob’oʔ
‘I don’t want to buy those things’ (Blair and Vermont-Salas 1965:251)
The same is true of the causative transitive b’i(n)s ‘to take’ in the next example:
(47)
wáah t u manah un ryáal e kàašoʔ kén u b’is_ wáah kóʔoh
‘if he bought that chicken for one silver coin, he would take it even if it was expensive’ (EBT979C)
A comparison of the example in (47) with those in (33a–f) suggests that the -eç/-ez causative suffix
of Colonial Yucatec has been reduced to -s in Modern Yucatec. The process was already underway in the
imperfective stems of causative transitives during the sixteenth century (see the examples of v cimçic, ca
kahçicob, and y ocçic in [28b–d]), but had not yet affected the subjunctive stems of causative transitives at
that time. The imperative, sáʔates ten ‘excuse me!,’ in Modern Yucatec (V. Bricker et al. 1998:243) represents
A Historical Grammar of the Maya Language of Yucatan (1557-2000) Page 16