A Historical Grammar of the Maya Language of Yucatan (1557-2000)
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a rare holdover from early Colonial times.
1.2.3. SEMANTIC IMPLICATIONS OF ASPECTUAL AND MOOD SUFFIXES. For the most part, the subjunctive
verb stems in (45a–g), (46a–b), and (47) appear in subordinate clauses, which represents a common role of
the subjunctive in Yucatecan Maya grammar. But a comparison of such clauses with the use of imperfec-
tive stems in similar contexts suggests that aspectual suffixes have broader semantic implications that are
important to speakers of the language.
In complement constructions, the transitive complement normally has a subjunctive suffix, as is the
case in the examples mentioned above. However, one of the historical texts I taperecorded in Hocaba
during the summer of 1971 contains a sentence in which the transitive complement takes the imperfective
suffix, -ik, instead of the subjunctive suffix -eh (V. Bricker 1979c:30, line 11, 1981b:97):
(48a) pwes k u tàal u mol-ik-Ø
‘pues viene recogiéndolo’
‘well, he comes gathering it’
In (48a), I have provided both the Spanish translation of this sentence that was given to me when I ques-
tioned its grammaticality and my English translation of the Spanish gloss. In (48b) appears another version
of this sentence, in which -eh has replaced -ik, with corresponding adjustments in the Spanish and English
glosses:
(48b) pwes k u tàal u mol-eh-Ø
‘pues viene a recogerlo’
‘well, he comes to gather it’
This minimal pair highlights the difference in meaning between the two suffixes: -ik has a gerundial
meaning that indicates that the action denoted by the complement occurs at the same time as the action
denoted by the main verb, whereas -eh has a purposive or optative meaning that indicates that the action
denoted by the complement may take place after the action denoted by the main verb. Thus, both suffixes
have temporal significance, -ik indicating the simultaneity of two events (“coming” and “gathering”) and -eh
indicating that they may be sequential (“coming,” followed by “gathering”).
There is, then, a multi-dimensional contrast among aspectual suffixes in Yucatecan Maya: (1) the dis-
tinction between actions that have been completed versus those that are ongoing (-ah versus -ik) and
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(2) the distinction between actions that are simultaneous versus those that are sequential (-ik versus -eh).
However, these are not the only distinctions necessary for understanding the relationship between the
aspectual system and mood in Yucatecan Maya. Other, finer discriminations based on the imperfective and
subjunctive stems are borne by aspectual head words and clitic particles, which are discussed in 2. below.
2. ASPECTUAL HEAD WORDS AND CLITIC PARTICLES
Only three of the four aspectual stems described in 1. co-occur with aspectual head words and clitic particles
(the perfective, imperfective, and subjunctive stems). The fourth — the present perfect stem, marked by
-ma — does not and will not be considered further in this chapter.
2.1. ASPECTUAL CLITIC PARTICLES ASSOCIATED WITH THE PERFECTIVE STEM. The perfective stems of
root and derived transitives and intransitives could be used alone or with the clitic particle t(i) in Colonial
Yucatec. The use of the clitic particle was not optional with perfective stems. It had a temporal significance,
but exactly what that meaning was and how it contrasted with the perfective stems that occurred without
that particle cannot be determined from an examination of example phrases and sentences in the Calepi-
no de Motul and other Colonial dictionaries, nor from the treatises of Colonial grammarians. It requires
a broader context that can only be provided by a consideration of their use in narrative texts written by
native speakers of the Maya language with interests of their own other than providing example sentences
and phrases for dictionaries and grammars.
2.1.1. THE FUNCTIONAL DIFFEERENCE BETWEEN T(I)- AND Ø-PERFECTIVE STEMS. According to the Francis-
can grammarian, Gabriel de San Buenaventura (1684:112, 266), the temporal reference of perfective verbs
governed by t(i) is a single day, designated as “today” ([h]oy) in Spanish glosses. Although neither of the
Maya expressions for “today” (yual and hele la) appears in his examples of such constructions, the Spanish
word for “today” shows up in his glosses of those constructions:
(49a) Pedro t u cimçah vinic
‘Pedro matò oy á un hombre’
‘Peter killed a man today’ (1684:112)
(49b) t in haɔah paal
‘oy açotè al muchacho’
‘today I whipped the boy’ (1684:267)
(49c) ti bini padre
‘el padre se fue oy’ (1684:267)
‘the priest went today’
The same is true of some expressions of this kind in the Calepino de Motul, for example:
(50a) ti valah teex tilob vahi t a cħaex
‘dixeos lo oy mas no lo tomastes’
‘I told you-all that today, but you-all did not take it’ (Ciudad Real 1600?: fol. 438v)
TENSE/ASPECT AND MOOD 83
(50b) t u talçah v kin padre
‘traxo oy nueuas de que venia el padre’
‘he brought news today that the priest was coming’ (Ciudad Real 1600?: fol. 407v)
(50c) t in hel-pachtah haa ti be
‘escapeme oy del agua’
‘I escaped from water on the road today’ (Ciudad Real 1600?: fol. 183r)
(50d) ɔeɔ ma ti vilah haa ti be
‘por poco no me moje oy en el camino’
‘I barely missed becoming wet on the road today’ (Ciudad Real 1600?: fol. 129r)
There are, however, numerous exceptions to this generalization in the Calepino:
(51a) t in hel-pachtah ceh
‘dexe atras el venado’
‘I left the deer behind’ (Ciudad Real 1600?: fol. 183r)
(51b) t u hel-pachtahen ceh
‘dexome a mi el venado atras’
‘the deer escaped from me’ (Ciudad Real 1600?: fol. 183r)
(51c) nocaanen ca ti luben
‘yo cay boca abaxo de buzas’
‘I was upside down when I fell’ (Ciudad Real 1600?: fol. 329r)
(51d) t in hechah v halal in nup
‘rebati la flecha de mi contrario’
‘I repelled the arrow of my enemy’ (Ciudad Real 1600?: fol. 180v)
(51e) t in ppatah in bat chepe
‘o pobre de mi que he perdido mi hacha’
‘oh, poor me! I have lost my axe’ (Ciudad Real 1600?: fol. 140v)
(51f) t in bonlah in çuyem
‘he teñido mi capa’
‘I have dyed my cloak’ (Ciudad Real 1600?: fol. 55v)
Furthermore, the Calepino contains a pair of contradictory examples suggesting that the perfective stems
that are not accompanied by t(i) are the ones that refer to more recent time in the past:
(52a) napul(a)cen valab missa ca ti kuchen ti cah
‘luego como oy llegue al pueblo dixe missa’
‘then upon arriving in the town today, I said Mass’ (Ciudad Real 1600?: fol. 324r)
(52b) napulahen ti missa ca __ kuchen ti cah
‘pero no habla de antes de oy’
‘but it does not speak of before today’ (Ciudad Real 1600?: fol. 324r)
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TENSE/ASPECT AND MOOD
The Spanish phrase in (52b) is a comment, not a gloss, recognizing that this perfective expression without
t(i) does not refer to a time before today. As such
, it implies that it is such expressions without t(i) that refer
to the more recent and bounded time. The first part of the Maya sentence in (52b) is probably incomplete,
but the second part refers to the subject’s arrival in the town, which the “gloss” says must be today because
it cannot be before today, even though ti is not present before kuchen.
The examples in (51a–f) and (52a–b) present a confused picture of the relationship between the two
uses of the perfective stem. Not only do the examples in (51a–f) lack [h]oy ‘today’ in their Spanish glosses,
but the translations are inconsistent in their use of the Spanish preterite for (51a–d) and the Spanish pres-
ent perfect for (51e–f). Possibly in response to such examples, especially the conflicting examples in (52a–b),
Ortwin Smailus (1989:41) came to a different conclusion in his modern grammar of Colonial Yucatec, which
he illustrates with the following didactic examples:
(53a) in cambezah-ech
‘te enseñé’
‘I taught you’
(53b) t in cambezah-ech
‘te enseñé hace tiempo’
‘I taught you long ago’
In his view, t(i) refers to an event in the remote past, not one limited to the current day, which is exactly the
opposite of the view espoused by San Buenaventura (1684:112, 267) and followed, with a few exceptions,
by the Calepino de Motul.
The inconsistency in the use of the Spanish preterite and present perfect tenses in glossing the verbs
in (51a–f) suggests that the compilers of the Calepino de Motul did not have a clear idea of how such
expressions should be translated. In fact, the 94 sentences containing perfective verbs governed by t(i) in
the Calepino are equally divided between those in which the Spanish gloss employs the preterite and those
glossed with the present perfect (see Table 5-1).
The same inconsistency in the use of the present perfect can be found in the glossing of perfectives
governed by Ø-:
(54a) _ a bo(l)tah xin a ppax
‘has por uentura pagado tus deudas’
‘have you paid your debts?’ (Ciudad Real 1600?: fols. 54v-55r)
(54b) _ in bo(l)tah in ppax ca _ huli Pedro
‘pague mis deudas quando vino Pedro’
‘I paid my debts when Peter arrived’ (Ciudad Real 1600?: fol. 58v)
Table 5–1. A comparison of the frequencies of the use of ti- and Ø-perfective stems for translating the
Spanish preterite and compound indicative and subjunctive verbs into Maya.
Pret
PresPerf
PluPerfIndic PluPerfSubj
ImpfSubj
Total
Ti
47
46
1
0
0
94
Ø
572
47
5
8
3
635
TOTAL
619
93
6
8
3
729
TENSE/ASPECT AND MOOD 85
(54c) _ v nabinah v cimil Juan
‘fue culpado en la muerte de Juan’
‘he was implicated in John’s death’ (Ciudad Real 1600?: fol. 315v)
(54d) _ in hahcunah in than y okol Juan
‘atestigue yo contra Juan’
‘I testified against John’ (Ciudad Real 1600?: fol. 172v)
(54e) _ in pulah in keban t in pach
‘oluide y dexo mis pecados’
‘I forgot and left my sins behind’ (Ciudad Real 1600?: fol. 385v)
(54f) haili Noe y etel v balnailob _ puɔi ca _ vchi hay=cabale
‘solamente Noe y su familia se escaparon y libraron quando el diluuio’
‘only Noah and his family escaped when the flood occurred’ (Ciudad Real 1600?: fol. 383r)
(54g) lay vaxac tzuc pixanilob _ y alah c ah lohil t u cambeçah vinicilob
estas ocho bien auentruanças dixo nuestro redemptor a sus discipulos’
‘these eight beatitudes Our Savior told his disciples’ (Ciudad Real 1600?: fol. 377v)
In those cases, however, the overwhelming majority of the Ø-perfectives are glossed in terms of the preter-
ite (574 versus 61) (see Table 5-1).
The inconsistency in the assignment of the preterite and the present perfect to the t(i)- and Ø- perfec-
tives is part of a larger problem, namely that Colonial Yucatec had another stem for the present perfect of
transitives, marked by -ma, that is still in use today (see 1.2.1. above). Glossing either or both the t(i)- and
Ø-perfectives as present perfect when there was already a well-documented present perfect in the lan-
guage makes it unlikely that a solution to the problem can be found in the Calepino de Motul.
I suspect that the source of the problem lies in the likelihood that much of the Calepino is a reverse
translation of an original Spanish-to-Maya dictionary like the closely related Bocabulario de Maya Tħan
/ Vienna (ca. 1570). This is certainly the case with sentences drawn from the Old and New Testaments (e.g.,
[54f–g]) and other religious sources like catechisms and sermons (e.g., [54e]). For a native Maya speaker,
whose language did not have tenses, the task of rendering such sentences into Maya must have been
challenging.
If, indeed, the problem was one of having to translate Spanish sentences into Maya (rather than vice
versa), then the Maya translator seems to have had great difficulty with the Spanish compound tenses,
especially the present perfect as described above, but also the Spanish pluperfect indicative (6 examples)
and pluperfect subjunctive (8 examples), of which fourteen examples were treated as Ø–perfectives and
only one as a ti-perfective. There are also three examples of the imperfect subjunctive that were treated as
Ø-perfectives in the Calepino de Motul (see Table 5-1).
A possible solution to the opposing interpretations of the distinction between t(i)- and Ø-perfectives
can be found in three documents of sixteenth-century date. The first, which bears a date of 16 March 1569,
contains a history of the migration of a lineage founder named Na ɔul Pox (Figure 5-1):
(55)
hex na ɔul pox lae ych cah Mayapan
and this Na ɔul Pox here, from the town of Mayapan
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TENSE/ASPECT AND MOOD
Figure 5-1. Chronicle of the Pox Family of Dzan. March 16, 1569. Manuscripts Collections,
The Latin American Library, Tulane University.
TENSE/ASPECT AND MOOD 87
u talel ca _ u heɔah lum Chichican
he was coming when he settled the land at Chichican
ca ti liki Chichican ca __ bini Tinum
when he left Chichican, then he went to Tinum’ (DZ569-025-029)
Three events are mentioned in this passage: (1) his founding of a settlement at Chichican after leaving
Mayapan; (2) his subsequent departure from Chichican at an unspecified date, followed by (3) his arrival at
Tinum. The clitic particle associated with the earliest of the three events is Ø; the one for the second event
is ti; and the one for the most recent event is Ø.
Elsewhere in the document we are told that Na ɔul Pox died with Ah Pul Ha, an event that took place
in 1537, according to the Chronicle of Oxkutzcab (H. Bricker and V. Bricker 2011:79, Table 4-1). This means
that the founding of Chichican and its abandonment some years later must have occurred more than
three decades before 1569, when the document from which the quoted passage is taken was written and<
br />
notarized before multiple witnesses. And because the second sentence in (55) states that Na ɔul Pox left
Chichican before going to Tinum, the ti in ca ti liki Chichican cannot refer to an event more recent in time
than the Ø in Ø bini Tinum.
The second document that has a bearing on this issue concerns a dispute between Diego Pox of Dzan,
a descendant of Na ɔul Pox in the puuc region of Yucatan, and his siblings over the division of property
from their father, who died intestate. In this document, dated to 1587, Diego Pox mentions in two places
that he paid his father’s debts. There is no t(i) particle in either sentence:
(56a) yan ix v ppax in yum __ in bo(l)tah t in hunal xan
‘and there is the debt of my father that I alone paid’ (DZ587A-020A-B)
(56b) y oklal t in hunali __ in bo(l)tah v ppax in yume
‘because I alone paid the debt of my father’ (DZ587A-039A-B)
He then goes on to say that he supported his father, this time with the t(i) particle:
(56c) t in tzentah ix in yum xan
‘and I supported my father also’ (DZ587A-045)
The implication is that he supported his father while his father was alive, not just for a single day, which
suggests that the t(i) particle had the function of signalling a more distant time, perhaps earlier than the
occasion on which he paid his father’s debt.
The third example shows that the perfective stem without t(i) could refer to recent time and specifi-
cally to a single day. The earliest provenienced document in Yucatecan Maya is the Crónica de Mani, which
describes a survey of the boundaries of the Province of Mani that began on 15 August 1557. Immediately
following the date is a long sentence recording the gathering together in Mani of the leaders of all the
towns in the province, as well as leaders from towns in the adjoining provinces, for the purpose of placing
markers at various places along the boundary of the province (Figure 5-2):
(57)
__ v hu=molcinah v baob halach vinic Don Franco de Montejo Xiu
‘they gathered together, Don Francisco de Montejo Xiu,
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TENSE/ASPECT AND MOOD
Figure 5-2. The First Page of the Crónica de Mani, the Earliest Maya Text Written in the Latin Alphabet.
August 15, 1557. Manuscripts Collections, The Latin American Library, Tulane University.