A Historical Grammar of the Maya Language of Yucatan (1557-2000)
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The ones in (41d–e) show that, in negation, the subjunctive stem can have a present perfect meaning that
contrasts with the finality of the perfective aspect:
(41d) máʔ meyahnaheniʔ
‘I didn’t work’ (V. Bricker et al. 1998:183)
(41e) máʔ meyahnakeniʔ
‘I haven’t worked’ (V. Bricker et al. 1998:183)
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TRANSITIVE VERBS
Table 7-5. Passives of laryngeal-medial transitive roots in the Calepino de Motul (Ciudad Real 1600?).
Phonetic spellings represent reflexes in Modern Yucatec.
a. Transitive roots with both inherited and innovated passives
Transitive Phonetic
Inherited
Innovated
Root
Spelling
Gloss
Passive
Passive
Gloss
huy
húuy
stir, agitate
huybul
huybal
be stirred, agitated
kel
k’éel
toast
kelbel
kelbal
be toasted
leɔ
léeȼ’
lick
leɔbel
leɔbal
be licked
lil
líil
shake
lilbil*
lilbal*
be shaken
mek
méek’
embrace
mekbel
mekbal
be embraced
poc
póok
heat in fire, roast pocbol
pocbal
be heated in fire, roasted
pol
póol
plane wood,
polbol
polbal
be planed (wood),
dress stone
dressed (stone)
tet
téet
choose, select,
tetbel
tetbal
be chosen, selected,
elect
elected
tħoh
t’óoh
strike, hit stone
tħohbol
tħohbal
be struck, hit (stone)
xepp
šéʔep’
pinch
xeppbel
xeppbal
be pinched
xox
?
relate miseries
xoxbol
xoxbal
be related (miseries)
yey
yéey
choose, elect
yeybel
yeybal
be chosen, elected
1.2.3. THE PASSIVE VOICE IN TRANSITIVE ROOTS WITH A MEDIAL LARYNGEAL. During the sixteenth cen-
tury, root transitives could be distinguished from derived transitives in terms of their subjunctive suffix,
-Vb (V echoes the vowel in the root) (see 1.2.1. in Chapter 5), and they had three shapes: CVC, CVʔVC and
CVhC or, possibly, CVVC (see 2.3.2.3. in Chapter 3). The passive inherited from Proto-Yucatecan did not
distinguish among these shapes, marking them all with the suffix -b, followed by the -Vl (imperfective), -i
(perfective), and Vc (subjunctive) suffixes (V echoes the vowel in the root).
By the late sixteenth century, however, when the Calepino de Motul was being compiled, significant
changes had already taken place in the passive of CVC roots, as detailed in 1.1.2. above. In the case of the
CVʔ and CVh roots, that change was only partial, because they ended in the laryngeals, /ʔ/ and /h/, which
blocked the reduction of -b (phonetic [-b’]) to a glottal stop.
The presence of laryngeals or a long vowel and high tone in the CVʔVC and CVhC/CVVC root transitives
represented a more significant obstacle for the transformation of the inherited passive into its modern
form. Because they already had a medial laryngeal, it was not possible to move another laryngeal into
the root, and the passivizing suffix was not reduced to a glottal stop at that time. Instead, as the Calepino
shows, the -Vl suffix of the imperfective stem became -al, perhaps in imitation of the corresponding stem
of passives derived from root intransitives and nouns. Eventually, the epenthetic vowel, /a/, was inserted
between the final consonant of the root and the passivizing suffix -b, in tandem with this change in the
passives of derived transitives.
The steps in this transformation are well documented in the Calepino. Table 7-5a shows that, before
the end of the sixteenth century, twelve of the laryngeal-medial root transitives had both the inherited
TRANSITIVE VERBS
163
Table 7-5. (cont’d.) Passives of laryngeal-medial transitive roots in the Calepino de Motul (Ciudad Real
1600?). Phonetic spellings represent reflexes in Modern Yucatec.
b. Transitive roots with only one possible passive form
Transitive Phonetic
Root
Spelling
Gloss
Passive
Gloss
kat
k’áat
request, interrogate
katbal
be interrogated
latħ
láat’
support [on palm of hand]
latħbal
be supported [on palm of hand]
mat
máat
receive alms
matbal*
be received (alms)
pan
páan
excavate, dig
panbal
be excavated, dug
paz
páʔas
scratch for worms
pazbal
be scratched for (worms)
c. Transitive roots with only inherited passive
Transitive Phonetic
Inherited
Root
Spelling
Gloss
Passive
Gloss
col
kóol
pull, tug
colbol
be pulled, tugged
ɔil
ȼ’íil
peel fruit
ɔilbil
be peeled (fruit)
cħicħ
č’íič’
gather, pick up
cħicħbil
be gathered, picked up
nol
nóol
suck candy, fruit with large
nolbol
be sucked (candy, fruit with
seeds
large seeds)
tooc
tóok
burn
tocbol
be burned
d. Transitive roots with only innovated passive
Transitive Phonetic
Innovated
Root
Spelling
Gloss
Passive
Gloss
cuuz
kuʔus ?
clean lightly with cloth
cuzbal
be cleaned lightly with cloth
ɔuuɔ
ȼ’úʔuȼ’
suck, sip
ɔuɔbal
be sucked, sipped
cħuy
č’úuy-t
hang up
cħuybal
be hung
cħuyabal
puç
púus-t
wipe with cloth
puçbal
be wiped
puçabal
tit
tíit
shake
titbal
be shaken
* ”Accent on first syllable”
and modified forms of t
he passive. The passives of five root transitives in this group were indeterminate
because the root vowel was [a], and the -bal suffix could have represented both the inherited and the inter-
mediate forms of the passive (Table 7-5b). Five root transitives had only the inherited form of the passive
(Table 7-5c). And five root transitives had only the intermediate form of the passive (Table 7-5d). In the
entire group, only two passives exemplified the next step in the transformation to the modern form: both
164
TRANSITIVE VERBS
cħuybal and cħuyabal are listed as the alternative passive stems of cħuy ‘to hang up’ (Table 7-5d). And the
alternative passive stems of puç ‘wipe with cloth’ are puçbal and puçabal.
These changes are not as well represented in example sentences in the Calepino de Motul and other
sixteenth- and early seventeenth-century dictionaries. The examples in (42a–c) compare the perfective
active and passive stems of tet ‘to choose, select, elect’:
(42a) v tetahech Dios ti benel ti caan
‘God chose you to go to heaven’ (Ciudad Real 1600?: fols. 417v-418r)
(42b) tetbiob t u men Dios ti benel ti caan
‘they were chosen by God to go to heaven’ (Ciudad Real 1600?: fol. 418r)
(42c) tetbiob t u men Dios ti xijc ti caan
‘they were chosen by God to go to heaven’ (Ciudad Real 1600?: fol. 418r)
The tetbiob examples in (42b–c) would have represented the perfective stems of both the inherited and
intermediate passives of tet.
The Calepino lists tocbol ‘be burned’ as the only passive form of tooc ‘to burn,’ but the San Francisco
Dictionary contains a sentence with tocbal, suggesting that both forms of the passive were in use at one
time:
(43a) tii uil u tocbalob
‘there they could be burned’ (Michelon 1976:340)
By the middle of the eighteenth century, they had both been replaced by tocabal:
(43b) hex lic u katice lay hoyobe
and what he wants is this spoon-like censer
licil v tocabal pome
with which incense is burned’ (Gordon 1913:38)
The last step in the evolution of the inherited passive of tooc (phonetic [tóok]) into its present form in Mod-
ern Yucatec was the reduction of the passive suffix -b (phonetic [-b’]) to a glottal stop:8
(44a) wa k uy ilik máʔalob’ b’èetáʔanileʔ
‘if he sees that it is done well,
k uy áʔalik b’áʔaš k’ìin u tóokáʔal
he says on which day it is burned
tiʔal ka túuštáʔak bomberóʔob’
in order that a fireman might be sent
kaláʔantik máʔ u púuȼ’ul (l)e k’áak’oʔ
to watch that the fire does not escape’ (after Domínguez Aké 1996:62)
TRANSITIVE VERBS
165
(44b) t u gobynernóil le ʔáalvaradóoʔ
‘during Alvarado’s government,
t u láakal kàahóʔob’ tóokáʔab’ le sáantóʔob’oʔ
those saints in all the towns were burned;
wayeʔ lah tóokáʔab’ih
here, they were all burned’ (SOT971B:3)
(44c) kuš túun letiʔ (l)e tóokáʔak le yáʔaškab’aʔoʔ
‘and what about when Yaxcaba was burned?’ (SOT971B:2)
1.2.4. VOICE IN TRANSITIVE VERBS DERIVED FROM ROOT TRANSITIVES. A few root transitives in Modern
Yucatec may be retransitivized by suffixing -t to the transitive root (V. Bricker et al. 1998:339–340):
(45)
Root Transitive
Derived Transitive
ʔuč’
‘to dent’
ʔúʔuč’-t
‘to scrub’
ʔuk’
‘to drink’
ʔuk’-t
‘to drink up’
b’ay
‘to straighten’
b’áay-t*
‘to stroke, caress’
haš
‘to lay strands of rope; beat /chocolate/’
háaš-t
‘to wipe, stroke’
hoč
‘to harvest /maize/’
hóʔoč-t*
‘to rasp, grate, shave’
k’ay
‘to sing’
k’áʔay-t*
‘to proclaim, cry out, hawk’
noš
‘to tilt’
nóʔoš-t
‘to wedge’
piš
‘to cover, wrap up’
píʔiš-t*
‘to roll up, wind’
p’ay
‘to crumble, shred’
páʔay-t
‘to crumble, pulverize’
p’ol
‘to swell, inflate; develop’
p’óʔol-t
‘to develop’
p’uy
‘to snap off’
p’úʔuy-t
‘to shred, crumble’
šač
‘to part, separate, spread /legs/’
šáač-t
‘to comb’
wol
‘to form ball, round’
wóʔol-t
‘to surround, bother’
yač’
‘to flatten, smash, crush’
yáʔač’-t
‘to knead’
yuč’
‘to crumple, fold, dent/metal/’
yúʔuč’-t
‘to rub /eyes/; scrub/clothes/’
The asterisked retransitivized stems in (45) have counterparts in the Calepino de Motul. Note that, with one
exception, retransitivization also involves the insertion of a glottal stop in the root or the lengthening of
the root vowel. The semantic force of retransitivization seems to be to intensify the meaning of the root, as
from ʔuk’ ‘to drink’ to ʔuk’-t ‘to drink up’:
(46a) yan wá aw uk’ik saʔ
‘must you drink gruel?’ (Blair and Vermont-Salas (1965:121)
(46b) k in táaȼ’ ʔuk’tik
‘I drink it in one gulp’ (V. Bricker et al. 1998:20)
The Calepino contains only two sentential examples of retransitivized stems, both illustrating the active
voice of bayt ‘to console, caress, stroke gently’ (from bay ‘to straighten, stroke’):
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TRANSITIVE VERBS
(47a) lic v baitic v hol ah keban ciçin
‘the Devil coaxes the sinner [literally, the Devil caresses the hair of the sinner]’ (Ciudad Real 1600?:
fol. 42v)
(47b) chan a baite v pol batab
‘don’t flatter the leader! [literally, don’t caress the hair of the leader]’ (Ciudad Real 1600?: fol. 42v)
The imperfective aspect is used in (47a) and the subjunctive in (47b) (bai serves as an alternative spelling
of bay in the Calepino). They can be compared with a recent example of b’áaytik pòol in Modern Yucatec:
(47c) le šíʔipaloʔ táan u b’áaytik u pòol le š č’úupaloʔ
‘that boy is stroking the head of that girl’ (V. Bricker et al. 1998:25)
My sources for Colonial Yucatec do not have illustrative examples of the passive or antipassive voices for
this retransitivized verb. The following examples illustrate the three voices of k’áʔayt ‘to proclaim, cry out,
hawk’ (from k’ay ‘to sing’) in Modern Yucatec (V. Bricker et al. 1998:340):
(48)
Active
Passive
Antipassive
táan in k’áʔaytik
táan u k’áʔaytáʔal
táan in k’áʔay_
‘I am proclaiming it’
‘it is being proclaimed’
‘I am proclaiming’
t in k’áʔaytah
k’áʔaytáʔabih
k’áʔaynahen
‘I proclaimed it’
‘it was proclaimed’
‘I proclaimed’
káʔah in k’áʔayteh
káʔah k’áʔaytáʔak
káʔah k’áʔaynaken
‘I might proclaim it’
‘it might be proclaimed’
‘I might proclaim’
They follow the pattern for transitives derived from nouns (see 1.2.2.1. –1.2.2.3. above).
1.2.5. VOICE IN TRANSITIVES DERIVED FROM SPANISH LOANS. Spanish loans showed up in documents
penned by Maya scribes soon after the Conquest was completed, but for the most part the Spanish lexemes
were nouns. Spanish verbs showed up more than a century later. The most common strategy in borrowing
verbs from Spanish was to treat the infinitive as a noun, from which the transitive stem was derived by
suffixing -t.
1.2.5.1. THE ACTIVE VOICE IN TRANSITIVES DERIVED FROM SPANISH LOANS. The earliest example of a
Spanish verb in my database, from Tekanto and dated to 1670, is an active transitive inflected for the per-
fective aspect with -ah:
(49)
t u cuncistaltahhob lun v chibalob9
‘they conquered their lineage land,
heuac vay t u yax chucahhob lun ca t vlob
but here they first captured the land when they arrived;
tal v chibalob tal mejico lae
their lineage came; it came from Mexico’ (TK670-004C-007)
TRANSITIVE VERBS
167
These lines refer to the Central Mexican mercenaries whom the Spaniards brought with them to help in the
Conquest of the Yucatecan Maya. They were rewarded for their service in the Conquest with land in Maya
communities that would be inherited by their descendants. The Spanish verb in question is the infinitive,
conquistar ‘to conquer’ (the /r/ has been replaced with /l/ in this document because [r] rarely appears in
the Maya language of Yucatan).
Another Spanish verb, which appears with some frequency in Colonial Maya documents, is the infini-
tive, firmar ‘to sign.’ The earliest example of this verb in my database, which comes from Yaxakumche in
1727, is inflected with the imperfective suffix -ic:
(50)
lay u hahil lic ca firmartic
‘this is the truth with which we sign’ (XIU727A)
The subjunctive stem of this derived transitive appears first at Yaxa in 1764 and was marked by -e:
(51)
ca talsic u firmarte ca noh tziccanil ca yume
‘we bring it so that our great reverend father might sign it’ (XIU764A)
1.2.5.2. THE PASSIVE VOICE IN TRANSITIVES DERIVED FROM SPANISH LOANS. The suffix -ab marked the
passive voice of transitives derived from Spanish loans in Colonial Yucatec. It is documented for the imper-
fective (-al) and perfective (-i/-Ø) aspects with the Spanish infinitive, ganar ‘to win’: