A Historical Grammar of the Maya Language of Yucatan (1557-2000)
Page 60
(93c) lic bin v haɔic v cħuplil Juan lic ma lic
‘they say that John whips his wife, but it may not be true’ (Ciudad Real 1600?: fol. 278r)
(93d) la ma la
‘it may or may not be that’ (Ciudad Real 1600?: fol. 278r)
(93e) toh ma toh au olex
‘you-all may or may not be well’ (Ciudad Real 1600?: fol. 277v)
(93f) domingo ma domingo
‘it may be Sunday or not’ (Ciudad Real 1600?: fol. 278r)
More common are examples of repeated compounds:
(94)
Reduplicated
Compound
Gloss
Phrase
Gloss
hun=tac
apart, aside, alone
hun=tac hun=tac
each one
hun=ten
once
hun=ten hun=ten many times
—
—
hun=ye hun=ye
only once
ppel=kin
all day long
ppel=kin ppel=kin all day long
ah yax=bak
moon-faced from
yax=bak yax=bak sickly person
illness
bul=kin
all day long, from
bul=kin bul=kin
many days from
sunup to sundown
sunup to sundown
he=ua
is it? by chance?
he=ua he=ua
any
The first four examples of phrase reduplication in (94) are based on numeral classifiers and have an
adverbial function, as shown in context below:
(95a) hun=ten hun=ten v beeltic
‘many times he does it’ (Ciudad Real 1600?: fol. 201v)
(95b) hun=ye hun=ye tzectabal yan v cux y ole
‘only once is the person who is wise reprimanded!’ (Ciudad Real 1600?: fol. 198v)
REDUPLICATION
361
(95c) hun=tac hun=tac ti y ol
‘each one’s condition is different’ (Ciudad Real 1600?: fol. 201r)
The last two examples in (94) are illustrated below:
(96a) bul=kin bul=kin v menyah Juan
many days from sunup to sundown does John work’ (Ciudad Real 1600?: fol. 58r)
(96b) cħaex a ba a talelex a kam he=ua he=ua t u sacramentoil yglesia
‘prepare yourselves to come to receive any of the sacraments of the church!’ (Ciudad Real 1600?:
fol. 184r)
There are no contextual examples of ppel=kin ppel=kin and yax=bak yax=bak in the Calepino de Motul.
8.2. SEMANTIC AND SYNTACTIC PARALLELISM. Maya literature is well known for its use of parallel couplets,
which are composed of pairs of lines that are semantically and often also syntactically parallel (Edmonson
1986:17–20; Hanks 1986:732). Some examples of such couplets in the Calepino de Motul are:
(97a) ma bay-kin çatom
‘it will never be wasted;
ma bay-kin çab-yom it will never be perishable’ (Ciudad Real 1600?: fol. 279r)
(97b) kam u cah
‘he is serving in
y et-hun batab
the house of the leader,
y et-hun ɔul
the house of the Spaniard’ (Ciudad Real 1600?: fol. 236v)
(97c) ca utzac ca ɔaic
‘we should give
v pacay=tħan
a response,
v pacay=can
an answer
ti ahau
to the ruler’ (Ciudad Real 1600?: fol. 354v)
(97d) hun=payil cah
‘a foreigner,
hun=payil vinic
an upstart’ (Ciudad Real 1600?: fol. 200r)
(97e) pacten t u xelel a çijl ‘look at me with a piece of your alms,
t u xelel a ɔa-yatzil
with a piece of your charity!’ (Ciudad Real 1600?: fol. 355r)
(97f) v chichil v muk
‘the strength of his muscles,
v chichil y oc
the strength of his feet’ (Ciudad Real 1600?: fol. 143r
(97g) hacħ au ex
‘tie your breeches!
hacħ a pic
tie your petticoat!’ (Ciudad Real 1600?: fol. 171v)
(97h) hun=çut y utz
‘in one moment he is contented;
hun=çut lob
in one moment he is discontented’ (Ciudad Real 1600?: fol. 197v)
362 REDUPLICATION
In each couplet, there is a constant element that is repeated and two variable elements that may be syn-
onyms or antonyms. Thus, in (97a), the constant, or repeated element is the syntactic “frame,” ma bay-kin ...
-om ‘it will never be ...,’ and the variable elements are çat ‘wasted’ and çab ‘perishable.’ Similarly, the syntac-
tic frame in (97b) is y et-hun, which is loosely translated as ‘in the house of,’ and the variable elements are
batab ‘leader’ and ɔul ‘Spaniard.’ In each example, the second line of the couplet restates the idea in the
first line in a slightly different way. Thus, in (97b), the second line clarifies that the leader in whose house
the service takes place is a Spaniard, not a Maya.
The variable elements in (97g) refer to the characteristic garments of men (ex ‘breeches’) and women
(pic ‘petticoat’); therefore, the couplet as a whole implicitly serves as an admonition to the two sexes. It is
also an example of a “kenning,” in which the variable elements imply a third idea: garments. The same is
true of (97h), whose variable elements are antonyms (contented - discontented) that connote a third idea,
namely that ‘he is irritable.’
Such semantic and syntactic couplets are common in the Books of Chilam Balam, which were the prin-
cipal literary works in Colonial Yucatec. The Book of Chilam Balam of Tizimin contains several couplets with
the variable elements, che ‘tree’ and haban ‘bush’ (and, in one case, also ak ‘vine,’ forming a triplet):
(98a) sathom yalan che yalan haban
‘they will be lost beneath the trees, beneath the bushes’ (Tizimin n.d.: fol. 11r)
(98b) valachi v cħa tam ba ah ytza
‘at that time of day, the Itzas seize each other
tan y ol che tan y ol haban
among the trees, among the bushes’ (Tizimin n.d.: fol. 4r)
(98c) ca ɔit u katunil bi[n]ci ah ytzaob
‘for two parts of the katun, the Itzas went
yalan che yalan haban yalan ak ti num-yaob
beneath the trees, beneath the bushes, beneath the vines in suffering (Tizimin n.d.: fol. 18v)
In these examples, yalan che ‘beneath the trees,’ yalan haban ‘beneath the bushes,’ and yalan ak ‘beneath
the vines’ refer to the time spent by the Itza people in the wilderness. In the Calepino de Motul, the same
pairing of che ‘tree’ with haban ‘bush’ occurs in a frame introduced by u hel ‘the replacement, substitute’
that refers to “payment, prize, reward”:
(99)
cħa ca ppel tomin u hel che u hel haban tau oc la
‘take these two silver coins as payment for your trouble!’ (Ciudad Real 1600?: fol. 181v)
Here, as in the Tizimin examples, the pairing of references to trees and bushes has a negative connotation,
in one case referring to years spent in the wilderness, in the other to unspecified “trouble.”
Another set of terms that appears in multiple couplets in the Book of Chilam Balam of Tizimin, pop ‘mat’
and ɔam ‘throne,’ is of special interest because of its traceable roots in the Precolumbian past (V. Bricker
and H. Bricker n.d.). These terms serve as a kenning for “rulership” in:
(100a) t u men patah v cah t u kin t u ɔap tun
‘because
he waits for the day to pile up stones
REDUPLICATION
363
t u kin u hel pop u hel ɔaam
for the day for replacing the mat, for replacing the throne’ (Tizimin n.d.: fol. 3r)
(100b) ti u hoppol ah ca-kin ɔam ah ca-kin popi
‘then begins the occupier of the two-day throne, the occupier of the two-day mat’ (Tizimin n.d.:
fol. 16v)
(100c) coɔbal v uich ah ca-kin pop ah ca-kin ɔam
‘rolled up is the face of the occupier of the two-day mat, the two-day throne’ (Tizimin n.d.: fol. 16v)
The couplets in (100b) and (100c) imply a temporary rulership, lasting only two days.
A rare example of such parallelism in a Colonial notarial document written in 1596 exhorts the owners
of a tract of forest in the Puuc region never to sell or give it away to anyone outside the family:
(101) a tialex t u lah a cuxtalex
‘it is yours for all your lives
y au al a mehenexob
and of your children;
a tanlicex ca yumil ti dios for you-all to serve our Lord who is God
y ca noh ahau ah tepal
and our great king and ruler;
ma ix a conicex
neither sell it
ma ix a siycex lae
nor give this away
ti u yanal uinic
to another person’ (SB596C-302A-305)
In 1850 and 1851, the Talking Cross that served as the focus of worship among the rebel Maya during
the Caste War of Yucatan often “spoke” in syntactic and semantic couplets:
(102) bin yanac av ohetcexe
‘know ye:
vuc ten inv ocol y kin
seven times I entered by day;
vuc ten inv ocol y akab
seven times I entered at night
y icnal in yum
in the presence of my Father
y y icnal in colel
and in the presence of my Lady,
cħahuc sullui santa maria the sweet Virgin, Saint Mary’ (V. Bricker 1981a:193, lines 222–228)
Couplets could also appear in riddles, as in these examples from the 1930s:
(103a) tun lolancile tun takanile
‘it flowers when it ripens’ (R. Redfield and Villa Rojas 1934:330)
(103b) tan ti chi tan ti ni
‘equal in the mouth; equal in the nose’ (M. Redfield 1935:40)
The answer to the riddle in (103a) is “horse excrement as it falls” (R. Redfield and Villa Rojas 1934:330), and
the answer to the riddle in (103b) is “the breath” (M. Redfield 1935:40).
Other semantic and syntactic couplets from the late twentieth century include:
(104a) tíʔ le héʔeloʔ way b’àakeʔ way ȼóʔoȼeʔ
‘for that, here there are bones; here there is hair’ (V. Bricker et al. 1998:24)
364 REDUPLICATION
(104b) miš č’óoč’iʔ miš č’uhkiʔ
‘it is neither salty nor sweet’ (V. Bricker et al. 1998:185)
(104c) tèeč pašik tèeč ʔóok’ostik
‘it is you who play it; it is you who dance it! [said to someone who contradicts himself]’ (V. Bricker
et al. 1998:209)
(104d) wač’ aw èeš wač’ a pìik
‘loosen your pants; loosen your petticoat!’ (V. Bricker et al. 1998:215)
The couplet in (104a) refers to the AIDS epidemic and can be paraphrased loosely as “there is no escape
from this” (V. Bricker et al. 1998:24). The couplet in (104d) is recited several times while toasting the fruit of
the Enterolobium cyclocarpum (Jacq.) Griseb. tree to encourage it to open (V. Bricker et al. 1998:215).
9. CONCLUSIONS
A variety of roots and stems in Colonial and Modern Yucatec have reduplicated forms: transitive and intran-
sitive verbs, positionals, affects, nouns, adjectives, participles, number words, and particles. Reduplication
is a device for signalling increased or diminished intensity in the contrast between full and partial forms
(in Itsaj, for example) or that an action or a quality applies to more than one object in succession. Semantic
and syntactic couplets mark peak events in historical and religious discourse (an exhortation to retain land
ownership in a family, a sojourn in the wilderness during exile, a reign that lasted only two days, claims of
visits to Heaven). They are also stylistic markers of riddles and aphorisms.
In summary, three reduplication patterns have been attested in Colonial and Modern Yucatec: full,
partial, and full and partial. Full reduplication signals strong intensity, partial reduplication represents
moderate intensity, and, in a few instances, reduplicated forms can be full or partial with no difference in
meaning.
The semantic distinction between complete and partial reduplication was already fading during the
late sixteenth century and survives today only in Itsaj.11 Modern Yucatec retains the formal distinction
in nasal-final and glottal-stop-final roots, but not the semantic distinction, suggesting that its loss was
responsible for the decline in the number of fully reduplicated stems in the language over time.
NOTES
1. The variation in the vowels in cha-chan and chi-chan, both meaning ‘small, little,’ is evidence that the
vowel in the prefix was originally schwa (cf. 2.3.3. in Chapter 3 and V. Bricker and Orie 2014).
2. Itsaj also has chi-chan with the same meaning (Hofling and Tesucún 1997:192), indicating that the orig-
inal schwa in the reduplicand was raised to [i].
3. Of course, p’aʔ-p’aʔ-nak is an example of full, not partial, reduplication.
4. Both the root and the reduplicand began with a glottal stop — (ʔ)e-(ʔ)em — that was not written.
5. This root is also a source of a reduplicated adjective with an infix: líik’-un-líik’ ‘raised here and there
(several objects).’
6. This is also true of the one nasal-final participle in Colonial Yucatec, but it takes an -áʔan suffix in Mod-
ern Yucatec: ȼ’óʔon-ȼ’on-áʔan ‘shot in several places’ (compare with the first example in [52]).
REDUPLICATION
365
7. This example is identical to the reduplicated participial stem of č’uy (compare with the second example
in [57]).
8. The -e in çam(e) and çam-çame is a topicalizing enclitic (see Chapter 15).
9. The reduplicated form has two meanings, e.g., ‘one by one’ and ‘each one.’ The latter meaning is oper-
ative in (83a–b) and (84).
10. The cognate of kin-kin-al in Modern Yucatec is k’íin-k’in-al ‘lukewarm, tepid’ (V. Bricker et al. 1998:153).
11. And the preservation of this distinction in Itsaj implies that it separated from Proto-Yucatecan well
before the late sixteenth century, when the Calepino de Motul was being compiled.
CHAPTER 14
PARTICLES
Particles resemble adjectives and nouns in the sense that they can be inflected as stative verbs with pro-
nominal suffixes, but unlike nouns, they do not co-occur with clitic pronouns, and unlike adjectives, they do
not modify nouns. Several kinds of function words belong to this category: adverbs, pronouns, interroga-
tives, conjunctions, prepositions, and expletives.
1. PARTICLE ROOTS
Colonial and Modern Yucatec have both monosyllabic and disyllabic particle roots. Many of the mono-
syllabic roots in Colonial Yucatec have cognates in Modern Yucatec:
(1) Colonial
Modern
Particle
Gloss
Particle
Gloss
bay
thus, as,like so,
&
nbsp; b’èey
thus, so, like, since
according to, since
bin
reportedly, it is
b’in
reportedly, it is said
said, they say
cen
what, that which
kéen
where is it?
çeb
quickly, rapidly
séeb’
quickly
tza
sure, certain
ȼah
sure, certain
hach
very
hač
very
ma
no, not
maʔ
no, not
tac
until, from, since
tak
until, from
tah very
táah very
tec immediately téek
immediately
ti
to, at, in, from, for
tiʔ
to, at, in, from, for
uay
here
way ~ wey
here
xan
also, too
šan
also, too
xan slowly
šàan slowly
There are fewer disyllabic roots in Colonial Yucatec, of which a number have cognates in Modern Yucatec:
366
PARTICLES
367
(2) Colonial
Modern
Particle
Gloss
Particle
Gloss
amal
all the time, always
ʔamat
all day, daily
bahun
how many? why?
b’ahun
how many?, as many as
chumuc
middle, center,
čúumuk
middle, center
equidistant between
two extremes
napul
direct, directly
nàapul
direct, directly
ppelech
scarcely, hardly,
p’eleč
scarcely, hardly, limited
limited
talam
severe, difficult,
talam
very
obscure, intricate,
mysterious
2. DERIVED PARTICLES
Interrogative stems represent the largest group of derived particles in both Colonial and Modern Yucatec.
They were originally formed by suffixing -x (phonetic [š]) to the particle and nominal roots that served as