(26c) máʔa t u b’in
‘he’s not going’ (V. Bricker et al. 1998:176)
(26d) mix máak u nah u meyah š máʔ b’óʔolil
‘no one should work without pay’ (V. Bricker et al. 1998:176)
Here, as in Colonial Yucatec, máʔ can introduce a deictic frame with the partitive enclitic, iʔ. The Colonial
form of miš ‘neither, nor, not even’ in (26d) was ma-ix (21h), and š máʔ ‘without’ was ix ma in Colonial times
(21g).
6. CONJUNCTIVE PARTICLES
Colonial Yucatec had one multi-purpose conjunction and two conjunctions with more specialized functions.
The multipurpose conjunction was ca, with a variety of meanings, depending on context: ‘and, that; so
that; provided, assuming that, so long as; if, when’ (Ciudad Real 1600?: fol. 58v-59r). They are illustrated in
the following examples:
(27a) bini ti y otoch ca u cimçah v cħuplil
‘he went to his home and killed his wife’ (Ciudad Real 1600?: fol. 58v)
(27b) in botah in ppax ca huli Pedro
‘I paid my debts when Peter came’ (Ciudad Real 1600?: fol. 58v)
(27c) bin in bote in ppax ca bin tacech
‘I will pay my debts when you come’ (Ciudad Real 1600?: fol. 58v)
(27d) hal ti Ju.o ca tac vaye
‘tell John that he should come here!’ (Ciudad Real 1600?: fol. 59r)
(27e) lay in kati ca a cħab a cux=oolal la
‘this is what I want: that you should be discreet’ (Ciudad Real 1600?: fol. 59r)
(27f) çukinte quaresma ca pay=numac a nahal
‘fast during Lent so that we are worthy of your merits!’ (Ciudad Real 1600?: fol. 59r)
(27g) ca uil bacac be
‘provided that it will be like this’ (Ciudad Real 1600?: fol. 59r)
376 PARTICLES
(27h) hi xijcen campeche ca yanac in tzimin
‘I will go to Campeche if I have a horse’ (Ciudad Real 1600?: fol. 59r)
The clitic particle, ix ‘and,’ often follows another particle in a sentence or phrase. When it co-occurs
with ca, the meaning of ca changes from ‘and’ to ‘then’:
(28a) puɔi Juan ca-ix bini ti kax
‘John fled and then went into the woods’ (Ciudad Real 1600?: fol. 62v)
(28b) ca-ix y et=tħaniltah v ba tan baob
‘and then they spoke to each other’ (Ciudad Real 1600?: fol. 169v)
(28c) hah-i-hah v haual in cimil ca-ix lecec xan hah-i-hah
‘my illness stopped suddenly, and then it returned suddenly too’ (Ciudad Real 1600?: fol. 172v)
And the concatenation of ix ‘and’ with the negative particle, ma ‘no, not,’ results in another compound con-
junction, ma-ix ‘and not, neither, nor,’ as in:
(29a) ma-ix mac bin luksic ten t u menel in matan ti mam Diego Us
‘and no one is going to take it from me, because it is my gift from (my) grandfather, Diego Us’
(OX683-013A-C)
(29b) ma-ix v conma xani
‘nor has he sold it either’ (MA733F-620)
By 1777, ma-ix had been reduced to mix in the Puuc region of Yucatan:
(29c) mix hun ppel v tħan helan
‘and not one of the words is different’ (PS777-004A)
The ma-ix conjunction also appeared in correlative constructions with ma in Colonial Yucatec:
(30a) ma a benel ma-ix v benel a yum
‘you won’t go, nor will your father go!’ (Ciudad Real 1600?: fol. 289r)
(30b) ma la ma-ix la
‘it is not this nor that’ (Ciudad Real 1600?: fol. 289r)
(30c) ma te la ma-ix te lo
‘it is neither here nor there’ (Ciudad Real 1600?: fol. 289r)
(30d) ma che v hel che ma-ix tunich v hel tunich
‘it will not be a stick for a stick, nor a stone for a stone! [i.e., evil should not be returned with evil]’
(Ciudad Real 1600?: fol. 181v)
(30e) ma tac Juan ma-ix tac v mehen xan
‘John has not come, nor has his son either’ (Ciudad Real 1600?: fol. 455r)
PARTICLES 377
See also the example in (7a) above.
The particle, ua, served as a conjunction meaning ‘if’ when it appeared at the beginning of a phrase:
(31a) va cij y ol in paalil hach çak=ol t u menyah
‘if my servant is healthy, he is very diligent in his work’ (Ciudad Real 1600?: fol. 73v)
(31b) va a kati batabile a nah a pak=tumte v cuch batabe
‘if you want to be a leader, you must consider the obligation of a leader’ (Ciudad Real 1600?: fol. 240r)
(31c) ma taach v lamal ah pak va ma v pik=hoohtabal
‘the plant is not normally lost if it is not pulled out from the roots’ (Ciudad Real 1600?: fol. 262r)
Like ca ‘and’ and ma ‘no, not,’ ua ‘if’ could co-occur with the clitic particle, ix ‘and,’ in both independent
and correlative phrases, where ua-ix meant ‘either, or’:
(32a) in kati valab in tħan v kebanma vol v kebanma in tucul
‘I mean that I am restless
t in hanal t in venel va-ix t in ximbal
when I eat, when I sleep, or when I walk’ (Ciudad Real 1600?: fol. 243v)
(32b) vchom-ix y okol uah va-ix y okol haa
‘and it will happen over bread or over water’ (Tizimin n.d.: fol. 6r)
(32c) va ah xolte takin bin u juesilte
‘either the bearer of the gold staff shall judge,
va-ix çac cib bin u kexinte xane
or the white candles that they will exchange too’ (Gordon 1913:64-65)
(32d) ah cimilon-ix tac lacal ti ma c ohel va-ix taba va-ix bici
‘and we are all destined to die without knowing either where or how’ (TK679A-005A-C)
The clitic particle, ix, could also be attached to aspectual particles such as lic (incompletive), ti (completive),
and ɔoc (terminative) in Colonial Yucatec:
(33a) lic-ix ca ɔibtic ca kaba ocsabebal v hahil lae
‘and we write our names that this might be the truth’ (OX650-038A-C)
(33b) ɔoc-ix c ilic v hahil v ppictunil
‘and we finished seeing the true boundary stone
ɔaanil t u men jues y justicia uchie
placed by the judge and the justices long ago’ (YT718B-135A-136B)
(33c) t(i)-ix culhi v ppictunil t u chun yx kan=kilis che
‘and the marker rested at the base of the Acacia farnesiana tree’ (OX595-027A-B)
378 PARTICLES
Deictic particles also provided a context for ix:
(34a) he-(i)x ca culhi na ɔul pox lae v ɔahob v chicul pachob xan
‘and when this Na Dzul Pox resided here, they placed the markers of the territory also’
(DZ569-035A-036B)
(34b) lay-ix cħabi uchci u patal Adan xane
‘and this was created after Adam was formed also’ (Gordon 1913:58)
(34c) lay-ix v chun cimil toon xan
‘and this was the cause of our sickness’ (Gordon 1913:20)
When the preposition, ti ‘to, at, in, from, for,’ was combined with ix and followed by the reduplicated stem
of ma ‘no, not,’ the new meaning was ‘without’:
(35)
ma tab a cimez ceh t(i)-ix ma-ma halalil
‘it is not possible for you to kill a deer without arrows’ (Ciudad Real 1600?: fol. 299r)
And ix could also appear immediately after inflected verb stems in Colonial Yucatec:
(36a) ti yalah-ix v hahil v tħan Pedro Cot lae
‘and he confirmed the truth of the words of this Pedro Cot’ (DZ624-010A-B)
(36b) talon-ix t u cahal ca cilich colelbil Ansumssion Ppustunich t u prouissias Ticul
‘and we came from the town of our holy lady Assumption Ppustunich in the province of Ticul’
(PS740B-103A-E)
(phonetic [wáah]) are in general use in Modern Yucatec:
(37a) le
káʔah b’ineʔ táan in wenel
‘when he left, I was sleeping’ (V. Bricker et al. 1998:121)
(37b) čéen ʔičil t u b’ineʔ káʔah t uy ilah hun túul wakaš
‘it was only while he was going that he saw a cow’ (V. Bricker et al. 1998:121)
(37c) kóʔoš ʔilik máaš kúh b’isik le š č’úupal ʔičilóʔonoʔ
‘let’s see which one of us will take that girl,
wáah tèen wáah tèeč
either you or I!’ (V. Bricker et al. 1998:298)
The clitic particle, ix, survives only in miš, the abbreviated form of ma-ix:
(37d) miš t’àan
‘say no more!’ (V. Bricker et al. 1998:185)
PARTICLES
379
(37e) miš tèen miš tèeč
‘neither I nor you’ (V. Bricker et al. 1998:185)
7. PREPOSITIONAL PARTICLES
Both Colonial and Modern Yucatec have only four prepositions: ti (phonetic [tiʔ]) ‘to, at, in, from, for,’ ich
(phonetic [ʔič]) ‘in, to, within,’ ichil (phonetic [ʔičil]) ‘in, within, among,’ and tac (phonetic [tak]) ‘until, from,
since.’ These are not the only words in the language with a prepositional function; the others are formally
relational nouns, which are described in 2.5. in Chapter 8.
The particle, ti, is a multi-purpose preposition, covering a wide range of meanings, as shown in the
following examples in the Calepino de Motul:
(38a) in haaz=nupptah num=ya ti be
‘I encountered problems on the road’ (Ciudad Real 1600?: fol. 203r)
(38b) in kamah v yaah ti in yum
‘I contracted the illness from my father’ (Ciudad Real 1600?: fol. 237v)
(38c) yaab v çahal paalalob ti balam
‘children have a great fear of jaguars’ (Ciudad Real 1600?: fol. 95r)
(38d) xetħan y ol ti cuxtal
‘he doesn’t care for life’ (Ciudad Real 1600?: fol. 457r)
(38e) pec=oltzil a ximbal ti akbil
‘it is dangerous for you to walk at night’ (Ciudad Real 1600?: fol. 371r)
A similar range of meanings characterizes tíʔ in Modern Yucatec:
(39a) t ʔáʔalah tíʔ h wàan
‘we said it to John’ (V. Bricker et al. 1998:274)
(39b) ȼ’óʔok u máan inw óol tíʔ le hanalaʔ
‘I am already bored with this food’ (V. Bricker et al. 1998:18)
(39c) le šíʔipaloʔ táan u čak’ik uy ič tíʔ in kìik
‘that boy is winking at my sister’ (V. Bricker et al. 1998:62)
(39d) k in meyah tíʔ h wàan
‘I work for John’ (V. Bricker et al. 1998:183)
(39e) máaš híiȼ’t e púuȼ’ tíʔ e nòok’aʔ
‘who pulled the needle from this cloth?’ (V. Bricker et al. 1998:105)
380 PARTICLES
The preposition, ichil, is clearly derived from ich, with which it shared several meanings in Colonial
Yucatec: ‘in, within.’ According to the Calepino de Motul (Ciudad Real 1600?: fol. 223r), ich was used when
the word for the place to which it referred was not inflected for possession:
(40a) tii yan ich na
‘there he is in the house’ (Ciudad Real 1600?: fol. 223r)
(40b) bin ich col
‘he went into the field’ (Ciudad Real 1600?: fol. 223r)
(40c) kinam in yum ich cah
‘my father is revered in the town’ (Ciudad Real 1600?: fol. 247v)
(40d) çuubulte a ba ich haa
‘keep submerging yourself in water!’ (Ciudad Real 1600?: fol. 108v)
However, when the word for the place in question was inflected for possession, ichil was the preposition
of choice:
(40e) bini ichil v col
‘he went into his field’ (Ciudad Real 1600?: fol. 223r)
(40f) culaan ychil y otoch
‘he is inside his house’ (Ciudad Real 1600?: fol. 223r)
(40g) te yan ichil y otoch ku
it is here inside the church [literally, God’s house]’ (Ciudad Real 1600?: fol. 224r)
Although both ʔič and ʔičil are still evident in Modern Yucatec, ʔičil is no longer limited to contexts
where it introduces words for places that have been inflected for possession:
(41a) le šíʔipaloʔ téʔe hupukb’al ʔičil le ʔišíʔimoʔ
‘that boy there is hidden in the corn [in a pile already dried and picked]’ (V. Bricker et al. 1998:116)
(41b) póomeč ʔičil in tyáʔaliʔ
‘you invaded mine’ (V. Bricker et al. 1998:220)
On the other hand, ʔič still seems to introduce phrases containing words for places that have not been
inflected for possession:
(41c) táan u čan meyah ʔič kòol
‘he’s working a bit in the milpa’ (Blair and Vermont-Salas 1965:89)
(41d) téep’ u k’àaneʔ káʔah lúub’ u tèep’ ʔič haʔ
‘the rope broke, and his blanket fell in the water’ (V. Bricker et al. 1998:274)
PARTICLES 381
(41e) pwes tóʔoneʔ ʔič ȼ’éʔe‘ek k’ìin k hóok’ol
‘well, as for us, we leave in a few days’ (Blair and Vermont-Salas 1965:282)
(41f) k u páahtal u k’učul ʔič káʔah p’é ʔòorah šíimb’alil
‘you can get there in two hours by walking’ (Blair and Vermont-Salas 1965:276)
The prepositional particle, tac, could introduce both temporal and locative phrases in Colonial Yucatec:
(42a) uchi tac yan ylabil t in menel
‘it has been days since it was seen by me’ (Ciudad Real 1600?: fol. 214v)
(42b) tac las ocho ua las nuebe akab tan c meyah
‘until eight o’clock or nine o’clock at night we are still working’ (HB784C-215C)
(42c) y t u binel tac vay t cahale
‘and he is coming unto here in our town’ (HB784C-221)
The same is true in Modern Yucatec:
(43a) tak hoʔ k u b’in
‘he’s going as far as Merida’ (Blair and Vermont-Salas 1965:389)
(43b) tak b’ehláʔeʔ mináʔan ten miš b’áʔal
‘even today, I have nothing!’ (V. Bricker et al. 1998:268)
(43c) tak túʔuš a tàal
‘from where do you come?’ (V. Bricker et al. 1998:268)
8. MODAL PARTICLES
Colonial Yucatec had several modal particles, of which only one has survived into Modern Yucatec.
The particle, hij ‘perhaps, maybe, should,’ always appeared at the beginning of a clause:
(44a) hij cimic Juan
‘it is possible that John will die’ (Ciudad Real 1600?: fol. 184r)
(44b) hij v bote a ppaxul Pedro
‘perhaps Peter will pay your debts’ (Ciudad Real 1600?: fol. 184r)
(44c) hij achac a hanal a kati
‘you should not want to eat! [said to a slothful person]’ (Ciudad Real 1600?: fol. 184r)
(44d) hij ho haabac lo
‘it may have been five years ago’ (Ciudad Real 1600?: fol. 184r)
382 PARTICLES
Another modal particle, xana ‘apparently,’ had an exclamatory function and appeared at the end of an
utterance:
(45)
kuchi va Juan ti kaknabe kuchi xana
‘did John reach the sea? apparently so!’ (Ciudad Real 1600?: fol. 455v)
The Calepino de Motul lists what may be three variants of a single particle — ual, uel, and uil — all having
dubitative meanings. uel and uil are both described as clitic particles with similar meanings, as shown in
the following examples:
&nb
sp; (46a) hele vel v talel
‘perhaps he will come today’ (Ciudad Real 1600?: fol. 446v)
(46b) nahech uil t au iɔin cochom
‘you may have won against your younger brother’ (Ciudad Real 1600?: fol. 319v)
(46c) bicx uil a tħanic ahau c a nupp ti be
‘how would you speak to the king if you met him on the road?’ (Ciudad Real 1600?: fol. 51v)
(46d) tij vil yan ti y otoch
‘it should be there in his house’ (Ciudad Real 1600?: fol. 448r)
ual is also described as a dubitative particle, but with a future implication:
(47a) mac-al-mac val be
‘which will it be?’ (Ciudad Real 1600?: fol. 440v)
(47b) va venel v cah toh y ol val
‘if he sleeps, he will be well’ (Ciudad Real 1600?: fol. 440v)
(47c) muki val ti akbil a cimil
‘you may die tonight!’ (Ciudad Real 1600?: fol. 311v)
Of these dubitative particles, only ual (phonetic [wal]) appears in the Hocaba dialect of Modern Yucatec,
but only as the head word in the deictic frame, wal ... eʔ ‘perhaps, probably, or else’:
(48a) tàal waleʔ
‘perhaps he came’ (V. Bricker et al. 1998:299)
(48b) b’èey wal t uy áʔalileʔ
‘this is probably what he said’ (V. Bricker et al. 1998:299)
(48c) káʔah a hop wal a šikineʔ h pèedroh
‘you’d better listen carefully, Peter’ (V. Bricker et al. 1998:299)
Other examples of this construction appear in 2.2. in Chapter 15.
PARTICLES 383
9. REPORTATIVE PARTICLES
The reportative particle, bin ‘reportedly, it is said, they say,’ was used for qualifying statements as hearsay
in Colonial Yucatec:
(49a) v cħaah bin iɔin=çucunil
‘they say that she married two brothers’ (Ciudad Real 1600?: fol. 222v)
(49b) ma bin v kati talel
‘it is said that he does not want to come’ (Ciudad Real 1600?: fol. 240r)
(49c) chuci bin Juan hah-ma-hah
‘they say that John was captured; I don’t know if it is true’ (Ciudad Real 1600?: fol. 277v)
(49d) yan-yan bin vij vaye t u tħanob heuac baili tħan
‘they say that there is much hunger here, but it is a manner of speaking [i.e., they have food]’ (Ciu-
dad Real 1600?: fol. 42v)
The cognate of this particle in Modern Yucatec is b’in ‘reportedly, it is said’:
(50a) máʔ b’in a b’in miš túʔuš h wàan
A Historical Grammar of the Maya Language of Yucatan (1557-2000) Page 62