‘it is reported that you should not go anywhere, John’ (V. Bricker et al. 1998:32)
(50b) h wàaneʔ t u hič’ah b’in u kàal
‘as for John, they say that he hanged himself’ (V. Bricker et al. 1998:105)
Another reportative particle, cih ‘say,’ introduced direct quotes in Colonial Yucatec:
(51a) ca-ix
cihen ti
‘and then I said to him’ (Ciudad Real 1600?: fol. 72v)
(51b) ca-ix
cijhi tiob maan hik pakteac a hohicex ixim
‘and they told them: “no, because you should not uproot the corn
y etel v lobil xiu
with the weeds”’ (Ciudad Real 1600?: fol. 293r)
(51c) ca tun y alah ahau ti ca cihi:
‘and then the king spoke; then he said:
binac yn manab ca-ix au alab ua=bahun v tohol
“perhaps I will buy her if you say how much she costs”’ (Kaua n.d.:I, 50L)
(51d) ca
cihi ah conol la pic ti kakan takinil
‘and the merchant said: “ten thousand gold pieces”’ (Kaua n.d.:I, 50L)
384 PARTICLES
The Books of Chilam Balam of Chumayel and Tizimin introduce quotations with the transitive root, cen,
instead of the particle, cih:
(52a) ti tun u cenic u ba cappitane bin-ix hutuc t u uich luum
‘then the captain said to himself: “it will be blown to the ground
t u men ykal xane lic tun yn cumtal t in kan=che tunne
by the wind too, while I sit on my chair”’ (Gordon 1913:66)
(52b) bix tun u cenic u ba rey xani
‘”it can’t be helped,” the king said to himself,
cħa a ba yumile te u talel franses
“take care of yourself, lord! here come the French!”’ (Gordon 1913:66)
(52c) ti
u cenic u ba nacome
‘the captain said to himself,
cħa a ba yumilexe te u tal flansese
“take care of yourselves, ye lords! here come the French!”’ (Tizimin n.d.: fol. 8v)
See also the entry for cen in the Calepino de Motul (Ciudad Real 1600?: fol. 69v).
Both kinds of quotatives have been documented in Modern Yucatec, cih (phonetic [kih]) in what I take
to be the small town east of Ebtun where John Lucy (1992:xiv, 1993:91–92) conducted fieldwork in the late
1970s, and cen (phonetic [ken]) in Hocaba:
(53a) ken tíʔ
‘say it to him!’ (V. Bricker et al. 1998:126)
(53b) t u kenah ten
‘he said it to me’ (V. Bricker et al. 1998:126)
(53c) k in kèen tíʔ
‘I told him’ (V. Bricker et al. 1998:126)
The dialect of Modern Yucatec investigated by Lucy has retained the quotatitve particle, kih, that is men-
tioned in the Calepino de Motul, and Hocaba has retained the quotative verb, ken, that is mentioned in two
Books of Chilam Balam. The particle can only be inflected as a stative verb with suffixed pronouns, whereas
the verb is a root transitive that can take the prefixed pronouns.
10. EXCLAMATORY PARTICLES
Colonial Yucatec had a number of exclamatory particles, many of which expressed negative emotions, such
as misery, sorrow, pain, annoyance, or anger. Three such particles — chee, chepe, and le, could be glossed
as ‘oh!’:
PARTICLES 385
(54a) otzilen chee
‘oh, how miserable I am!’ (Ciudad Real 1600?: fol. 138v)
(54b) t in ppatah in bat chepe
‘oh poor me! I lost my axe’ (Ciudad Real 1600?: fol. 140v)
(54c) le yume otzilen cen ix ma ichame
‘oh, father! how miserable I am without a husband!’ (Ciudad Real 1600?: fol. 264r)
Another expression of misery was ppe ‘poor me!’:
(54d) oclabi in nok ppe
‘poor me! my clothes were stolen!’ (Ciudad Real 1600?: fol. 387v)
Two other exclamatory particles — cuy and be la — could be translated as ‘ay!’:
(55a) cuy hach yaab in keban
‘ay, I have so many sins!’ (Ciudad Real 1600?: fol. 88r)
(55b) be la tun nah=ooleex ceex ah kebane
‘ay, you-all who are unfortunate sinners!’ (Ciudad Real 1600?: fol. 50r)
And pel meant ‘alas! oh! woe!’:
(56)
ti kalen ti mazcab pel u ɔa
‘woe to me that I have been locked up in jail!’ (Ciudad Real 1600?: fol. 373v)
Six exclamatory particles are described in the Calepino de Motul as serving as expressions of surprise,
but only four of them are illustrated in example sentences:
(57a) v tal padre chee
‘the priest comes [and we were not expecting him]’ (Ciudad Real 1600?: fol. 138v)
(57b) ppi otzilech t in chucahech
‘oh poor you! I caught you!’ (Ciudad Real 1600?: fol. 389v)
(57c) cuy-cuy ti yan balam
‘hello, there is a jaguar!’ (Ciudad Real 1600?: fol. 88r)
(57d) bal
baacin
‘what is that? [at the end of an unclear response to a question]’ (Ciudad Real 1600?: fol. 40r)
In each case, the surprise element cannot be captured in an exact translation of the exclamatory particle,
but must be inferred from the sentence as a whole (or from what preceded it). The same is true of pe!
aa!, which is “an expression of surprise and when encountering someone under some spell” (Ciudad Real
1600?: fol. 369v).
386 PARTICLES
On the other hand, exclamatory particles that serve as greetings are semantically more transparent:
e ‘hello! hi! listen!,’ ache ‘hello! [used to call someone in Campeche],’ chuu ‘hello! hi!,’ oy chee ‘hello!’ Appar-
ently, chuu was a greeting used by women (Ciudad Real 1600?: fol. 146v), but the others were not limited by
gender. Similarly, exclamatory particles that expressed assent or agreement are easily defined: ee ‘particle
of consent or compliance’ and ehen ‘yes, fine!’
The Hocaba dictionary of Modern Yucatec lists the following exclamatory particles (V. Bricker et al.
1998:passim):
(58)
Particle
Gloss
ʔáah
ah!
ʔahan
yes, fine, aha!
ʔàan
yes, aha!
ʔay
ay!
ʔàay
cry of surprise
ʔèeh
is that so?
ʔ(é)ehen
yes, fine!
ʔéey
hi!
b’akáan
well!
b’ik
beware! be careful!
yáay
ouch!
Of these, only ʔ(é)ehen had a counterpart in Colonial Yucatec.
11. PARTICLE COMPOUNDS
Although the relative pronoun, bikin ‘when,’ and its Modern cognate, b’ik’in, looks like a disyllabic root,
the Calepino de Motul lists bay=kin and biy=kin with the same meaning (Ciudad Real 1600?: fols. 42r, 52r),
suggesting that bikin was originally composed of the particle, bay ‘thus, as, like so, according to, since,’ and
the noun, kin ‘day, sun, time.’ These data imply that the vowel /a/ in bay=kin was subsequently raised to
/i/ and that eventually the /y/ in biy=kin was deleted, yielding bikin, the only variant left in Modern Yucatec
(V. Bricker et al. 1998:31). The Calepino mentions biy=kinx ‘when?’ as the interrogative derivation of biy=kin
(Ciudad Real 1600?: fol. 52). The Modern cognate of biy=kinx is b’ik’in, which is now identical to the relative
pronoun (cf. 8. in Chapter 4).
Besides bikin, there are ma
ny, much more transparent examples of particle compounds functioning as
pronouns in Colonial and Modern Yucatec. The most obvious ones are the stative pronouns that have been
combined with independent pronouns (cf. 4. In Chapter 4):
(59)
Independent
Stative
Pronoun
Pronoun
Compound
ten cen ten=cen
‘I, me’
‘I who am’
‘I who am’
tech cech tech=cech
‘you’
‘you who are’
‘you who are’
PARTICLES 387
toon coon t(o)on=c(o)on
‘we, us’
‘we who are’
‘we who are’
teex ceex teex=cex
‘you-all’
‘you-all who are’
‘you-all who are’
Neither the stative pronouns nor their compounds with independent pronouns appear in the Hocaba dic-
tionary of Modern Yucatec.
The indefinite pronouns in Colonial and Modern Yucatec are also compounds. One kind of indefinite
compound in the Calepino de Motul is composed of a relative pronoun and the particle, hi(j) (phonetic [hiʔ])
‘perhaps, maybe, should’:
(60)
Relative
Indefinite
Pronoun
Gloss
Pronoun
Gloss
bahun
as many as
hi=bahun
however much, however many
bal
thing, what
hi=bal
whatever, anything
bic(i)
how, as, like
hi=bic(i)
like, however, anyhow
bikin
when
hi=bikin
whenever, anytime
mac
person, who
hi=mac
whoever, anyone
tab(a)
where
hi=tab(a)
wherever, anywhere
As explained in 9. in Chapter 4, these indefinite pronouns underwent significant changes over time, includ-
ing the gradual replacement of hi(j) with he and the eventual embedding of the roots in a héʔe ... eʔ frame.
Another kind of indefinite pronoun combines a relative pronoun with the particle, ua (phonetic [wáah])
‘if, or’:
(61)
Relative
Indefinite
Pronoun
Gloss
Pronoun
Gloss
bahun
as many as
ua=bahun
somewhat
bal
thing, what
ua=bal
something
bic(i)
how, as, like
ua=bic(i)
how, somehow
biy=kin
when
ua=biy=kin
when, sometime
mac
person, who
ua=mac
someone
tab
where
ua=tab
where, somewhere
The changes in their evolution through time are also described in 9. in Chapter 4.
Other particle compounds that do not involve pronouns in the Calpino de Motul include:
(62)
First
Second
Particle
Particle
Compound
hij baac hij=baac
‘perhaps, maybe,
‘though, although, even
is it so? could it be so? it may be so’
should’
if, until, finally, so that’
ca to
ca=to
‘and, that, so that’
‘after, still’
‘after’
388 PARTICLES
he ua
he=ua
‘perhaps, maybe,
‘if, or’
‘is it?’
should’
hij uil
hij=uil
‘perhaps, maybe,
‘dubitative’
‘perhaps, maybe’
should’
ich tijc
ich=ticil
‘in, to, within’
‘there’
‘in, within, among’
Some examples of three of these compounds appear in context below:
(63a) hij=uil toh v tħan hij=uil ma toh
‘perhaps he tells the truth, or perhaps not’ (Ciudad Real 1600?: fol. 187v)
(63b) hij=uil to mac ah miatz yan au ichilex bin nattice
‘I hardly know what wise man among you will understand’ (Gordon 1913:65; Roys 1967:123)
(63c) ich=ticil ya v mal kin toon
‘we pass our lives in misery’ (Ciudad Real 1600?: fol. 224v)
(63d) ca=to xicech
‘after you go’ (Ciudad Real 1600?: fol. 67v)
None of the compounds in (62) above appear in the Hocaba dictionary of Modern Yucatec.
12. PARTICLE PHRASES
According to John Lyons (1968:171), “any group of words which is grammatically equivalent to a single
word and which does not have its own subject and predicate is a phrase.” Applying this definition to Colo-
nial Yucatec, there are numerous examples of phrases composed of particles in the Calepino de Motul. A
case in point is bac-ix achac ‘but, except, even though, not,’ which is composed of the particle, baac ‘though,
although, even if, until [when used as a clitic particle], finally, so that,’ the clitic particle, ix ‘and,’ and the
particle, áchac ‘without, besides, except that.’ This phrase appears in the following contexts:
(64a) bac-ix achac v ɔabal v boolil toone
‘even though we were not given the payment’ (Ciudad Real 1600?: fol. 40v)
(64b) bac-ix achac v baakal nal t u meen buule
‘except that the beans are not wrapped in corn husks’ (Ciudad Real 1600?: fol. 40v)
Another stock phrase introduced by a particle in Colonial Yucatec was la ti lah ‘until,’ which is com-
posed of the particles, la(y) ‘this’ and ti ‘to, at, in, from, for,’ and the noun, lah ‘limit, end, object, purpose.’
PARTICLES
389
In the following example sentences, lah is inflected with the third-person clitic pronoun, u, in tu, which is a
contraction of ti u:
(65a) culen vaye la tu lah v kuchul padre
‘sit here until the priest comes!’ (Ciudad Real 1600?: fol. 262v)
(65b) hun taɔ v binel la tu lah t u noh xukil tan noh bebel Bolon Cħen
‘it goes directly until the big corner in front of the highway to Bolon Cħen
naklic v kax ah kebob lae
adjacent to the forest of the Keb people’ (OX697-011-013)
(65c) ca tun ca=put cuxlacob u paktob u xot kin ca yumil ti D.s
‘and then they will be revived so that the judgment of our Lord
la tu lah y ocolob ti christianoil y u cuchul=teilob
might unite them until they enter Christianity with their people’ (Gordon 1913:98)
Occasionally, ti preceded the la ti lah phrase, with no difference in meaning:
(65d) va ocan kijx ti y oc vinic ma tab tohcin y ol ti la tu lah v poɔic
‘if a thorn has entered a man’s foot, it will not heal until he removes it’ (Ciudad Real 1600?: fol. 299v)
(65e) lic v benel hun-hun=tul ti ppicit be ti la tu lah v nuuppulob
‘they go one-by-one as lookouts until the rotation is complete’ (Ciudad Real 1600?: fol. 339v)
(65f) ma a benel ti la tu lah valic teche
‘don’t go until I tell you!’ (Ciudad Real 1600?: fol. 422r)
Neith
er of these particle phrases is documented in the Hocaba dialect of Modern Yucatec. The best
examples of such phrases in Hocaba and other towns where Modern Yucatec is spoken today are intro-
duced by the particle, le, the Modern cognate of lay, which functions as the definite article, ‘the,’ as in le
b’èetik ‘so that, therefore’ and le káʔah ‘when ...’:
(66a) le b’èetik yanhíh in kašantik um p’é čàamb’ah
‘therefore I had to look for a job’ (Blair and Vermont-Salas 1967:615)
(66b) le b’èetik inw íiȼ’neʔ tíʔ yaniʔ
‘therefore my younger brother, there he is’ (Blair and Vermont-Salas 1967:642)
(66c) le b’èetik le b’èetik le káʔah t in tuklah in ȼ’íib’tik le k’àayaʔ
‘therefore, therefore when I thought about it, I wrote this song’ (Poʔot Yah 1972)
(66d) le káʔah tàaleʔ mináʔanen wayeʔ
‘when he came, I wasn’t here’ (V. Bricker et al. 1998:165)
390 PARTICLES
13. SUMMARY OF CHANGES IN PARTICLES OVER TIME
Particles have undergone heavy losses in the transition from Colonial to Modern Yucatec, providing fertile
soil for the introduction of Spanish loans in the language. The negative and modal particles have been
most heavily impacted by these losses. Other losses include one of the two interrogative particles, the sta-
tive pronouns and other compounds, and the particle phrases mentioned in the Calepino de Motul.
CHAPTER 15
DEICTIC PARTICLES
Colonial and Modern Yucatec have two sets of deictic particles: Initial deictics introduce deictic frames,
and terminal deictics end them. Their principal function is to situate objects and events in space and time.
Because terminal deictics can occur independently in some contexts, they will be dealt with first.
The most insightful and comprehensive work on this subject is Referential Practice: Language and Lived
Space among the Maya by William F. Hanks (1990). Its focus is on how deictic particles are used in Modern
Yucatec. My task is to describe their form and function in Colonial Yucatec and to pinpoint their changes
in time and space.
1. TERMINAL DEICTICS
There are strong continuities in the form of terminal deictics over time, but the degree to which they can
co-occur at the end of phrases and sentences has changed significantly in recent times.
1.1. TERMINAL DEICTICS IN COLONIAL YUCATEC. The following terminal deictics are found in Colonial
Yucatec:
(1)
la ‘proximal’
lo ‘distal’
be ‘peripheral sensory’
A Historical Grammar of the Maya Language of Yucatan (1557-2000) Page 63