A Historical Grammar of the Maya Language of Yucatan (1557-2000)
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i ‘partitive’
e ‘topical’
In many contexts, the proximal and distal meanings of la and lo can be translated as ‘this’ and ‘that,’
respectively:
(2a)
ool u cimil vinic la
‘this man is about to die’ (Ciudad Real 1600?:fol 349r)
(2b)
ca=buhex che lo
‘split that wood into two pieces!’ (Ciudad Real 1600?:fol. 59v)
391
392
DEICTIC PARTICLES
(2c)
y oklal hach kanan v uilal v yanhal ychil ca cahal hab la
‘because it is of the utmost importance that they be in our town this year’ (MID567:fol. 365,
lines 10–11)
(2d)
in mahan tzimin lo
‘that is my borrowed horse’ (Ciudad Real 1600?:fol. 286r)
The first two examples illustrate another function of la and lo, namely to mark the nominal subjects of
intransitive verbs (vinic ‘man’ in [2a]) and patients of transitive verbs (che ‘wood’ in [2b]) (Smailus 1979,
1989:108; cf. 1.1. in Chapter 16).
Hanks (1990:254–255) calls be a “peripheral sensory” particle that refers to objects that can be heard
but not seen (see also Smailus 1979):
(3)
hoki y anumal t u xicin ahau u beeltabal u lobil be
‘news that evil deeds were being performed reached the ears of the king’ (Ciudad Real 1600?:
fol. 190v)
The principal function of i is to refer to part of a whole:
(4a)
laaci hun ppelili laaci
‘even though it may be only one’ (Ciudad Real 1600?:fol. 257v)
(4b)
laacx ba hun ppel ca ppeli
‘at least one or two’ (Ciudad Real 1600?:fol. 258v)
(4c)
ma u teel u çaatal hun ppeli
‘it does not matter that one is lost’ (Ciudad Real 1600?:fol. 302r)
(4d)
hun-hû ppel tomin u malobi
‘to each one goes a coin’ (Ciudad Real 1600?:fol. 290v)
Each example implies that there are multiple objects, of which only one is mentioned.
e contrasts with i in specifying the topic of the clause or sentence that follows:
(5a)
cech ah tepale
‘you who are the ruler’ (MID567:fol. 368, line 123)
(5b)
tac paale
‘as for the boy who came’ (Ciudad Real 1600?:fol. 160v)
(5c)
le vinoe y ah hopçahul tzucachil
‘as for wine, it is the inducement for lewdness’ (Ciudad Real 1600?:fol. 18r)
DEICTIC PARTICLES
393
1.2. TERMINAL DEICTICS IN MODERN YUCATEC. The following terminal deictics occur in Modern Yucatec:
(6)
aʔ ‘proximal’
oʔ ‘distal’
b’eʔ ‘peripheral sensory’
iʔ ‘partitive’
eʔ ‘topical’
Some examples of their usage at the end of phrases and sentences appear in (7):
(7a)
b’e=ʔòoráaʔ k im b’inaʔ
‘I go now’ (V. Bricker et al. 1998:29)
(7b)
letíʔ čam b’èeloʔ
‘it is that little road’ (V. Bricker 1981a:221, line 85)
(7c)
náak u b’áʔateʔlóʔob’ káʔačoʔ
‘their war arose long ago’ (V. Bricker 1981a:221, line 73)
(7d)
káʔah ȼ’óʔok im b’èeloʔ
‘when I married then’ (EBT979A)
(7e)
k in máan h màan kàašoʔ
‘I was moving around buying those chickens’ (EBT979A)
(7f)
čéen um p’íit i y òoliʔ
‘he only knows a little of it’ (Blair and Vermont-Salas 1965:20)
(7g) teneʔ t in čam b’in h màan
‘as for me, I’m just going shopping’ (Blair and Vermont-Salas 1965:254)
1.3. HISTORICAL CHANGE IN TERMINAL DEICTICS. Only the proximal and distal terminal deictics have un-
dergone significant changes during the four centuries separating Modern from Colonial Yucatec:
(8)
Colonial Yucatec
Modern Yucatec
Proximal
la
aʔ
Distal
lo
oʔ
Peripheral sensory
be
b’eʔ
Partitive
i
iʔ
Topical
e
eʔ
Assuming that la and lo were realized phonetically as [laʔ] and [loʔ] in Colonial Yucatec, the change involved
reducing a CVC morpheme to VC by dropping [l]. be retained its CVC structure, and i and e did not have an
initial consonant in Colonial Yucatec.
The changes from la and lo to aʔ and oʔ began during the eighteenth century. The earliest evidence of
this shift in my documentary corpus is in the testament of Agustina Pox in the town of Dzan in the foothills
of the Puuc, which bears a date of 1 October 1700. In it, she bequeaths a tract of forest that she inherited
394
DEICTIC PARTICLES
from her father to her daughter, Micaela Acosta. She refers to the forest as in kaxa (phonetic [in k’áašaʔ])
‘this forest of mine,’ not in kax la [phonetic [in k’áaš laʔ]), the way it would have been written in earlier times.
The second piece of evidence that the change happened during the eighteenth century comes from
another testament, this time from Tekanto, northeast of Merida, with a date of 29 August 1754 and
attributed to Aparizio Camal. In this case, there are two statements that refer to tracts of forest, one with a
‘this’ and the other with o ‘that’:
(9a)
y etel ho kal yn matan kaxa
‘and one hundred square meters is this gift of my forest’ (TK754N-432A)
(9b)
t u nohol lai kaxo
‘south of that forest’ (TK754N-432C)
However, in later documents from the 1770s produced in Tekanto, the older form of the terminal deictic
(la) was still in use:
(10a) lai t u bethob lob la
‘it was they who did this harm’ (TK770B-014)
(10b) hali yan ten la
‘truly I have this’ (TK775B-024)
This suggests that both the original and the innovated forms of these terminal deictics were employed
concurrently in Tekanto.
In documents produced in the eastern part of the peninsula, expressions involving the particle tun
‘then’ are useful for identifying the transformation of lo into o. In Ebtun, for example, the first evidence of
o shows up in the expression lay tuno in 1762:
(11)
lay tuno y ilah v hahil
‘that one, then, saw the truth’ (EBT762B)
However, in Tepich, which lies about 50 kilometers south of Ebtun, tun was followed by lo as late as 1779:
(12a) bay tun lo yn tzicbenil yume
‘thus, then, my reverend father’ (PCH779B)
Whereas Chunhuhub, which lies about 100 kilometers further south, had documents with the following
examples of o and a in 1783 and 1784:
(12b) he tuno ma tech u tħanicon y utzul tħan
‘there, then, he never speaks to us with kind words’ (HB784C-226A-B)
(12c) ba tuno t uy alah yn yum curae
‘thus, then, our father the curate said it’ (HB783A-031A-B)
(12d) hecen talob uai ti noh ofisio ti hoa
‘and all these who came here from the great office in Merida’ (HB783A-036B)
DEICTIC PARTICLES
<
br /> 395
Likewise in the region around Tekanto, bai tuno or bay tuno can be documented for the years 1781 and
1813.
The slow pace of the change in the form of these terminal deictics can be explained only by placing
them in a larger context involving not only the initial deictics (2.1. and 2.2. ), but also the embedding of one deictic expression in another (2.3. ).
2. INITIAL DEICTICS AND DEICTIC FRAMES
Initial deictics are usually followed by terminal deictics, either immediately or later in the sentence or
phrase in both Colonial and Modern Yucatec. In the latter configuration, they serve as framing particles.
2.1. INITIAL DEICTICS IN COLONIAL YUCATEC. The following initial deictics can be found in the Calepino de
Motul:
(13) bay
he
lay
layli
ma
te
tij
to
ual
valacil
uay
When combined with terminal deictics, they formed the following deictic frames:
(14)
bay ... e ‘likewise, as, thus’
bay ... la ‘like this’
bay ... lo ‘like that’
he ... be ‘peripheral sensory’
he ... e ‘as for’
he ... la ‘here it is’
he ... lo ‘there it is’
lay ... la ‘this one’
lay ... lo ‘that one’
layli ... e ‘still, even, now’
ma ... i ‘no, not’
te ... la ‘right here, here’
te ... lo ‘there’
tij ... i ‘there’
to ... lo ‘[out] there’
ual ... e ‘perhaps, probably’
uay ... e ‘[in] here’
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DEICTIC PARTICLES
bay could co-occur with three terminal deictics in Colonial Yucatec (e, la, lo):
(15a) utzcin
bay bin au alice
‘do as you think best!’ (Ciudad Real 1600?:fol. 41v)
(15b) huli ti bai la
‘did he come by chance? [literally, he came like this]’ (Ciudad Real 1600?:fol. 209v)
(15c) bay u xocan lo
‘as numerous as those’ (Ciudad Real 1600?:fol. 43r)
he could co-occur with four terminal deictics (be, e, la, lo). First of all, he ... be is a quotative frame that
references what is audible, but not visible:
(16a) he au alah ten be
‘that which you told me’ (Ciudad Real 1600?:fol. 49v)
Some examples of he with the other terminal deictics are:
(16b) xic ah cumkalob ti y otoch ku he u chayanobe tacob t in pach
‘the people of Conkal may go to the church; as for the others, they may go with me’ (Ciudad Real
1600?:fol. 180r)
(16c) he c u tal padre la
‘here comes the priest!’ (Ciudad Real 1600?:fol. 406r)
(16d) he c u benel lo
‘there he goes!’ (Ciudad Real 1600?:fol. 205r)
lay ... la and lay ... lo are demonstrative pronouns:
(17a) lay in pach almah=xicin teex la
‘this is my final advice to you!’ (Ciudad Real 1600?:fol. 358r)
(17b) lay u paz u cab u cuxtal lo
‘that is the way life is!’ (Ciudad Real 1600?:fol. 357r)
They are discussed at length in 7. in Chapter 4.
layli appears in the Calepino de Motul, but not with a terminal deictic (Ciudad Real 1600?:fol. 260v). The
first clear evidence of a layli ... e frame in my documentary database is in a testament from 1732:
(18)
ho kal v lumil yn man col
‘one hundred square meters of the land belonging to the cornfield that I purchased
ti Chistobal Balam c in ɔayc ti vilib Agustina Mena
from Christobal Balam is what I give to my daughter-in-law Agustina Mena,
DEICTIC PARTICLES
397
t u nak v kax Andres Chan t u chikin nohol layli v nake
which is adjacent to the forest of Andres Chan on the southwest, still adjacent’ (TK732D)
Other examples of layli in context appear in 2.3. in Chapter 4.
There are many examples of ma ‘no, not’ in the Calepino de Motul, but not always with the partitive
terminal deictic:
(19a) ma chucaani
‘it is not complete [i.e., part of it is missing]’ (Ciudad Real 1600?:fol. 147r)
(19b) ma in kat in tac in bai
‘I do not want to meddle in this!’ (Ciudad Real 1600?:fol. 399r)
(19c) ma in botahi
‘I did not pay for it [and don’t plan to]’ (Ciudad Real 1600?:fol. 277v)
(19d) ma in bote in ppax
‘I have not paid my debts [but will do so]’ (Ciudad Real 1600?:fol. 277v)
(19e) ma in nuctahi
‘I did not understand it’ (Ciudad Real 1600?:fol. 333r)
(19f) ma nucaan t in xicin
‘I do not understand it’ (Ciudad Real 1600?:fol. 333r)
The examples without the partitive terminal deictic ([19d] and [19f]) seem to be more general in scope than
those that have it ([19a–c] and [19e]) (cf. Durbin and Ojeda 1978b).
There were three deictic frames based on te in Colonial Yucatec, employing the terminal deictics e, la,
and lo:
(20a) te bin u malel cumkale
‘they say that he was passing Conkal there’ (Ciudad Real 1600?:fol. 415r)
(20b) lukez tunich te la
‘remove that stone from here!’ (Ciudad Real 1600?:fol. 275v)
(20c) manez
te lo
‘transfer it there!’ (Ciudad Real 1600?:fol. 296r)
(20d) ma
te la maix te lo
‘neither here nor there’ (Ciudad Real 1600?:fol. 289r)
In these examples, only te ... e actually frames other parts of a phrase or sentence. Neither the Calepino
nor my documentary database contain examples of te combined with la and lo as framing particles per se.
I suspect that this is an accidental gap in my data, because they do serve as framing particles in Modern
Yucatec (e.g., [84], [86], and [87] in Hanks 1990:434–435; see also 2.2. below).
398
DEICTIC PARTICLES
tij (phonetic [tiʔ]) co-occurs only with the partitive enclitic i (phonetic [iʔ]) in Colonial Yucatec:
(21)
tijech cil yan ca bin mananceni
‘you will be there when I pass by’ (Ciudad Real 1600?:fol. 418v)
to ... lo can refer to ‘out there’ in both space and time:
(22a) to lo a ɔaic
‘put it out there!’ (Ciudad Real 1600?:fol. 426r)
(22b) lac ákab to ca tacech lo
‘after night falls, you will come’ (Ciudad Real 1600?:fol. 258r)
The dubitative particle ual ‘perhaps, probably’ co-occurred with the terminal enclitic e only at the end
of phrases and sentences in Colonial Yucatec:
(23a) bay
vale
‘is that so?’ (Ciudad Real 1600?:fol. 42v)
(23b) lai
uale
‘this should be!’ (Ciudad Real 1600?:fol. 227r)
(23c) muki
val ti akbil a cimil
‘perhaps you will die tonight!’ (Ciudad Real 1600?:fol. 311v)
It forms a deictic frame with e in Modern Yucatec (cf. 2.2. below).
valacil ‘at this time’ is an initial deictic that is not part of a deictic frame in Colonial Yucatec but even-
tually did form such a frame in Modern Yucatec (cf. 2.2. below). Two examples of its use are given in the
Calepino de Motul:
(24a) valacil çamal
‘at this time tomorrow’ (Ciudad Real 1600?:fol. 441r)
(24
b) valacil hun haab
‘one year from today’ (Ciudad Real 1600?:fol. 441r)
uay ... e ‘[in] here’ represents the semantic opposite of to ... lo ‘[out] there’:
(25a) vay y okol cabe
‘here in the world’ (Ciudad Real 1600?:fol. 220r)
(25b) vay ti noh cah ti hoe
‘here in the city of Merida’ (DZ587A-001F)
(25c) ɔiban v kabaob vay cabale
‘their names are written in here below’ (TK698-018A-018B)
DEICTIC PARTICLES
399
2.2. INITIAL DEICTICS IN MODERN YUCATEC. The following initial deictics occur in Modern Yucatec:
(26)
bèey
héʔe
le
láayliʔ ~ léeyliʔ
maʔ
téʔe
tiʔ
to
wal
wal(a)kil
way
When combined with terminal deictics, they form the following deictic frames:
(27)
b’ey ... eʔ ‘likewise, as, thus’
b’ey ... aʔ ‘like this’
b’ey ... oʔ ‘like that’
héʔe ... b’eʔ ‘peripheral sensory’
héʔe ... (l)aʔ ‘here it is’
héʔe ... (l)oʔ ‘there it is’
le ... (l)aʔ ‘this one’
le ... (l)oʔ ‘that one’
láayliʔ ~ léeyliʔ ... e ‘still, even, now, yet’
maʔ ... iʔ ‘no, not’
táant ... eʔ ‘just’
téʔe ... (l)aʔ ‘right here, here’
téʔe ... (l)oʔ ‘there’
tiʔ ... iʔ ‘there’
to ... (l)oʔ ‘[out] there’
wal ... eʔ ‘perhaps, probably, or else’
wal(a)kil ... aʔ ‘at this time [of day]’
way ~ wey ... eʔ ‘[in] here’
b’ey co-occurs with three terminal deictics in Modern Yucatec (eʔ, aʔ, and oʔ):
(28a) b’ey inw óol sen ʔúučeʔ
‘it seems a long time ago to me’ (V. Bricker et al. 1998:31)
(28b) káʔah p’áatóʔon túun b’eyaʔ
‘and we remained then like this’ (EBT979A)
(28c) čéen b’ey yanilenaʔ
‘I am just like this’ (EBT979A)
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DEICTIC PARTICLES
(28d) máʔ hač ʔóoȼilóʔon b’eyoʔ
‘we weren’t so poor like that’ (EBT979A)
(28e) čéem b’ey u púʔupulik u tàak’inoʔ
‘in just that way he throws away his money’ (V. Bricker et al. 1998:224)
Likewise, héʔe co-occurs with three terminal deictics in Modern Yucatec (b’eʔ, [l]aʔ, [l]oʔ):
(29a) pìilareʔ t u pak’ač hée b’eʔ
‘Pilar’s making tortillas. There! Listen! (cocking ear).’ (BB.5.7; Hanks 1990:275)