A Historical Grammar of the Maya Language of Yucatan (1557-2000)
Page 77
hok-ah in-cah t-in-ba t-u-tan in-noh tzic-an-il
emerge-ap 1sg-do prep-1sg-self prep-3sg-front 1sg-great esteem-partic-nom
I present myself before my great esteemed
yum ti hal-ach vinic governador vay ti noh cah ti ho-e
father prep truth-aj person governor here prep great town prep Merida-encl
father who is the leader governor here in the city of Merida’ (DZ587A-001A-F)
The parallel phrases are t u hoksah u baob ‘they presented themselves’ (referential) and hokah in cah t in
ba ‘I present myself’ (declarative). They differ in the following respects: (1) hokah lacks the causative suffix
490
SYNTAX AND DISCOURSE
and the aspectual and pronominal inflection of t u hoksah, and (2) the reflexive pronouns that follow the
verbs serve as the direct object in the first case (u baob) and the indirect object (t in ba) in the second. In
other words, although the meaning of the verb is transitive in the declarative example, its morphology and
syntax are not.5
In references to the past, cah was replaced by cibah in the declarative mode:
(178a) he-x v-yum Franco Tax la-e
as for-and 3sg-father Francisco Tax-prox-encl
‘and as for the father of this Francisco Tax,
ma-ix=nan v-kaax vay-e
not-and=exist 3sg-forest here-encl
it is not his forest here;
chan=bel ɔab-al v-cib-ah kax
only be given-impf 3sg-?-perf forest
the forest was only given by concession
v-pach-in-t-e-Ø v-kuu-an v-yum
3sg-release-usative-trans-subj-3sg 3sg-grant-partic 3sg-father
for him to release what was granted to his father
ca cul-h-i-Ø vay-e
when settle-pos-perf-3sg here-encl
when he settled here’ (DZ569-064-067)
(178b) hek lay in-yum Juan Pox noh xib cim-i-Ø
here det 1sg-father Juan Pox great man die-perf-3sg
‘this here is [of] my father, Juan Pox, the elder, who died
ti ma y-utz-cin-ah-Ø testamento
that not 3sg-good-caus-perf-3sg testament
without executing that last will
v-tok-yah tħan-lo-e
3sg-testament-nom word-dist-encl
and testament of his
t-u-men-el-ix che=tun cim-il v-cib-ah xan
prep-3sg-deed-nom-and sudden die-impf 3sg-?-perf also
and because he died suddenly also’ (DZ587A-011A-013A)
Subjunctive expressions were marked by cib in the declarative mode, which also co-occurred with bin
for the remote future:
SYNTAX AND DISCOURSE
491
(179a) tzak-yah bin a-cib-ex ti mazcab
ring-nom future 2sg-?-2pl prep bell
‘you will ring the bells!’ (Ciudad Real 1600?: fol. 115v)
(179b) tal-el bin v-cib v-lil-ib nic-te
come-impf future 3sg-? 3sg-shake-subj flower-tree
‘it will come to shake the frangipani’ (Gordon 1913:65)
(179c) ti ɔa=yaɔil-ix bin u-cib ten
prep charity-and future 3sg-? to-me
‘and in charity he will permit me’ (DZ587A-086)
The Calepino de Motul uses the verb, halmah ‘to address,’ to illustrate the differences between the
three “tenses” in the declarative mode (Ciudad Real 1600?: fol. 204r):
(180a) hal-mah in-cah teex
say-? 1sg-do to-you-all
‘I address you-all’
(180b) hal-mah in-cib-ah teex
say-? 1sg-?-perf to-you-all
‘I addressed you-all’
(180c) hal-mah bin v-cib teex
say-? future 3sg-? to-you-all
‘he will address you-all’
Of the three kinds of temporal constructions in the declarative mode, which paralleled the aspectual
stems in the referential mode in Colonial Yucatec, vestiges of only one of them are still detectable in Mod-
ern Yucatec. It is the one based on cah that the Colonial grammarians classifed as a “present tense.” As
explained in 4.2. in Chapter 5, it is now limited to contexts in which, immediately after declaring an inten-
tion, the speaker gets up and carries it out, justifying its classification as an immediate future.
8. SUMMARY OF CHANGES IN SYNTAX AND DISCOURSE THROUGH TIME
The loss of the historical past in the transition from Colonial to Modern Yucatec was accompanied by the
loss of split ergativity based on a pronominal hierarchy, leaving only the ergative split controlled by aspect
in Modern Yucatec. The periphrastic “tenses” favored by the Colonial grammarians have not withstood the
test of time, leaving behind only one example of the present “tense” that I have labelled as the immediate
future. Although definite future constructions do not appear in my Colonial database, they may represent
an accidental gap, rather than an innovation in Modern Yucatec.
492
SYNTAX AND DISCOURSE
NOTES
1. Information questions are dealt with at greater length in 2.5. below.
2. Paradigm H in V. Bricker (1981b:124) illustrates the use of the definite future in agent- and patient-
focus constructions in Modern Yucatec.
3. ‘We begin our work’ is an alternative translation of c u hoppol c meyah.
4. Not to be confused with the use of the term, “declarative sentence,” in English grammar.
5. The demotion of the direct object to an indirect object in such constructions is the antithesis of the
advancement of an indirect object to a direct object as a result of noun incorporation, except that the
transitive verb in the latter case is not part of a double-verb sequence (cf. 1.3. above).
Appendix A
DOCUMENTARY SOURCES OF MAYA CLAUSES,
PHRASES, AND ALLUSIONS
INTRODUCTION
The documents from which the examples of clauses and phrases were drawn are listed below the names
of the collections and institutions where the original sources were archived at the time of my study. Copies
of my concordances and the transcriptions of documents on which they are based will be archived in two
places: (1) the Latin American Library at Tulane University in New Orleans, Louisiana, and (2) the Library of
the American Philosophical Society in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania.
Also included in this Appendix is a list of the audio recordings of texts in Modern Yucatec under the
name of the website from which they may be downloaded. The original tapes and copies of their meta-
documentation are archived in the Library of the American Philosophical Society.
● Archivo de la Mitra Emeritense (Mérida) Santa Visita Pastoral, 1784, exp. 46, Chunhuhub.
The priests who officiated in Maya towns in the Province of Yucatan underwent periodic visitas pastorales
or tours of inspection by their superiors, during which the Maya officials in the town governments had an
opportunity to complain about how they were treated by their priests. Such a visita pastoral took place
in the town of Chunhuhub in the southeastern part of the Province of Yucatan in 1783 and 1784. The
dossier from those years contains six Maya documents that describe the mistreatment of the officials of
Chunhuhub and the smaller towns of Tituc and Polyuc by their priest, as well as pages from the cofradía
records of Chunhuhub dating to 1783. The examples drawn from those documents can be identified by
the prefix, “HB.”
Code
Year
Day
Month
Folio(s)
HB783A
1783
25
> Sep
42
HB783B
1783
—
—
51–53
HB784A
1784
21
Mar
45
HB784B
1784
—
—
47
HB784C
1784
23
Mar
40
HB784D
1784
—
—
49
HB784E
1784
—
—
50
493
494
DOCUMENTARY SOURCES OF MAYA CLAUSES, PHRASES, AND ALLUSIONS
● Correspondencia de la Guerra de Castas. Biblioteca Yucatanense (formerly Centro de Apoyo a la Investi-
gación Histórica de Yucatán and originally Biblioteca Crescencio Carrillo y Ancona of the Instituto Yucateco
de Antropología e Historia in the Palacio Cantón).
The Caste War of Yucatan began in 1847 and lasted until 1901, but the documentary record focuses
on the years, 1847–1853, when the rebel Maya were most active, and the development of the Cult of the
Talking Cross in 1850 and 1851. The variety of towns in which the letters originated reflects the movement
of troops during those years.
Code
Year
Day
Month
Town
AYN851A
1851
22
Sep
Noh Ayin
CHA850A
1850
23
Sep
Chichanha
CHA851A
1851
8
Aug
Chichanha
COP850A
1850
8
Mar
X Copoil
CRZ851E
1851
26
Sep
Chan Santa Cruz
HAS850A
1850
7
Apr
T Has
HTZ848B
1848
8
Apr
Tihosuco
NAN851A
1851
9
Sep
Kanan
TKX848A
1848
10
Mar
Tekax
● Crónica de Cħac Xulub Cħen 1511-1562. Nineteenth-century copy of a Mayan manuscript by Nakuk
Pech in Special Collections of the Latin American Library at Tulane University, New Orleans. The examples
drawn from this manuscript can be identified by the prefix, “CHX.”
● Documentos de Ixil. Biblioteca Yucatanense (formerly Centro de Apoyo a la Investigación Histórica de
Yucatán and originally Biblioteca Crescencio Carrillo y Ancona of the Instituto Yucateco de Antropología e
Historia in the Palacio Cantón). See also Restall (1995:109-112)
Code
Year
Day
Month
Town
IXL766Z
1766
20
Dec
Ixil
● Los Títulos de Ebtún. Original manuscript once in the archives of the town of Ebtún now lost. Photo-
graphic copy of the manuscript in the Tozzer Library at Harvard University in Cambridge, Massachusetts.
The Titles of Ebtun contain documents concerning disputes over the ownership of land belonging to
Maya originally from towns near Chichen Itza, who were “congregated” in what is today the town of Ebtun
near Valladolid, ca 40 kilometers east of their ancestral lands. The documents in this collection can be iden-
tified by the prefix “EBT.”
DOCUMENTARY SOURCES OF MAYA CLAUSES, PHRASES, AND ALLUSIONS
495
Code
Year
Day
Month
Page(s)
EBT600C
1600
6
Sep
54–55
EBT632A
1632
7
Mar
183
EBT675A
1675
9
May
241
EBT711B
1711
—
Nov
81–82
EBT762B
1762
15
Jan
109–110
EBT784A
1784
23
Mar
117–118
EBT785A
1785
18
May
309–310
EBT787A
1787
12
Oct
173–174
EBT788A
1788
26
Jan
175–176
EBT791C
1791
14
May
124
EBT791F
1791
19
Dec
122
EBT792A
1792
24
Jul
121
EBT795A
1795
26
Sep
177
EBT798B
1798
16
Nov
180
EBT809B
1809
30
Jul
225
EBT811E
1811
18
Apr
233–234
EBT811J
1811
13
Dec
227
EBT811K
1811
13
Dec
227–228
EBT812C
1812
28
Feb
238–237
EBT813A
1813
24
Feb
242–243
EBT813B
1813
24
Feb
243–244
EBT813D
1813
6
Mar
245–246
EBT814B
1814
28
Jan
247–248
EBT814C
1814
28
Jun
248–249
EBT817C
1817
19
Dec
253–255
EBT817D
1817
—
Dec
13–15
EBT819A
1819
15
Aug
273
EBT822A
1822
12
Jul
232
EBT822C
1822
12
Jul
303
EBT822D
1822
20
Nov
306
EBT825A
1825
15
Apr
256
EBT833A
1833
24
Nov
102
● Archivo General de Yucatán
Code
Year
Day
Month
Page(s)
EBT840
1840
13
Jun
—
496
DOCUMENTARY SOURCES OF MAYA CLAUSES, PHRASES, AND ALLUSIONS
● Crónica de Mani. Origi
nal documents in Special Collections of the Latin American Library at Tulane Uni-
versity, New Orleans.
The Crónica de Mani contains the earliest Maya document written in the Latin alphabet, the one bear-
ing a date of August 15, 1557. It is written in the same hand as the one bearing a date of July 10, 1596,
suggesting that it is not the original copy of the 1557 document.
Code
Year
Day
Month
Town
MA557
1557
15
Aug
Mani
MA596
1596
10
Jul
Mani
● Pleyto [de Tierras sobre] rancho San Antonio Sabacche entre Don Juan Enrique de Abila vecino de Mani
y Apolionio [sic] y Estevan Tzakum; Indios de Ticul [188 folios]. Original documents in Special Collections of
the Latin American Library, Tulane University, New Orleans.
On May 30, 1596, four members of the Keb family of the town of San Antonio de Sabacche appeared in
the town of Mani with a petition to have the boundaries of their town surveyed. Three versions of that sur-
vey are included among the records of Sabacche (SB), all of which are represented in the example clauses
and phrases quoted in this grammar.
Code
Year
Day
Month
Folio(s)
SB596A
1596
20
May
41v–43r
SB596B
1596
20
May
43r–45r
SB596C
1596
20
May
126r–128r
● Quaderno en que constan los documentos de tierras de la Hacienda Sn. Juan Bautista Tavi, en Ydioma
Maya o Yucateca. Original documents in Special Collections of the Latin American Library at Tulane Univer-
sity, New Orleans.
The hacienda of San Juan Bautista Tabi was cobbled together from land appropriated from several
Maya towns in the Puuc region. Along with the land came legal documents from the towns of Dzan (DZ),
Mani (MA), Oxkutzcab (OX), Pustunich (PS), and Yotħolin (YT). The documents from Dzan cover the longest
period of time: 1569-1791. The Tabi archive consists of five volumes of documents in Maya and Spanish.
All but two Maya documents are in Volume 1. The remaining Maya documents (from Oxkutzcab and Pus-
tunich) are in Volume 4. Thirty-nine of the 52 Maya documents in the Tabi archive are sources of examples
used in this grammar.
DOCUMENTARY SOURCES OF MAYA CLAUSES, PHRASES, AND ALLUSIONS
497
Code
Year
Day
Month
Volume
Folio(s)
DZ569
1569
16
Mar
1
32r
DZ587A
1587
—
—
1
33v–33r
DZ587B
1587
10
May
1
34v
DZ593A