Hostname: page-component-8448b6f56d-cfpbc Total loading time: 0 Render date: 2024-04-25T00:37:03.264Z Has data issue: false hasContentIssue false
  • English
  • Français

Wh-indeterminates in Chuj (Mayan)

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  14 February 2019

Hadas Kotek  and
Michael Yoshitaka Erlewine
Hadas Kotek*
Affiliation:
New York University
Michael Yoshitaka Erlewine*
Affiliation:
National University of Singapore
*
hkotek@alum.mit.edu
mitcho@mitcho.com
Get access Rights & Permissions [Opens in a new window]

Abstract

This article investigates the varied uses of wh-words in Chuj, an understudied Mayan language of Guatemala. Cross-linguistically, wh-words are commonly used not only for question formation but also in a range of other constructions, including wh-quantification, indefinites, and the formation of relative clauses. In Chuj, we will show that wh-words are used to form indefinites (in certain limited environments), universal quantifiers, free choice items, and two kinds of free relatives: definite free relatives, but also the typologically rarer indefinite free relatives. We sketch an analysis of each construction, and discuss generalizations concerning their distribution. The varied uses of wh-words in Chuj support the view that wh-words are used in two capacities: to generate alternatives, and to create a movement/binding relation.

Résumé

Cet article étudie les diverses utilisations des mots wh en Chuj, une langue maya peu étudiée du Guatemala. Du point de vue interlinguistique, les mots wh figurent non seulement dans les questions, mais aussi dans d'autres constructions, y compris la quantification wh, les indéfinies et les syntagmes relatifs. Nous montrerons qu'en Chuj, les mots wh sont utilisés pour former des indéfinis (dans certains environnements limités), des quantificateurs universels, des items de libre choix et deux types de syntagmes relatifs substantifs: les définis, mais aussi les indéfinis, qui sont typologiquement plus rares. Nous esquissons une analyse de chaque construction et discutons des généralisations concernant leur distribution. Les utilisations variées des mots wh en Chuj soutiennent l'idée que les mots wh ont deux fonctions: celle de générer des alternatives, et celle de créer une relation de mouvement ou de liage.

Keywords

Wh-wordsindeterminatesMayanwh-questionswh-quantificationfree relativeswhindéterminésmayaquestions whquantification whsyntagmes relatifs libres
Type
Article
Information
Canadian Journal of Linguistics/Revue canadienne de linguistique , Volume 64 , Issue 1 , March 2019 , pp. 62 - 101
Copyright
© Canadian Linguistic Association/Association canadienne de linguistique 2019 

Access options

Get access to the full version of this content by using one of the access options below. (Log in options will check for institutional or personal access. Content may require purchase if you do not have access.)

Footnotes

First and foremost, we thank Magdalena Torres for generously sharing her language with us. For comments and discussion we would like to thank Scott AnderBois, Louisa Bielig, Elizabeth Carolan, Paulina Elias, Robert Henderson, Justin Royer, Radek Šimík, and especially Jessica Coon, as well as audiences at NELS (2016), WSCLA (2016), LSA (2017), NYU, Goethe University Frankfurt am Main, and Yale University. Some findings here were previously reported in Kotek and Erlewine (2016, 2018). This research is supported by grant number WBS R-103-000-135-133 at NUS to the second author.

References

Aissen, Judith. 1992. Topic and focus in Mayan. Language 68(1): 43–80.Google Scholar
Aissen, Judith. 1996. Pied-piping, abstract agreement, and functional projections in Tzotzil. Natural Language and Linguistic Theory 14(3): 447–491.Google Scholar
Aldridge, Edith. 2007. Wh-indefinites and their relation to wh-in-situ. Proceedings of the 43rd Annual Meeting of the Chicago Linguistic Society (CLS 43) (2): 139–153.Google Scholar
AnderBois, Scott. 2012. Focus and uninformativity in Yucatec Maya questions. Natural Language Semantics 20(4): 349–390.Google Scholar
AnderBois, Scott. 2017. Focus, interrogation, and indefinites. in The Mayan languages, ed. Aissen, Judith, England, Nora C., and Maldonado, Roberto Zavala. New York: Routledge.Google Scholar
Bhat, Darbhe Narayana Shankara. 2000. The indefinite-interrogative puzzle. Linguistic Typology 4(3): 365–400.Google Scholar
Bielig, Louisa. 2015. Classifiers and constraints in Chuj topic constructions. Ms., McGill University.Google Scholar
Bresnan, Joan and Grimshaw, Jane. 1978. The syntax of free relatives in English. Linguistic Inquiry 9(3): 331–391.Google Scholar
Bruening, Benjamin. 2007. Wh-in-situ does not correlate with wh-indefinites or question particles. Linguistic Inquiry 38(1): 139–166.Google Scholar
Buenrostro, Cristina. 2004. El sufijo -an en el Chuj de San Mateo Ixtatán. Anales de Antropologia 38(1): 255–267.Google Scholar
Buenrostro, Cristina. 2007. Oraciones de complemento en Chuj de San Mateo Ixtatán. Anales de Antropologia 41(1): 239–266.Google Scholar
Buenrostro, Cristina. 2009. Chuj de San Mateo Ixtatán. El Colegio de México.Google Scholar
Caponigro, Ivano. 2002. Free relatives as DPs with a silent D and a CP complement. in Proceedings of WECOL 2000, ed. Samiian, Vida, 140–150. Fresno: California State University.Google Scholar
Caponigro, Ivano. 2003. Free not to ask: On the semantics of free relatives and wh-words cross-linguistically. Doctoral dissertation, University of California at Los Angeles.Google Scholar
Caponigro, Ivano. 2004. The semantic contribution of wh-words and type shifts: Evidence from free relatives crosslinguistically. in Proceedings of SALT 14, ed. Young, Robert B., 38–55. Washington, DC: Linguistic Society of America.Google Scholar
Caponigro, Ivano, Torrence, Harold, and Cisneros, Carlos. 2013. Free relative clauses in two Mixtec languages. International Journal of American Linguistics 79(1): 61–96.Google Scholar
Carolan, Elizabeth. 2015. An exploration of tense in Chuj. In Revue de l’édition 2014 de VocUM, ed. Pomerleau, Marc and Gendron-Pontbriand, Eve-Marie. Montréal: Université de Montréal.Google Scholar
Cheng, Lisa Lai-Shen. 1991. On the typology of wh-questions. Doctoral dissertation, Massachusetts Institute of Technology.Google Scholar
Cheng, Lisa Lai-Shen. 1994. Wh-words as polarity items. Chinese Languages and Linguistics 2: 615–640.Google Scholar
Chierchia, Gennaro. 2013. Logic in grammar: Polarity, free choice, and intervention. Oxford: Oxford University Press.Google Scholar
Chomsky, Noam. 1964. Current issues in linguistic theory. The Hague: Mouton.Google Scholar
Citko, Barbara. 2004. On headed, headless, and light-headed relatives. Natural Language and Linguistic Theory 22(1): 95–126.Google Scholar
Cole, Peter and Hermon, Gabriella. 1998. The typology of wh-movement: Wh-questions in Malay. Syntax 1(3): 221–258.Google Scholar
Coon, Jessica. 2009. Interrogative possessors and the problem with pied-piping in Chol. Linguistic Inquiry 40(1): 165–175.Google Scholar
Coon, Jessica and Carolan, Elizabeth. 2017. Nominalizations and the structure of progressives in Chuj Mayan. Glossa 2(22): 1–35.Google Scholar
Coon, Jessica, Pedro, Pedro Mateo, and Preminger, Omer. 2014. The role of case in A-bar extraction asymmetries: Evidence from Mayan. Linguistic Variation 14(2): 179–242.Google Scholar
Davis, Phillip W. 2010. Topic in Mayan: Chuj. Ms., Rice University.Google Scholar
Dayal, Veneeta. 1997. Free relatives and ‘ever’: ‘identity’ and ‘free choice’ readings. In Proceedings of SALT 7, ed. Lawson, Aaron, 99–116. Washington, DC: Linguistic Society of America.Google Scholar
Domingo Pascual, Pascual Martin. 2007. Stzolalil stz'ib'chaj ti’ Chuj: Gramática normativa Chuj. Guatemala City: Academia de Lenguas Mayas de Guatemala (ALMG).Google Scholar
Fox, Danny. 2007. Free choice and the theory of scalar implicatures. in Presupposition and implicature in compositional semantics, ed. Sauerland, Uli and Stateva, Penka, 71–112. Basingstoke: Palgrave Macmillan.Google Scholar
Gärtner, Hans-Martin. 2009. More on the indefinite-interrogative affinity: the view from embedded non-finite interrogatives. Linguistic Typology 13(1): 1–37.Google Scholar
Giannakidou, Anastasia. 1998. Polarity sensitivity as (non)veridical dependency. Amsterdam: John Benjamins.Google Scholar
Giannakidou, Anastasia and Cheng, Lisa Lai-Shen. 2006. (In)definiteness, polarity, and the role of wh-morphology in free choice. Journal of Semantics 23(2): 135–183.Google Scholar
Grosu, Alexander. 2004. The syntax-semantics of modal existential wh constructions. In Balkan syntax and semantics, ed. Tomić, Olga Mišeska, 405–438. Amsterdam: John Benjamins.Google Scholar
Grosu, Alexander and Landman, Fred. 1998. Strange relatives of the third kind. Natural Language Semantics 6(2): 125–170.Google Scholar
Gutiérrez-Bravo, Rodrigo. 2013. Free relative clauses in Yucatec Maya. STUF: Language Typology and Universals 66(1): 22–39.Google Scholar
Hamblin, Charles. 1973. Questions in Montague English. Foundations of Language 10(1): 41–53.Google Scholar
Haspelmath, Martin. 1997. Indefinite pronouns. New York: Oxford University Press.Google Scholar
Hopkins, Nicholas A. 1967. The Chuj language. Doctoral dissertation , University of Chicago.Google Scholar
Hopkins, Nicholas A. 2012. A dictionary of the Chuj (Mayan) language as spoken in San Mateo Ixtatán, Huehuetenango, Guatemala ca. 1964–65. Tallahassee, FL: Jaguar Tours.Google Scholar
Huang, Cheng-Teh James. 1982. Logical relations in Chinese and the theory of grammar. Doctoral dissertation , Massachusetts Institute of Technology.Google Scholar
Izvorski, Roumyana. 1998. Non-indicative wh-complements of existential and possessive predicates. In Proceedings of NELS 28, ed. Tamanji, Pius N. and Kusumoto, Kiyomi, 159–173. Amherst, MA: GLSA.Google Scholar
Jacobson, Pauline. 1995. On the quantificational force of free relatives. In Quantification in natural languages, ed. Bach, Emmon, Jelinek, Eloise, Kratzer, Angelika, and Partee, Barbara Hall. Dordrecht: Kluwer.Google Scholar
Katz, Jerrold J. and Postal, Paul M.. 1964. An integrated theory of linguistic descriptions. Cambridge, MA: MIT Press.Google Scholar
Klima, Edward. 1964. Negation in English. In The structure of language: Readings in the philosophy of language, ed. Fodor, Jerry Alan and Katz, Jerrold J., 246–323. Englewood Cliffs, NJ: Prentice-Hall.Google Scholar
Kotek, Hadas and Erlewine, Michael Yoshitaka. 2016. Unifying definite and indefinite free relatives: Evidence from Mayan. In Proceedings of NELS 46, ed. Hammerly, Christopher and Prickett, Brandon, vol. 2, 241–254. Amherst, MA: GLSA.Google Scholar
Kotek, Hadas and Erlewine, Michael Yoshitaka. 2018. Non-interrogative wh-constructions in Chuj (Mayan). In Proceedings of the Workshop on the Structure and Constituency of the Languages of the Americas (WSCLA) 21, ed. Keough, Megan, Weber, Natalie, Anghelescu, Andrei, Chen, Sihwei, Guntly, Erin, Johnson, Khia, Reisinger, Daniel, and Tkachman, Oksana, 101–115. University of British Columbia Working Papers in Linguistics.Google Scholar
Kratzer, Angelika and Shimoyama, Junko. 2002. Indeterminate pronouns: the view from Japanese. In The proceedings of the Third Tokyo Conference on Psycholinguistics (TCP 2002), ed. Otsu, Yukio, 1–25. Tokyo: Hituzi Syobo.Google Scholar
Kuroda, Sige-Yuki. 1965. Generative grammatical studies in the Japanese language. Doctoral dissertation, Massachusetts Institute of Technology.Google Scholar
Ladusaw, William A. 1979. Polarity sensitivity as inherent scope relations. Doctoral dissertation, University of Texas at Austin.Google Scholar
Larson, Richard K., Den Dikken, Marcel, and Ludlow, Peter. 2018. Intensional transitive verbs and abstract clausal complementation. in Non-propositional intentionality, ed. Grzankowski, Alex and Montague, Michelle, 46–94. Oxford: Oxford University Press.Google Scholar
Li, Yen-Hui Audrey. 1992. Indefinite wh in Mandarin Chinese. Journal of East Asian Linguistics 1(2): 125–155.Google Scholar
Lin, Jo-Wang. 1998. On existential polarity wh-phrases in Chinese. Journal of East Asian Linguistics 7(3): 219–255.Google Scholar
Matthewson, Lisa. 2004. On the methodoloty of semantic fieldwork. International Journal of American Linguistics 70(4): 369–415.Google Scholar
Maxwell, Judith. 1976. Chuj intransitives: Or, when can an intransitive verb take an object? Mayan Linguistics 1: 128–140.Google Scholar
McCawley, James D. 1974. On identifying the remains of deceased clauses. Language Research 9: 73–85.Google Scholar
Miller, Wick R. 1996. Sketch of Shoshone, a Uto-Aztecan language. In Handbook of North American Indians: Languages, ed. Goddard, Ives, vol. 17, 693–720. Washington, DC: Smithsonian Institution.Google Scholar
Norcliffe, Elisabeth. 2009. Revisiting agent focus in Yucatec. In New perspectives in Mayan linguistics, ed. Avelino, Heriberto, Coon, Jessica, and Norcliffe, Elisabeth, vol. 59. Cambridge, MA: MIT Working Papers in Linguistics.Google Scholar
O'Flynn, Kathleen Chase. 2017. Quantification in Q'anjob'al. In Handbook of quantifiers in natural language, ed. Paperno, Denis and Keenan, Edward L., vol. 2, 697–750. Dordrecht: Springer.Google Scholar
Pancheva-Izvorski, Roumyana. 2000. Free relatives and related matters. Doctoral dissertation, University of Pennsylvania.Google Scholar
Patterson, Gary and Caponigro, Ivano. 2015. The puzzling degraded status of who free relative clauses in English. English Language and Linguistics 20(2): 341–352.Google Scholar
Postma, Gertjan. 1994. The indefinite reading of WH. Linguistics in the Netherlands 11(1): 187–198.Google Scholar
Ramchand, Gillian Catriona. 1997. Questions, polarity and alternative semantics. In Proceedings of NELS 27, ed. Kusumoto, Kiyomi, 383–396. Amherst, MA: GLSA.Google Scholar
Royer, Justin. 2018. A unified account of noun classifiers in Chuj (Mayan). Ms., McGill University.Google Scholar
Smith-Stark, Thomas. 1988. ‘Pied-piping’ con inversión en preguntas parciales. Ms., El Colegio de México.Google Scholar
Šimík, Radek. 2008. Czech modal existential wh-constructions as vP-level free relatives. Linguistics in the Netherlands 25(1): 121–132.Google Scholar
Šimík, Radek. 2011. Modal existential wh-constructions. Doctoral dissertation, Rijksuniversiteit Groningen.Google Scholar
Šimík, Radek. 2017. Existential wh-constructions. in Oxford bibliographies in linguistics, ed. Aronoff, Mark. Oxford University Press. URL <https://doi.org/10.1093/OBO/9780199772810-0162>..>Google Scholar
Stiebels, Barbara. 2006. Agent Focus in Mayan languages. Natural Language and Linguistic Theory 24(2): 501–570.Google Scholar
Vendler, Zeno. 1962. Each and every, any and all. Mind 71(282): 145–160.Google Scholar
Williams, Kenneth L. and Williams, Barbara. 1971. According to our ancestors: Folk texts from Guatemala and Honduras. In Summer Institute of Linguistics publications in linguistics and related fields 32, 97–108, 325–338. University of Oklahoma: Summer Institute of Linguistics.Google Scholar