From Valency to Aspect in the Ch’olan-Tzeltalan Family of Mayan

Abstract

This paper traces the evolution of the Common Mayan derivational suffixes *-V-ng and *-V-j into their descendant forms in the Ch’olan-Tzeltalan languages. Specifically, the paper outlines a remarkable but markedly consistent shift from a transitivizing, derivational morpheme to an aspectual, inflectional suffix, whose most far-reaching fate is a negative future marker in Ch’orti’. It is only by firmly focusing on the systems of grammatical relationships that one can realize an informed, historical account of the series of shifts that brought the ancestral form to the forms attested in the several daughter languages.

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