Rethinking Split Ergativity In Chol

Abstract

All Mayan languages exhibit ergative–absolutive systems of agreement. However, Chol and some other members of the family display aspectually based splits: while perfective clauses show the expected ergative–absolutive alignment, imperfective and progressive (hereafter “nonperfective”) clauses show a nominative–accusative alignment (Larsen and Norman 1979, Bricker 1981, and Quizar and Knowles-Berry 1988). In addition to this difference in agreement, there are also important differences in stem morphology between perfective and nonperfective stems. I argue in this paper that nonperfective forms in Chol are formally possessed nominals. The main syntactic predicate is in fact the aspect marker, which shows absolutive agreement with its sole argument, the nominalized clause. Under this analysis, all predicates in Chol show an ergative–absolutive pattern of agreement. The illusion of split ergativity results from the nominalization of the notional predicate, along with the fact that ergative and genitive morphemes are identical in Mayan languages. This proposal builds on the suggestion in Larsen and Norman (1979) that the majority of splits in the Mayan family may be reduced to subordination.

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