1. family and parenting
2. children

Are there non-finite clauses in Kaqchikel?
Justin Rill
jrill@udel.edu
Linguistics and Cognitive Science, University of Delaware
Imanishi (2014) and the ‘alignment puzzle’
A simpler alternative
Imanishi (2014) observes an ‘alignment puzzle’ in non-finite
clauses of Mayan languages such as Q’anjob’al on the one hand, and
Kaqchikel on the other.
The ergative morpheme simply encodes possession. The lower
phrase is just an NP and the ergative morpheme is regular possessor
agreement. This possessor is generated outside of the verbal complex,
and it may or may not correspond to the arguments of the form in -ík.
(1.a) Q’anjob’al
(1.b) Kaqchikel
DP
(5)
Intransitive
Transitive
S
erg
erg
O
abs
Intransitive
Transitive
S
abs
abs
O
erg
D
ri
det
(2) lanan [ hach w-il-on-i
]
prog 2sgA 1sgE-see-AP-itv
‘I am seeing you’
nP
[+trans]
ki3plE
scenario: A and B both attend talks by a famous professor, but
on different days. A tells B that she feels her talk was the
better one of the two.
(8) rïn ninnojij
chi nutsijonïk ütz chuwäch atsijonïk
1sg Imp-1sgE-think C 1sgE-talk- good in-front- 2sgE-talkanti-noml
of
anti-noml
‘I think my talk was better than your talk’
ErgP
Erg
• the possessor may correspond to neither the external or internal
implicit arguments, as in (8).
→ compare with my reading of the poem examples in Kratzer (1996)
• in addition, Wh-extraction of the Ergative-marked nominal in (3)
utilizes achojichin ‘whose’ and not achike ‘what’
DP
(3) röj x-qa-chäp
[ ki-k’ul-ïk
ak’wal-a ]
1pl Perf-1plE-grab 3plE-meet-noml child-pl
‘we began to meet children”
ak’wala
child.pl
n
[+trans]
-∅
The pattern in (3) is unexpected because the internal argument ak’wala
‘children’ is marked by ergative case.
NP
N
VoiceP
[−trans]
-ïk
Looking ahead and conclusions
Voice
[−trans]
The split ergativity pattern found in Kaqchikel is much rarer,
however. To explain it, Imanishi proposes an analysis whereby, at the
time of Spell-Out, only the internal argument is present in the nominalized clause, and ‘Default Ergative’ case assignment takes place.
(4) The structure of Kaqchikel non-finite clauses
(adapted from Imanishi
(9) achojichin röj xqachäp
[ kik’ulïk
t]
whose
1pl Perf-1plE-grab 3plE-meet-noml
‘who did we begin to meet? / whose meeting were we beginning?”
VP
V
k’ul
meet
• the analysis is fully compatible with an isomorphic analysis of ergative
assignment in the verbal domain (10)
(10)
TP
Thus, the nominalized forms in -ïk may have implicit arguments semantically, but they are not realized in the syntax.
DP
D
Additional data
nomlP
• the possessor may correspond to either the internal implicit
argument (3) or the external implicit argument (6)
vP
noml
v
(6) rät xachäp
[ atijonïk
]
2sg Perf-2sgE-grab 2sgE-teach-anti-noml
‘you began your class (lit. your teaching)’
VoiceP
Voice
[passive]
→ compare with the city’s destruction and the Vandals’
destruction in English
VP
V
OBJerg
• crucially, the object (ak’wala ‘children’) is generated
within the verbal complex
• is there a simpler analysis available?
ErgP
T
2014, Chapter 3, 108)
• the possessor may also correspond to an argument that is disjoint
from the matrix subject
(7) rät xachäp
[ qak’ulïk
kik’in
ak’wala ]
2sg Perf-2sgE-grab 1plE-meet-noml 3plE-with child-pl
‘you began our meeting with the children’
T
Agr
x+perf
i1sgAbs
Erg
VoiceP
[+trans]
ru3sgErg
DP
rija
3sg
Voice
[+trans]
-j
VP
V
DP
tijo
teach
rin
1sg
• in this view, there is no ‘alignment puzzle’ in Kaqchikel
• ergative is consistently assigned by a single structural mechanism
• preserves the original insight from Coon et al (2014) that absolutive is
dependent the presence of Tense in the clause