Head marking in usage and grammar: A study of variation and change in Yucatec Maya

Publisher: Stanford University-Proquest, Umi Dissertation Publishing
Publication date: 2009(preprint) 2011(official release)
Number of pages: 282
ISBN: 9781243665539
Language:English/YucatecanMany Mayan languages make use of a special dependent verb form (the Agent Focus, or AF verb form), which alternates with the normal transitive verb form (the synthetic verb form) of main clauses when the subject of a transitive verb is focused, questioned or relativized. It has been a centerpiece of research in Mayan morphosyntax over the last forty years, due to its puzzling formal and distributional properties. In this dissertation I show how a usage-oriented approach to the phenomenon can provide important insights into this area of grammar which resists any categorical explanation.