Perception verb complements in Akatek, a Mayan language

1. BASIC GRAMMATICAL FEATURES 109
(52) a. Him(ERG) hit she(ABS).
b. She/he(ABS) walked.
Provided that the only argument ofanintransitive verb, in (52-b)
she/he(ABS), is de ned as the subject, the issue is whether in transitive
constructions the subject is the argument marked alike, in (52-a)
she(ABS), or di erent, in (52-a) him(ERG), than the subject of an
intransitiveverb. If there is evidence that the argument that is marked
di erently, i.e. with the ergative, is the grammatical subject, then the
language is only morphologically ergative, but syntactically like an accusative
language. If the argument that is marked alike, i.e. with the
absolutive, turns out to be the grammatical subject, the language is
syntactically ergative.
Mayan languages in general and Akatek in speci c are morphologically
ergative. In addition, NPs encoding core arguments of the verb
are optional adjuncts, while the pronominal a xes on the verb are the
arguments. As a result, the question which NP is the notional subject
becomes obsolete, since NPs are adjuncts and their grammatical status
must be retrieved from the pronominal arguments su xed to the verb.
Therefore, the question which has to be raised for Mayan languages
is whether the ergative (set A) or the absolutive (set B) pronominal
argument on the verb represents the grammatical subject. Of course,
this question only applies to transitive constructions, unless one proposes
an analysis in which absolutive arguments are direct objects in
both transitive and intransitive constructions as Larsen (1987) has
suggested.
The discussion in the past has focused on NPs and not on the
pronominal arguments. A variety of approaches to the analysis of the
subject in ergative languages has been suggested.
Anderson (1976) claims that syntactically ergative languages are
like accusative languages and that therefore the basically syntactic notion
of `subject' has the same reference in either language type. The difference
between the subject in ergative languages and the subject in accusative
languages comes down to the fact that in accusative languages,
syntactic and morphological categories correspond to each other more
straightforwardly than in ergative languages. In ergative languages the
grammatical relations of the NPs to the verb as well as the verb's transitivity
play a role in determining case marking and agreement patterns.
Anderson discusses two exceptions: Dyirbal and Hurrian. In both languages,
absolutive NPs, i.e. intransitive subject NPs and transitive
object NPs, are treated alike in syntactic processes like Equi-NP deletion,
conjunction formation or relativization (for details see Anderson