Perception verb complements in Akatek, a Mayan language

2. TYPOLOGICAL CHARACTERISTICS 115
Table 6. Correlation of di erent basic word order types
in Mayan languages and frequency of lexical NPs in narrative
text (adopted from Schule (1996))
Jakaltek Akatek SM Chuj
VSO VSO/VOS VOS
no. of no. of no. of
clauses % clauses % clauses %
VtrXY: 39 18.1 16 4.2 38 18.6
total 189 100.0 215 100.0 161 100.0
VtrS 13 76 speaker 10 37
VtrO 4 24 variation 17 63
total 17 100 27 100
observed (76% VS constructions), whereas the speakers of the VOS
language San Mateo Chuj preferred the object NP encoding (63% VO
constructions). The data of the exible order language Akatek showed
speaker variation and were excluded from Table 6 for reasons of perspicuity.
Example (59) illustrates the exibility of the postverbal argument
order in Akatek. The interpretation of the NPs is governed by semantic
criteria, i.e. a hierarchy of animacy and person governs the choice of
the agent denoting subject of a transitive construction. As a result,
the two variations shown in (59) express the same meaning `John hit
the horse'. It is not possible to express `the horse hit John' in the form
of an active transitive sentence. This can only be expressed by one of
the passive constructions (Zavala, 1992b; Schule, 1993).
(59) x-;-s-ma' [no' chee ] [naj Xhunik ]
PERF-B3-A3-hit [NCL horse ] [NCL John ]
x-;-s-ma' [naj Xhunik ] [no' chee ]
PERF-B3-A3-hit [NCL John ] [NCL horse ]
`John hit the horse.' Zavala (1992b), 45b
The results depicted in Table 6 indicate that the unmarked status of
the lexical arguments in Akatek in combination with the exible word
order results in very few occurrences of VXY. In addition, when only
one of two arguments is lexically realized the distribution of VO and VS
construction suggests that speakers of VSO languages prefer VS over
VO while speakers of VOS languages prefer VO over VS. Speakers of