Perception verb complements in Akatek, a Mayan language

132 4. AKATEK, A `TYPICAL' MAYAN LANGUAGE
non-con gurational, i.e. the verbal complex constitutes a complete utterance
while lexical arguments are analysed as appositional adjuncts
(von Humboldt, 1836/1963; Jelinek, 1984). Finally, in section 1.5 I
drew attention to problems with the existing analyses of the subject in
ergative languages and proposed a de nition of the subject in Akatek
based on Semantic Case Theory (Keenan, 1988).
The second section was typologically oriented. The purpose was
to provide the traditional typological classi cation of Mayan languages
regarding word order typology (section 2.1), case, agreement and possessive
marking (sections 2.3 and 2.4) and grammatical relations typology
(section 2.5). Moreover, in section 2.2, I showed that the VXY
language Akatek conforms to almost all of Keenan's characteristics of
VOS languages (Keenan, 1978). I proposed that Keenan's characterisitics
apply to verb-inital languages in general rather than to VOS
languages only.
Comparing the typological characterization of Akatek as summarized
in Table 10 with English in Table 11, it turns out that English
di ers with regard to each characteristic from Akatek. The basic word
order in English is SVO, there is no case marking on NPs, and the verb
agrees only with the subject. As a result of the lack of NP case marking
and the limited subject agreement possessive marking in English
is unique, i.e. it is not similar to trans A or trans P marking. Basic
grammatical relations in English are expressed via an accusative pattern
and there is no split case marking. Regarding the criteria for verb-
Table 11. Typological characteristics of Akatek and English
Criteria Akatek English
Word order VXY SVO
Case marking IO {
Agreement marking S, DO S
Possessor marking POSS = trans A POSS = unique
Basic marking ergative accusative
Split marking extended ergative {
({ = none)
intial languages presented in section 2.2, the main di erence between
Akatek and English is that English has a copula as well as relative pronouns.
Furthermore, English lacks passive and causative morphology,
the possessor can either precede or follow the possessed NP, agreement
exists only with one NP, namely the subject, and subject agreement is
su xal instead of pre xal.
The investigation of PVCs in Akatek is presented in chapter 5. A
typology of PVCs is further developed in chapter 6. The typological