Perception verb complements in Akatek, a Mayan language

136 5. PERCEPTION VERB COMPLEMENTS IN AKATEK
The structure of this chapter is the following. Section 2 shows how
PVs are lexicalized in Akatek and provides an answer to the question
of whether the basic PVs in Akatek also extend their meaning into the
domain of cognition. The main part of the chapter, section 3, consists
of a description of type2 PVCs in Akatek based on the structural and
semantic criteria presented in chapter 3. I demonstrate that type2
PVCs are exclusively event denoting. In section 4, type1 PVCs, which
are able to convey propositions, are analyzed. Type1 PVCs are
described in less detail than type2 PVCs because they share all the
characteristics of independent sentences.
There are three main complementtypes in Akatek (Zavala, 1992b).
For ease of reference I call them type1, type2, and type3. In the following,
I brie y describe the structures of the three complementtypes
and provide some examples.
Type1 complements consist of one or two optional complementizers
(COMP), followed by an independent sentence structure. An illustrative
example is provided in (1). The complement is indicated by
square brackets, the word order of the complex construction is V S
Complement.
(1) ;-y-ootaj-xa ix [tol oj-;-kam ix]
B3-A3-know-already she [COMP FUT-B3-die she]
`She already knows that she will die.'
Penalosa & Say (1992)
Type2 diverges from the normal sentence pattern of Akatek, which has
been described in chapter 4. Both transitive and intransitive type2
complements lack aspect morphology, as shown in (2-a) and (2-b), respectively.
Furthermore, the transitive complement verb di ers from
the structure of independent sentences in two respects. First, the complement
verb takes the su x -on 1 and second, instead of a transitive
thematic vowel su x (TTV), it takes an intransitive one (ITV). In addition,
the intransitive construction is marked by a set A pronominal
pre x instead of by the set B pre x of the independent sentence.
(2) a. ;-y-il ix Mikin [ach-s-ma'-on-i]
B3-A3-see NCL Micaela [B2-A3-hit-SUF-ITV]
`Micaela saw an unspeci ed 3rd person hit you.'
b. x-;-y-il ix Mikin [a-wey-i]
PERF-B3-A3-see NCL Micaela [A2-sleep-ITV]
`Micaela saw you sleeping.'
1 The role this su x plays in Mayan languages is explored in section 3.2.