Perception verb complements in Akatek, a Mayan language

152 5. PERCEPTION VERB COMPLEMENTS IN AKATEK
b. *x-;-y-il naj chi-w-apni b'ey naa
PERF-B3-A3-see he
an
CL1s
IMPF-A1-arrive PREP house
`He saw me arrive at the house.'
Without aspect, example (41-a) is grammatical, the addition of chi-,
however, renders it ungrammatical as can be seen in (41-b). The same
applies for the irrealis aspect or future tense pre x oj- as illustrated in
example (42).
(42) *x-;-y-il ix Mikin oj-aw-'el-toj
PERF-B3-A3-see NCL Micaela FUT-A2-leave-DIR
`Micaela saw you will leave.'
None of the morphological aspect pre xes can occur with type2 PVCs.
In addition to those, Akatek has a number of tense-aspect and aktionsart
clitics, which can modify the verbal complex either pre- or
postverbally (Zavala, 1992b). The clitic for imperfective past, ta'
(IMPFP), is of great locational exibility in the predicate. It often
occurs postverbally as illustrated in (43). Like the aspectual pre xes,
ta' is ungrammatical with type2 PVCs (see example (44)).
(43) a-ma'-in ta' an
A2-hit-B1 IMPFP CL1s
`You have hit me (before).'
(44) *x-;-y-il ix Mikin aw-'el-toj ta'
PERF-B3-A3-see NCL Micaela A2-leave-DIR IMPFP
`Micaela saw you having left.'
The marker for durative, continuative or non-punctual aktionsart, k'al
or k'alta' (DUR), is generally translated with `always'. It's occurence
in an independent sentence is illustrated in (45).
(45) chi-a-ma'-in k'al-ta' an
IMPF-A2-hit-B1 DUR-IMPFP CL1s
`You always hit me.'
In a transitive type2 PVC as exempli ed in (46), k'al occurs directly
after the su x -on, and before the set B pronominal a x for the direct
object, in. 8 As illustrated in examples (46) and (47), in the same
context, k'al and k'alta' di er in meaning, while k'al means `always'
8 The set B could also pre x to the verbal complex.