Perception verb complements in Akatek, a Mayan language

3. PVCS OF TYPE2 179
third person and instead of two NPs only one NP occurs, it is unclear
in some cases whether the NP needs to be interpreted as O or as S.
If the same three operations, i.e. relativization, clefting, and question
formation, are performed on the object NP, the object is simply omitted
and there are no changes on the verb. In other words, the su x -n(i)
does not occur and the verb stays marked with both set A and set B
pronominal a xes, as shown in (121).
(121) x-;-ul ix x-;-y-il naj
PERF-B3-arrive she PERF-B3-A3-see he
`The woman that he saw arrived.' Craig (1976a), 144
The occurrence of -ni allows to disambiguate third person object NPs
from third person subject NPs in extraction processes (Craig, 1976a).
For rst and second person subjects there is no need for disambiguation,
so that the -n(i) does not occur in these cases in Jakaltek.
In sum, I have identi ed three main environments for the occurrence
of the su x -on in Akatek: in extraction processes a ecting transitive
subjects, in type2 complements and in coordinated constructions. In
extraction processes -on serves to distinguish subject extraction from
object extraction. In the latter two environments, i.e. in type2 complements
and in coordinated constructions, the su x indicates continuity
and connectedness of two clauses, what I called temporal simultaneity
in section 3.3.1. Diachronic work on the Mayan language family
(Smith-Stark, 1978) as well as synchronic work on the closely related
language Jakaltek (Craig, 1976a) support the analysis of the
Akatek su x -on presented here.
3.3. Semantic characterization. For the semantic characterization
of type2 PVCs, the following criteria are taken into consideration:
temporal simultaneity, type of complement predicate, negation and
modality. The central goal is to establish whether type2 PVCs are basically
event denoting or not. The perception of an event is only
possible while the event itself is happening. Therefore, event denoting
complements must be cotemporal with their matrix PVs. The
predicate of the PVCmust express some change or transformation over
time that can be observed, i.e. the predicate must be characterized as
active, temporary and transient. Negation of event denoting complements
is impossible, unless the event does not actually happen, so that
either an implication of failure arises or someone refrained from doing
something. Only temporal, degree or frequency adverbs are grammatical
in event denoting constructions. Sentential adverbs like certainly