Perception verb complements in Akatek, a Mayan language

182 5. PERCEPTION VERB COMPLEMENTS IN AKATEK
to howi as demonstrated in example (127-b), then verb obtains an
inchoative interpretation, so that the process is made explicit and the
sentence is fully grammatical.
(127) a. ? ;-y-il ix Mikin s-howi ix unin
B3-A3-see NCL Micaela A3-be.angry NCL child
`Micaela saw the boy being angry.'
b. y-il ix Mikin s-howi el ix unin
B3-A3-see NCL Micaela A3-be.angry DIR NCL child
`Micaela saw the girl getting/ becoming angry.'
Ihave shown that type2 PVCs in Akatek do not allow mental state
verbs like ootaj `know'. This is an indication in favor of the analysis of
type2 PVCs as exclusively event denoting. Instead, the main verbs
in type2 PVCs tend to be prototypical action predicates like ma' `hit',
tzok' `cut', and el `leave', which occur in most type2 PVCs in this
chapter. Moreover, I have shown that predicates like kus `be sad' and
howi `be angry' can occur in type2 and in type1 PVCs.
3.3.3. Negation. Event denoting complement types generally do
not allow negation as has been shown for English in chapter 3. However,
there are some exceptions. If the complement expresses that someone
refrains from doing something, i.e. if the NI-PVC in example (128-a)
is interpreted as in (128-b), then negation is grammatical.
(128) a. John saw Mary not smoke. Higginbotham (1983), 111
b. John saw Mary refrain from smoking.
Another exception is that whenever an implication of failure is given,
then event denoting NI-PVCs can be negated:
(129) Isaw the car not start. Higginbotham (1983), 111
Type2 PVCs cannot be marked with aspect. In chapter 4 I have
shown that aspect interacts with negation in that for each of the three
tense-aspect pre xes there is a di erent negative marker. Hence, a
clause can only be negated if it has aspect. However, if a clause has
aspect, it does not qualify as a type2 complement. As illustrated, the
type2 PVC in (130-a) can only be negated with the negative morpheme
maa in (130-b) if perfective aspect is added and the pronominal a x
on the PVC verb changes from the set A for type2 to the set B for
type1 PVCs. 13
happen.
13 In addition, there is a continuation requirement, i.e. something else needs to