Perception verb complements in Akatek, a Mayan language

222 5. PERCEPTION VERB COMPLEMENTS IN AKATEK
events, these must rank in the middle of the hierarchy. The hierarchy
in (235) is to be interpreted as formulated in Hypothesis V.
(236) Hypothesis V
PVC types higher up in the hierarchy, e.g. the IND types,
are more likely to denote propositions, while PVC types
lower in the hierarchy, e.g. the NMLZ types, are more likely
to denote events.
Hypothesis V is based solely on the evidence from English and Akatek.
In these languages, no paratactic (PARA) PVC types have been attested.
However, in chapter 2, I have shown an example of a PARA
PVC type from Hausa. Whether Hypothesis V is valid in a broader
typological perspective and how PARAs rank on the PVC hierarchy is
investigated in chapter 6. I have shown in chapter 3 that in English,
there are more PVC types than the ones investigated. For example, I
explicitly excluded wh-clauses, adverbial clauses and small clause constructions
as well as participial adjunct clauses from the investigation of
PVCs in chapter 3. Excluding participial adjunct clauses, i.e. Noonan's
PART complement type, from the investigation reduces the prospective
typology of PVC systems to ve complement types: IND, SUB,
PARA, INF, and NMLZ. Regarding the variation of PVC types in a
typological framework, I suggest the following hypothesis based on the
typology of complementation presented in chapter 2:
(237) Hypothesis VI
The following ve complement types of the typology of complementation,
i.e. INDs, SUBs, PARAs, INFs, and NMLZs
can function as PVCs, but PVC types are not restricted to
these ve types.
The nal considerations to be made here refer to the general typological
characteristics of Akatek established and compared to English
in chapter 4. The typological dissimilarities regarding basic word order,
case and agreement marking, possessor marking and case marking
patterns are not connected to the similarities that I demonstrated for
the typology of PVCs in these two languages. However, the observation
that English lacks passive morphology, while Akatek employs a variety
of passive morphemes, supports the hypothesis put forward by Bennis
& Hoekstra (1989) that passivization of PVC constructions in
English is restricted because passive is realized via auxiliaries instead
of via morphology. Ihave shown in great detail that Akatek, which has
three di erent morphological passives, does not have any restrictions