Perception verb complements in Akatek, a Mayan language

18 1. INTRODUCTION
6. Typology of PVCs
I presuppose that there is at least one matrix PV in all languages
investigated that is Janus-faced in sometimes acting as a verb expressing
physical perception and sometimes like a cognitive predicate. In
this case, two di erent semantic types, which are referred to as events
and propositions, can be correlated with two or more di erent PVC
types in each language. Based on the extensive literature dealing with
PVCs in English I propose the following four hypotheses:
1. Hypothesis I
Provided that at least one PV in a language has a cognitive
meaning, all languages with a complementation system use at
least two di erent types of PVC, one to express events and one
to denote propositions.
2. Hypothesis II
At least one PVC type is exclusively event denoting.
3. Hypothesis III
PVC types that are primarily proposition denoting can under
special conditions also be event denoting.
4. Hypothesis IV
The ability tobeembedded by the matrix predicate `know' distinguishes
the exclusively event denoting PVCs from the primarily
proposition denoting ones.
5. Goals and outline of chapters to come
The current study makes a typological and a descriptive contribution
to our knowledge of PVCs. Its typological contribution consists
in providing a comparative typology of English and Akatek PVC systems
and in establishing an implicational hierarchy for PVC systems.
Its descriptive focus lies on identifying PVC types in Akatek, providing
structural and semantic characterizations of them, and correlating
them with two semantic types, events and propositions. The scope
of investigation is a distinct class of construction types (PVCs) de ned
by a group of speci c matrix predicates (PVs). A number of construction
types are excluded from the investigation: NPs, NP adjuncts,
small clauses, relative clauses, and wh-clauses. Matrix predicates that
embed PVCs are restricted in two ways. They must be passive PVs as
opposed to active or copulative PVs, e.g. see, but not look at or look
like. In addition, only those passive PVs qualify that are able to alternatively
function as cognition predicates in the sense of e.g. `realize'
or `understand'.