Perception verb complements in Akatek, a Mayan language

4. CRITERIA FOR THE SEMANTIC CHARACTERIZATION 81
4. Can the PVC be modi ed by sentential adverbs or modal auxiliaries?
5. What - if any - is the semantic value of the complementizer?
4.1. Temporal simultaneity. Events can only be perceived at
the moment they happen. In other words, the perception of the event
necessarily needs to take place at the same time the event takes place.
This is achieved either by a complete absence of tense or aspect marking
in the complement as in the NI-PVC in English or by the aspectual
speci cation [+progressive] of ing-PVCs stipulated in section 3.
NI-PVCs, ing-PVCs and PNOMs exhibit no independent time reference,
while INOMs, to-PVCs and that-PVCs-aswas already observed
in section 3 - can have tense or aspect marking that is independent
from the tense or aspect marking of the matrix clause. In other words,
the latter three complement types do not necessarily have to be cotemporal
with their matrix predicate.
That-PVCs can, but do not have to be, co-temporal with their matrix
predicates. Provided that the content ofathat-PVC aswell as its
temporal speci cation allow anevent interpretation, the progressive
form be V-ing of the complement verb facilitates such a reading:
(97) John hears that Mary is shouting. Caplan (1973), 270
In other words, the sentence in (97) denotes non-epistemic auditory
perception of an event as well as epistemic or abstract, mental perception
of a proposition (Dretske, 1969; Caplan, 1973).
4.2. Predicate type. There are two requirements a PVC type's
predicate must ful ll in order for the PVC typetobeevent denoting.
The rst requirement is that the PVC must express something perceptible.
In other words, we can only see, hear, feel, smell and taste
certain events. For example, unlike bleeding, hurting is not accessible
to the sense of vision, while we can see other people look, but not feel
a certain way.
(98) a. The doctor watched my foot bleeding/*hurting badly.
Akmajian (1977), 445
b. We saw them looking/*feeling pretty sick.
Akmajian (1977), 445
Mental states are intrinsically imperceptible and therefore cannot function
as predicates of ing-PVCs or NI-PVCs:
(99) a. *I saw John know that p. Higginbotham (1994a), 31