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Middles and Reflexives in Yucatec Maya 169 either the middle or the reflexive construction could be used with no apparent restriction. Our fieldwork methodology was crucial for clarifying the system. Direct elicitation could only show us that certain events (e.g., healing) could be encoded as either middle or reflexive, but could shed little light on what guided a speaker’s choice. From texts, we could find contexts suggesting the specific situation that would license one construction over the other. The same was true for change of position (e.g., kneeling and sitting would take a reflexive marker or an intransitive verb in very similar contexts). However, oral narratives suggested that the reflexive implied intentionality of the subject (e.g., hiding from a fox, looking at a pretty girl, etc.). On the other hand, no example of an emphatically volitional act could be found for the middle or the intransitive construction. Although our intuitions seemed correct, only the speakers’ approval validated our claims. In follow-up elicitation, speakers not only approved our hypothesis, but they also created for us the contrastive contexts in which a reflexive could be used for the energetic version of an event, as opposed to the absolute, energy-neutral manifestation of non-reflexive constructions. We concluded that absolute and energetic construals in YM constitute two fundamental cognitive patterns that determine the behavior of intransitive constructions. As determined by the speaker’s needs, the natural energy involved in an action may be highlighted to stress the subject’s intention to attain a goal. In recent years special attention has been paid to pragmatic phenomena codified in the grammatical organization of human languages. From two main perspectives put forward by Langacker (1987, 2000, n.d.), Traugott (1988, 1995, 2003), and Traugott & König (1991) it has been acknowledged that the view of the conceptualizer tends to determine the configuration of a grammatical construction. Whether the grammatical formation is determined by a shift from the referential world to the dominion of the speaker, or whether the conceptualizer enters the objective scene to impose a subjective view, what is crucial is that languages create mechanisms to describe situations as seen by the speaker. Middles in Yucatec Maya do not follow typologically common patterns of middle marking. Instead, they impose a view of events in neutral terms. This view is necessary in the system to contrast with the reflexive, a construction that gives special status to the subject’s control and intentionality in driving the event. The importance of control for YM is corroborated by speakers’ readings of reflexive constructions as accidental, obtained when the subject is unable to exert control over the action. Unlike many Mesoamerican languages that do not allow non-human subjects, YM exploits the reflexive construction to represent situations that contradict basic Maya cultural patterns. Middle, reflexive, and intransitive constructions alternate in YM to let speakers shape their view of an event. The data we were able to account for suggests that the interdependence between active, middle, intransitive, and reflexive constructions in YM not only makes a very efficient communicative system; it also shows that grammar and cognition are shaped in accordance with the richness of culture. fieldwork and linguistic analysis in indigenous languages of the americas
Middles and Reflexives in Yucatec Maya 170 REFERENCES andrade, manuel J. & hilaria mÁas collí. 1991. Cuentos Mayas Yucatecos, vol. I & II. Mérida: Universidad Autónoma de Yucatán. artawa, ketut. 1994. Ergativity in Balinese Syntax. Melbourne, Australia: La Trobe University dissertation. ayres, glenn & barbara Pfeiler. 1997. Los verbos mayas, la conjugación en el Maya Yucateco moderno. Mérida, Yucatán: Ediciones de la Universidad Autónoma de Yucatán. bohnemeyer, Jürgen. 2004. Argument and event structure in Yukatek verb classes. In Ji- Young Kim & Adam Weerle (eds.), The semantics of under-represented languages in the Americas (SULA) (University of Massachusetts Occasional Papers in Linguistics 25). 8-19. briceño chel, fidencio. 2004. De voz en voz hay cambio de tono en Maya. In Zarina Estrada Fernández, Ana Fernández Garay & Albert Álvarez González (eds.), Estudios en lenguas amerindias. Homenaje a Ken L. Hale. Hermosillo: Universidad de Sonora. bricker, victoria. 1981. Grammatical introduction. In Eleuterio Po’ot Yah (ed.) Yucatec Maya verbs (Hocabá dialect). xlix-xcii. Latin American Studies Curriculum Aids, Center for Latin American Studies. New Orleans: Tulane University. bricker, victoria. 1998. A dictionary of the Maya language as spoken in Hocabá, Yucatán. Salt Lake City: The University of Utah Press. faltz, leonard. 1985. Reflexivization: A study in universal syntax. New York: Garland. haiman, John. 1980. The iconicity of grammar. Language 56. 515-540. haiman, John. 1983. Iconic and economic motivation. Language 59. 781-819. hill, Jane. 1969. Volitional and non-volitional verbs in Cupeño. Chicago Linguistic Society 5. 348-356. kemmer, suzanne. 1993. The middle voice. Amsterdam & Philadelphia: John Benjamins. kemmer, suzanne. 1994. Middle voice, transitivity, and the elaboration of events. In Barbara Fox & Paul J. Hopper (eds.), Voice: Form and function, 179-230. Amsterdam & Philadelphia: John Benjamins. langacker, ronald. 1987. Foundations of cognitive grammar vol. 1: Theoretical prerequisites. Stanford: Stanford University Press. langacker, ronald. 2000. Grammar and conceptualization. Berlin: Mouton de Gruyter. langacker, ronald. n.d. Subordination in cognitive grammar. Unpublished ms. lehmann, christian. 1995. Thoughts on grammaticalization. Munich: LINCOM Europa. maldonado, ricardo. 1988. Energetic reflexives in Spanish. The Annual Meeting of the Berkeley Linguistics Society 14. 153-165. maldonado, ricardo. 1999. A media voz: Problemas conceptuales del clítico se. Location: Universidad Nacional Autónoma de México. maldonado, ricardo. 2009. Middle as a basic voice system. In Lilian Guerrero, Sergio Ibáñez & Valeria Belloro (eds.), Studies in role and reference grammar. México: Instituto de Investigaciones Filológicas, UNAM. mesineo, cristina. 2002. La marcación verbal activa/inactiva en toba (gauycurú) y sus motivaciones. (LIAMES (Revista de Lingüística Indígena americana) 2), 38-50. Campinas: Instituto da Linguagem, Departamento de Lingüística, UNICAMP. fieldwork and linguistic analysis in indigenous languages of the americas
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Fieldwork and Linguistic Analysis i
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Contents Foreword iii Marianne Mith
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Another fading boundary is that bet
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languages: Akawaio (Kapóng), Akuri
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Acknowledgments The editors are dee
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Introduction 2 COMMUNITY COLLABORAT
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Introduction 4 confined themselves
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Introduction 6 Often, what turns ou
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Introduction 8 references boas, fra
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The Discourse Marker vet in Ixil Ma
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fieldwork and linguistic analysis i
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Classifying Clitics in Sm’algyax
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Noun Class and Number in Kiowa-Tano
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The Story of *ȏ in the Cariban Fam
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Gemination and Tonal Feet in Welede
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Gemination and Tonal Feet in Welede
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Dependent Verbs in Sierra Popoluca
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