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Dependent Verbs in Sierra Popoluca 238
1 st person, the higher ranking participant; therefore, O is marked on the verb with Set B
proclitic ʔa+. 19
(32) ʔɨch mojo+m ʔa+puʔunyi jeʔm nɨʔɨ=kɨʔɨm
ʔɨch moj-W+ʔam ʔa+puʔn-i jeʔm nɨʔ=kɨʔɨm
1pro begin aux -W+alr XB+swim-deP ia that water=in
‘I began to swim in the river.’ (MAB.027)
(33) ʔabeesej dya+tyi ʔi+kɨʔɨspa nɨkpa ʔan+ʔáʔm
ʔabeesej dya+tyiH ʔi+kɨʔɨs-pa nɨkk-pa ʔan+ʔaʔm-W 2
ʔabeeseh neg+what 3a+eat-inc go aux -inc XA+see-DEP t
‘Sometimes he doesn’t eat anything. I’m going to see him.’ (CNC.055)
(34) ʔokmɨ ʔóy ʔa+ʔáʔm ʔa+ʔɨch
ʔok-mɨ ʔoy-W ʔa+ʔaʔm-W 2 ʔa+ʔɨch
afterwards go/return aux -cmP XB+see-DEP t xb+1Pro
‘Afterwards they went to see me.’ (Partera.004)
3.1.1.1. PLURAL MARKING OF AUXILIARY I DEPENDENT VERBS. Dependent verbs
take inflection for person and number; however, unlike independent verbs, dependent verbs
in Auxiliary I constructions are inflected with plural enclitics, rather than stress bearing
suffixes. We saw in section 2 that verbs are inflected to indicate number agreement of their
arguments with the plural suffixes -taʔm ‘1 st and 2 nd person plural’ and –yaj ‘3 rd person
plural suffix’. 20 (11) and (13) are repeated here in (35) and (36).
(35) ʔarak+wiʔktáʔmpa ʔan+weewej
ʔan+ʔak+wiʔk-taʔm-pa ʔan+weewej
xa+caus+eat-12PL-inc xa+grandfather
‘We fed my grandfather.’ (MAB.038b)
19 This example is one of few in the corpus of naturally occurring text that shows a higher ranking
patient. This story was recorded and transcribed in the summer of 2006, however, its significance was
not evident until I began investigating non-finite verbs with the goal of determining their status as
compared to finite verbs.
20 The plural marking pattern observed in SP, described as ‘plurality split’ by Smith-Stark (1974)
and Corbett (2000), distinguishes between saP/nonsaP and human/nonhuman depending on whether
markers agree with nouns, arguments, or possessors (Boudreault 2007).
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