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Dependent Verbs in Sierra Popoluca 254
Furthermore, it was noted in section 3.1.2 that person is optionally marked on the V1
in Auxiliary II constructions and that the S of the V1 and V2 are the same. According to
the complementation analysis, if the dependent verbs were a possessed nominal S, the V1
wɨʔaaj would be Ø-marked for 3 rd person. As shown in (84), person marking on V1 and
V2 agree.
(84) ʔa+pɨkpa ʔiga+jeʔ ʔa+wɨʔaap ʔan+yooxáaj ʔidyɨk
ʔa+pɨk-pa ʔiga+jeʔ ʔa+wɨH.ʔaH-pa ʔan+yoox.ʔaH-W 3 ʔityʔɨk
xb+take.wife-inc comP+3Pro XB+be.able aux -inc XA+work-deP ib Past
‘He took me (as wife) because I can work.’ (CNC.002b)
The second characteristic suggesting noun-like behavior of dependent verbs comes
from plural marking morphology. Nouns may be inflected to indicate plurality of the noun.
Plural markers may agree with the noun, with the possessor, or with S when the noun occurs
as a non-verbal predicate. As described in section 3.1.1.1, there are two plural enclitics that
occur on nouns: +tam ‘human plural’ and +yaj ‘nonhuman plural’. The fact that enclitics
occur on intransitive dependent verbs in the V2 of Auxiliary I (active) constructions
suggested that NVPs might pattern like nouns.
(85) ʔa mojo+mun ku+pudáʔyi+yaj
ʔa moj-W+ʔam+ʔun Ø+ku+put-ʔaʔy-i+yaj
ah begin aux -cmP+alr+dJo 3b+deriv+exit-ind-deP ia -3PL
‘They began to escape.’ (GU1.123)
Early transcriptions made available provided examples that were inconsistent in
marking plurality on dependent verbs, marking some suffixes as clitics and some as stress
bearing segments. What was not apparent, although now obvious, was that plural enclitics
occurred only on Auxiliary I active verbs, while suffixes occurred everywhere else. In other
words, these characteristics did not apply to all dependent verb types. Essentially, what was
required was a focused analysis of stress in dependent verbs to determine that there were
different patterns.
4.2. THE INTERPLAY BETWEEN TEXT AND ELICITATION. The descriptive work
presented here relies first on making observations about what happens in the language,
initially on structures that occur in narratives and conversation. Elicitation comes into play
in order to verify forms and their uses and to understand what the language does not do, as
well as what it does. Understanding the behavior of dependent verbs requires analysis of
each of the components that make up these characteristics; some of which appear frequently
in texts and some of which require elicitation focusing on paradigms and in some cases
attention to the phonology in isolated contexts.
There are several examples that demonstrate the interdependency of corpus building,
text analysis, and elicitation, which is crucial to understanding the grammar of the language.
One example is illustrated with the mo subordinator constructions and the DVCs lacking
an overt subordinator, which occur frequently in texts and naturally occurring discourse.
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