Relativism and Universalism in Linguistics - Fachbereich 10 ...

Section H: Syntax 91
Discourse conditions for focus in Yucatec Maya:
evidence from experimental data
Skopeteas, Stavros / Verhoeven, Elisabeth
University of Potsdam / University of Bremen
skopetea@rz.uni-potsdam.de;elisabeth.verhoeven@uni-erfurt.de
In Yucatec Maya constituent focus is encoded through movement to a preverbal focus
position and, in case of agent focus, additionally through a special verb form (see Bricker
1979, Tonhauser 2003).
In this paper we present two speech production experiments that have been performed in the
field in order to localize the discourse conditions in which native speakers (n=16) use these
focus constructions: (a) a dialogue-based experiment which makes use of different question
types (confirmative, rejective, selective, and completive) applying visual stimuli; (b) a
narrative-based experiment that manipulates the distribution of given and new information in
descriptions of picture sequences.
The experimental results show that focus constructions occur in all question types but their
frequency correlates with the question’s power (7% of the confirmative answers, 26% of the
selective ones, 20% of the corrective ones and 16% of the completive ones). In the narrative
experiment, the focus construction frequently occurs to mark new information. This data
allows for the revision of previous accounts according to which the focus position in Mayan is
used in contrastive contexts. Our explanation is functional, drawing attention to the
complementarity of syntax and prosody for the encoding of discourse functions. As a tonal
language, Yucatec Maya does not mark discourse functions through pitch accents, which
implies that a constituent may not bear the focus feature if it does not occur in the designated
focus position. The functional consequence of this typological feature is that a marked
syntactic construction occurs in a wide variety of contexts. This assumption is supported
cross-linguistically, through the comparison of the Mayan data with data from languages that
display both syntactic and prosodic means for the expression of focus (German, Greek, and
Georgian) and in which the same experiments have been performed.
References
Bricker, Victoria R. (1979): “Wh-questions, relativization, and clefting in Yucatec Maya”, in:
Martin, Laura (ed.), Papers in Mayan linguistics. Columbia, Miss.: Lucas Brothers, 107-136.
Tonhauser, Judith (2003): “F-constructions in Yucatec Maya”, in: Anderssen, Jan; Menéndez-
Benito, Paula & Werle, Adam (eds.), The Proceedings of SULA 2. Vancouver, BC:
GLSA, University of Massachusetts, Amherst.
The discourse basis of head-marking
Viti, Carlotta
University of Pisa
carlottaviti@hotmail.com
Although languages are commonly consistent in marking relations of dependency either on
the head or on the dependent of a constituent, both head- and dependent-marked constructions
can be occasionally found in the same language (Nichols 1986; 1992). In this case, it is more
frequent that a head-marked construction is found in a generally dependent marking language
rather the other way round. For example, the Indo-European languages mark subject
agreement on the verb, i.e. on the head of the clause, but they encode possessum, as well as