the transitive root, uec ‘spill, scatter, shed’ appear in (13a–c) below:
(13a) ca kuchob caucel ti ceelchahobi
‘when they arrived in Caucel, they became cold’ (Gordon 1913:6)
(13b) t u chij ca çukini c ah lohil ti ca=kal kin ca tun vijchahi
‘as Our Savior fasted for forty days, after which he became hungry’ (Ciudad Real 1600?: fol. 68r)
(13c) uaxac ahau paxci u cabobi ca uecchahi ti peten t u lacal
‘on 8 Ahau, their town was abandoned, and they became scattered throughout the peninsula’
( Gordon 1913:78)
Some contextual examples of the use of these aspectual suffixes in Modern Yucatec include:
(14a) ȼ’óʔok u b’ak’čahal le sùumoʔ
‘that rope has become wound’ (V. Bricker et al. 1998:25)
(14b) ȼ’óʔok u wóolčahal in k’èeyem
‘my posol has become formed into a ball’ (V. Bricker et al. 1998:307)
(14c) táan u šéehčahal le sùum t u mèen le pèek’oʔ
‘that rope is being vomited on by that dog’ (V. Bricker et al. 1998:256)
(14d) le púʔukoʔ lùuk’čahih
‘that hill became muddy [from mud slide]’ (V. Bricker et al. 1998:175)
(14e) páahčah in t’àan
‘I could speak’ (V. Bricker et al. 1995:209)
(14f) máʔ máʔalob’čahakiʔ
‘he has not recovered’ (V. Bricker et al. 1998:176)
2.2.3. INCHOATIVES DERIVED WITH -TAL. Already in the second half of the sixteenth century, the Calepino
de Motul contained a handful of examples of inchoatives with the -tal imperfective suffix:
(15)
-tal Inchoative
Gloss
hahtal
verify, confirm
hittal
become loose, unfastened (load)
pettal
become round, circular
tohtal
become straight
130
INTRANSITIVE VERBS
Of these, only hahtal and tohtal have cognates in Modern Yucatec, hàahtal also has a hàahčahal alterna-
tive, and hitčahal does not have a *hittal alternative (V. Bricker et al. 1998:94, 106, 248). By the end of the
eighteenth century, four more -tal inchoatives have shown up in Colonial texts, all of which co-exist with
stems ending in -čahal in Modern Yucatec (V. Bricker et al. 1998:5, 70, 190, 243–244):
(16)
-tal Inchoative
Gloss
chichtal
become strong
mumtal
become soft
sebtal
become sudden
yantal exist
They are shown in context below:
(17a) ti u hach chichtal u tanlabal diosi
‘there the serving of God was becoming very strong’ (Gordon 1913:95)
(17b) muan 22 abril lic v mumtal v nak v caanil kini
‘Muan, 22 April, when the sun in the middle of the sky was becoming soft’ (Gordon 1913:28)
(17c) ti u sebtal u talel ah vaymillob cħaic u toh ti bal=cahi
‘when suddenly the men of Uaymil were coming to wreak vengeance in the world’ (Gordon 1913:92)
(17d) ti yan luum vchic v yantal v pakali
‘here is the land where his garden exists’ (Gordon 1913:28)
Of these, yantal already had a yanhal alternative with the same meaning (cf. the example in [8a] above).
At least three more -tal inchoatives were in common use by the middle of the nineteenth century:
(18)
-tal Inchoative
Gloss
pattal/pahtal
be able
sayabtal
reproduce, increase
utztal
recover, improve
The first two inchoatives also have -čahal imperfectives in Modern Yucatec; the third does not.
Almost all inchoatives in the Hocaba dialect of Modern Yucatec have imperfective stems in both -tal and
-čahal, but only -čahih/-Ø and -čahak perfective and subjunctive stems, respectively. In other words, they
lack unique perfective and subjunctive counterparts of the -tal imperfective stem.
Originally, there seem to have been two sets of inchoative stems, one marked by -h and the other by
-chah. Eventually, -tal replaced the -hal imperfective stem, but continued to be paired with the -hi perfec-
tive stem (as is still the case in Mopan [Hofling 2011:16]). In a later development, -chahi replaced -hi in all
but a few inchoatives, and those that retained -hi also have -chahi, as is the case in the following examples
of páat ‘be able’ in Modern Yucatec (V. Bricker et al. 1998:209):
(19a) máʔa t u páahtal in meyah
‘I can’t work’
INTRANSITIVE VERBS 131
(19b) páathih in t’àan
‘I could speak’
(19c) páahčah in t’àan
‘I could speak’
The same is true of inchoative stems derived from yàan ‘there exists’:
(20a) b’ey túun ʔúučik u yantal k líibèertàadoʔ
‘in this way there happened to be our liberty,
káʔah yančah pàas túun
and there was peace then’ (CHC971B:13)
(20b) tiʔ e semàanáaʔ yanhih hun p’éel bàayléiʔ
‘during this week, there were some dances’ (PEN971:5)
(20c) čéen sìinkoh in pàalal yančahih
‘I had only five children [literally, there were only five children of mine’] (EBT979A)
There is some evidence that -tal and -čahal have different functions in Modern Yucatec. -tal seems to
be the imperfective suffix of choice when the verb refers to an accidental, temporary, or extrinsic change
in the subject; -čahal implies that the change is intrinsic and permanent (Kathleen Carlin, personal com-
munication, 1974). Thus táan u čaktal means ‘she is blushing,’ whereas táan u čakčahal means ‘it is turning
red (and ceasing to be white).’ This semantic distinction applies only to adjectival roots (-tal and -čahal
have the same meaning when suffixed to derived adjectival stems and derived nominal stems), and it is
neutralized in perfective and subjunctive inchoatives, where the corresponding derivational morpheme is
exclusively /č/.
2.3. CELERITIVES. In Modern Yucatec, -k’ah is a productive suffix that derives celeritive verbs from root
transitives, root intransitives, positionals, and nouns. It refers to actions that occur suddenly without ap-
parent cause and, therefore, represents a kind of agentless passive (Blair and Vermont-Salas 1967:760; cf.
2.4. below).
The Calepino de Motul lists only eleven verbs with the Colonial cognate of this suffix, -kah:
(21)
Celeritive
Gloss
balkahal
become hidden, forgotten; disappear
balkahal
roll over; upset (vessel)
coolkahal
become loose (tied object), rickety, disconnected
çamkahal
run out completely
lickahal
trip over stone or something (foot); fall into snare or trap
lubkahal
go about falling and getting up again
mankahal
pass quickly or suddenly; forget
namkahal
lose sight; be forgotten
pitkahal
slip, slide
uaçkahal
turn around [suddenly ?]
ualkahal return
132
INTRANSITIVE VERBS
The aspectual suffixes that followed -kah (phonetic [-k’ah]) in Colonial Yucatec were -al (imperfective),
-i (perfective), and -ac (subjunctive)
. Of them, -al is attested only in the Calepino (cf. [21]). For the perfective
stem, the Calepino contains five example sentences, of which the following are representative:
(22a) lichkahi uoc ti ak
‘my foot tripped over a vine’ (Ciudad Real 1600?: fol. 268r)
(22b) mankahi kin
‘the sun set quickly [so that one cannot see]’ (Ciudad Real 1600?: fol. 298r)
The subjunctive stem is represented in a sentence from the Book of Chilam Balam of Kaua:
(22c) ua ma cimie bin ualkahac eticoil pulmonia t u men
‘if he did not die, it will develop into consumptive pneumonia because of it’ (Kaua n.d.:II, 29R)
More than 150 celeritive examples are listed in the Hocaba dictionary of Modern Yucatec, of which the
following constitute a representative sample:
(23)
Celeritive
Gloss
b’uhk’ah
split suddenly
č’ošk’ah
twist suddenly
hahk’ah
slip suddenly
k’onk’ah
collapse
líilk’ah
shake violently
močk’ah
stumble
sutk’ah
revolve suddenly [once]
tahk’ah
stick suddenly
wahk’ah
explode suddenly
Some contextual examples of the aspectual stem suffixes — -al (imperfective), -ih/-Ø (perfective), and -ak
(subjunctive) — with -k’ah in Modern Yucatec appear in (24a–e) below:
(24a) yan ʔòorah b’ey k u kačk’ahal u b’àakel im pàačeʔ
‘sometimes it feels like the bones in my back will snap’ (Blair and Vermont-Salas 1967:746)
(24b) ȼ’óʔok u č’ošk’ahal inw òok
‘my foot twisted suddenly’ (V. Bricker et al. 1998:87)
(24c) b’áʔaš ten háan sutk’ah eč hoseh
‘why have you returned so quickly, José?’ (Blair and Vermont-Salas 1967:787)
(24d) šmàaseʔ le káʔah lúub’eʔ šit’k’ahih
‘as for Marcella, when she fell, her legs spread apart suddenly’ (V. Bricker et al. 1998:259)
(24e) káʔah b’uhk’ahak
‘it might split suddenly’ (V. Bricker et al. 1998:347)
INTRANSITIVE VERBS 133
2.4. AGENTLESS PASSIVES. Agentless passives are semantically similar to the middle voice stems derived
from root transitives in the sense that they do not specify an agent, but they can be derived from other
kinds of roots, including nouns, adjectives, and root intransitives, as well as from many root transitives.
They are marked by the derivational suffix, -pah, in both Colonial and Modern Yucatec.
The Calepino de Motul lists 41 agentless passives as entries with their imperfective suffix, -al, some of
which are shown in (25):
(25)
Agentless Passive
Gloss
cinpahal
get wounded
chunpahal
get begun, founded
çutpahal
turn around
hatzpahal
get divided, separated
hecpahal
lie across
kazpahal
become mean, vile
nocpahal
overturn, capsize, spill
ticpahal
unravel, riot, come undone
tochpahal stumble
xotpahal
get cut, fixed, determined
The perfective and subjunctive stems were marked by -i and -ac, respectively in Colonial Yucatec.
Almost half of the agentless passives listed in the Calepino de Motul were derived from root transitives
(N = 18). Of them, three were derived from CVʔ roots that do not have middle voice stems, and six from
other transitive roots that also lack such stems. The remainder have both middle voice and agentless pas-
sive stems, whose functional difference is unclear.
In (26a–d) appear some contextual examples of agentless passives in Colonial Yucatec that illustrate
the use of the three aspectual suffixes with these verbs:
(26a) can ix uchci u nixpahal caan y luum
‘on 4 Ix was when the sky and the earth got tilted’ (Gordon 1913:61)
(26b) hunac v tochpahalob
‘they stumble constantly’ (Ciudad Real 1600?: fol. 195v)
(26c) çutpahi v tħanab vinicob
‘he turned around to address the people’ (Ciudad Real 1600?: fol. 113r)
(26d) t u chi v kax ah camalob sutpahac ti chikin t u chi v kax ah vcil vinicob
‘from the edge of the forest of the Camal people it might turn around to the west to the edge of the
forest of the Uc people’ (MA629-059-060C)
I have much richer data on agentless passives for Modern Yucatec acquired from elicitation that makes
it possible to distinguish them semantically from mediopassives derived from root transitives more clearly.
The conditions that affect the subjects of mediopassives have no apparent cause, whereas agentless pas-
sives refer to conditions whose cause, if there is one, is not mentioned. In that sense, agentless passives
cover a broader semantic domain than both mediopassives and agentive passives (whose agent is men-
tioned in the sentences in which they appear). Furthermore, unlike mediopassives and agentive passives,
134
INTRANSITIVE VERBS
agentless passives can be derived from non-transitive roots and stems. Therefore, they are more common
than passives that are derived from root and derived transitive stems.
The Hocaba dictionary lists 309 agentless passives, of which 56 percent (N = 174) are co-listed with
middle voice stems. The rest are derived from CVʔ transitives and other kinds of roots. The following
ex amples illustrate semantic differences between middle voice and agentless passive stems:
(27) Middle
Agentless
Voice
Gloss
Passive
Gloss
b’íil
curl up
b’ilpah
get hemmed, edged
b’úuh
split, part
b’uhpah
get split
číin
bend
číimpah
get bent
háak
slip
hakpah
get lowered, slip
kúuy
accumulate, harden, kuypah
get hard
settle
k’éem
twist
k’empah
get twisted
péeč’
crush, smash
peč’pah
get crushed, smashed
p’íič
stare
p’ičpah
pop out
šóol
cut
šolpah
get cut
táak’
stick, adhere
tak’pah
get stuck
wéek’
fall to pieces
wek’pah
get dashed to pieces
The glosses imply that the agentless passives are vaguer than the mediopassives, encompassing the pos-
sibility that, for example, kuypah could refer to an object that became hard, with or without an agent.
The aspectual suffixes that co-occur with agentless passives in Modern Yucatec are -al (imperfective),
-ih/-Ø (perfective), and -ak (subjunctive). In the following contextual examples of their use, only p’ičpah ‘pop
out’ has a middle voice counterpart, p’íič’ ‘stare.’ The rest are derived from root transi
tives without such
counterparts and other kinds of roots:
(28a) túʔuš k u šáʔaypahal le b’ehoʔ
‘where does that road fork’ (V. Bricker et al. 1998:255)
(28b) ȼ’óʔok u héʔepahal le hòo=nahoʔ
‘that door already opened’ (V. Bricker et al. 1998:100)
(28c) háʔatpah inw òok
‘my foot got scratched’ (V. Bricker et al. 1998:99)
(28d) p’ičpah uy ič
‘his eyes popped out’ (V. Bricker et al. 1998:229)
(28e) káʔah č’ulpak
‘it might get wet’ (V. Bricker et al. 1998:347)
INTRANSITIVE VERBS 135
3. OTHER INTRANSITIVES
Two other kinds of intransitives, positionals and affects, have unusual semantic properties that merit sep-
arate treatment. They are discussed in detail in Chapters 11 and 12.
4. PLURALIZATION
The suffix, -ob, marked the plural subjects of intransitive verbs and in that sense implied repeated action
(see 1.1. in Chapter 4). In addition, there was a distributive plural suffix, -lahal, that specified that such
actions took place one after another, instead of concurrently. The distributive plurals, ma(n)lahal and
tublahal, based on the root intransitives, malel/manel ‘to pass, pass by, move’ and tuubul ‘to forget,’ are
listed as entries in the Calepino de Motul, as well as maclahal and taklahal, which are based on the pas-
sives, maacal ‘to be covered, enclosed’ and taakal ‘to be fastened, stuck, adhered.’ The imperfective (-al) and
perfective (-i) stems of manlah appear in the following sentences in the Calepino:
(29a) hi=bal tac v tacapil be lic v manlahal
‘however many obstacles they pass [one by one] on the road’ (Ciudad Real 1600?: fol. 399r)
(29b) ma a ca=kalic2 a baex t a kebanex manlahie
‘don’t repeat your past sins that passed one by one!’ (Ciudad Real 1600?: fol. 63r)
An account of a smallpox epidemic in the Book of Chilam Balam of Tizimin mentions the use of the distribu-
tive plural with two other root intransitives, cim ‘to die, expire’ and lub ‘to fall’:
(30)
bin yanac chocuili
‘there is going to be fever there;
laobi ooxe
as for those scabs,
ti v cimlahal no[h] xi[b] cabobi
there the old men of the land die one after another;
bin lublahac kaki
pox will fall one after another there,
bin ix hokoc nucuch kak y okol uinicob
and there will emerge a great pox over people’ (Tizimin, n.d.: fol. 21v)
The imperfective stems of the same root intransitives are still in use in Modern Yucatec:
A Historical Grammar of the Maya Language of Yucatan (1557-2000) Page 24
