Standing divided: dispositionals and locative predications in two Mayan languages
-
Jürgen Bohnemeyer
and
Penelope Brown
Abstract
The Mayan languages Tzeltal and Yucatec have large form classes of “dispositional” roots which lexicalize spatial properties such as orientation, support/suspension/blockage of motion, and configurations of parts of an entity with respect to other parts. But speakers of the two languages deploy this common lexical resource quite differently. The roots are used in both languages to convey dispositional information (e.g., answering “how” questions), but Tzeltal speakers also use them in canonical locative descriptions (e.g., answering “where” questions), whereas Yucatec speakers only use dispositionals in locative predications when prompted by the context to focus on dispositional properties. We describe the constructions used in locative and dispositional descriptions in response to two different picture stimuli sets. Evidence against the proposal that Tzeltal uses dispositionals to compensate for its single, semantically generic preposition (Brown 1994; Grinevald 2006) comes from the finding that Tzeltal speakers use relational spatial nominals in the “Ground phrase” — the expression of the place at which an entity is located — about as frequently as Yucatec speakers. We consider several alternative hypotheses, including a possible larger typological difference that leads Tzeltal speakers, but not Yucatec speakers, to prefer “theme-specific” verbs not just in locative predications, but in any predication involving a theme argument.
© Walter de Gruyter
Articles in the same Issue
- Introduction: The typology and semantics of locative predicates: posturals, positionals, and other beasts
- Four languages from the lower end of the typology of locative predication
- ‘To sit face down’ — location and position in Goemai
- Locative construction and positionals in Trumai
- Grounding objects in space and place: locative constructions in Tidore
- Why a folder lies in the basket although it is not lying: the semantics and use of German positional verbs with inanimate Figures
- Laz positional verbs: semantics and use with inanimate Figures
- The coding of topological relations in verbs: the case of Likpe (Sεkpεlé)
- Standing divided: dispositionals and locative predications in two Mayan languages
- Publications received between 2 June 2006 and 1 June 2007
- Author index to Linguistics, volume 45, 2007
Articles in the same Issue
- Introduction: The typology and semantics of locative predicates: posturals, positionals, and other beasts
- Four languages from the lower end of the typology of locative predication
- ‘To sit face down’ — location and position in Goemai
- Locative construction and positionals in Trumai
- Grounding objects in space and place: locative constructions in Tidore
- Why a folder lies in the basket although it is not lying: the semantics and use of German positional verbs with inanimate Figures
- Laz positional verbs: semantics and use with inanimate Figures
- The coding of topological relations in verbs: the case of Likpe (Sεkpεlé)
- Standing divided: dispositionals and locative predications in two Mayan languages
- Publications received between 2 June 2006 and 1 June 2007
- Author index to Linguistics, volume 45, 2007
