Volume 66, Issue 1 -

We examine the known typology of laryngeal complexity (SILVERMAN 1997a, b) in light of phonetic research (FRAZIER 2009) showing that Yucatec Maya uses contrastive tone and phonation type. The phonetic patterns in YM suggest that articulatory incompatibility is the most important factor in enforcing the phasing of tone and non-modal phonation, but that perceptual factors account for the distribution of phasing patterns. Furthermore, YM is similar to the unrelated languages Danish and Acoma which show that creaky voice conditions preceding high pitch. We motivate future research on cross-linguistic differences in the production of creak and its interaction with pitch and gender.

This paper presents an analysis and description of the syntax of free relative clauses in Yucatec Maya, the Mayan language spoken in the Yucatán Peninsula in Mexico. The description and analysis focus on two structural properties of these free relative clauses; a) the internal nature of the relative pronoun, and, b) the absence of matching effects observed in Yucatec free relatives when a prepositional phrase is relativized. I show that these two phenomena receive a unified description in an analysis where Yucatec, in contrast with a language like English, allows the head of the noun phrase to be null.

In this article, we examine the omnipredicativity hypothesis (LAUNEY 1994, 2004) in the context of Yucatec Maya. The hypothesis implies three requirements: 1) most words are predicative, 2) the focus of a sentence is its main predicate, 3) arguments are subordinate predicates of the main predicate. Based on the analysis of the personal indexation patterns, morphosyntactic and semantic properties of non-verbal predicates, the use of the existential yàan and various focus constructions, we provide evidence supporting that requirements 1 and 2 apply to Yucatec.

Levy, Paulette & Beck, David (eds.), Las lenguas totonacas y tepehuas. Textos y otros materiales para su estudio , (Estudios sobre Lenguas Americanas 5), México, D.F.: Universidad Nacional Autónoma de México, 2012.