Chuj Agent Focus and extraction marking

Chuj (Q'anjob'alan Mayan) fronts a focused phrase. A focused transitive subject requires the Agent Focus form of the verb, which adds -an to the stem, as in ix-il-an 'saw' with the woman who saw focused; a focused object leaves the verb in its transitive form, with Set A cross-referencing the subject, and a fronted intransitive subject or locative leaves the verb as it is. Alonso-Ovalle and Royer report these facts as background to their study of fronted yalnhej DPs.

Main declarations

• Chuj.agentFocus, Chuj.voice: the Agent Focus voice, and the voice of each Mayan.VerbForm.
• Chuj.verbForm: the form of a transitive verb by the argument extracted from it.
• Chuj.Extraction.realize: the reflexes the extraction from each site licenses.

References

• [AOR24]

def Chuj.agentFocus : Voice

Agent Focus keeps both core terms, as the active does, and is coded by -an.

Equations

• Chuj.agentFocus = Voice.agentVoice.marked [Morphology.Morph.suff "an"]

def Chuj.voice : Mayan.VerbForm → Voice

The voice of each form, the uncoded active for the transitive and Agent Focus for the Agent Focus form.

Equations

• Chuj.voice Mayan.VerbForm.transitive = Voice.active
• Chuj.voice Mayan.VerbForm.agentFocus = Chuj.agentFocus

def Chuj.verbForm (extracted : Option ArgumentRole) : Mayan.VerbForm

A transitive verb takes the Agent Focus form when its subject is extracted, and the transitive form otherwise.

Equations

• Chuj.verbForm extracted = if extracted = some ArgumentRole.A then Mayan.VerbForm.agentFocus else Mayan.VerbForm.transitive

def Chuj.Extraction.realize : Mayan.ExtractionSite → Option (Finset (Reflex Mayan.Host))

The extraction of an argument is marked when it changes the form of the verb, by the marker of the voice it selects, so that only a transitive subject switches the verb to Agent Focus; a locative fronts with no change to the verb. The recipient and the other adjuncts are undescribed.

Equations

• One or more equations did not get rendered due to their size.
• Chuj.Extraction.realize (Mayan.ExtractionSite.argument ArgumentRole.R) = none
• Chuj.Extraction.realize (Mayan.ExtractionSite.adjunct Mayan.Adjunct.locative) = some ∅
• Chuj.Extraction.realize (Mayan.ExtractionSite.adjunct a) = none

theorem Chuj.Extraction.agentFocus_mem_realize_iff (s : Mayan.ExtractionSite) : (∃ m ∈ realize s, Reflex.morpheme Mayan.Host.verb agentFocus.marker ∈ m) ↔ s = Mayan.ExtractionSite.argument ArgumentRole.A

The Agent Focus reflex appears exactly under the extraction of a transitive subject.