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Linglib.Fragments.Mayan.Qanjobal.Agreement

Q'anjob'al Agreement and Case Fragment @cite{mateo-toledo-2008} @cite{imanishi-2020} #

Agreement morphology and case assignment for Q'anjob'al (Q'anjob'alan, Mayan), a high absolutive VSO language with aspect-based split ergativity. Per @cite{mateo-toledo-2008} p. 9, Q'anjob'al is in the "Q'anjob'alan group, Q'anjob'alan branch, Western division" of the Mayan family (citing England 1992:21, Kaufman 1974) — sister to the Cholan-Tzeltalan branch (where Chol lives) within Western Mayan.

The System #

Q'anjob'al has the same Set A (ergative) / Set B (absolutive) paradigm as other Mayan languages. Per @cite{mateo-toledo-2008} §1.3, ex. (35), the verbal predicate structure is:

Asp + (Particle) + Abs + (Particle) + Erg-Verb + (Particle) + (DIRs)

i.e., [Asp] [Abs Erg-Verb] — the high absolutive template. Compares to Chol's low-absolutive [Aux] [Erg-Verb-Abs] (per @cite{vazquez-alvarez-2011} §3.4).

Cross-language difference: aspect-marker word class #

A real difference between Cholan and Q'anjob'alan that the shared substrate caseExtErg does NOT capture: aspect-marker morphological status differs.

Despite this morphological difference, the alignment behavior is the same: split ergativity in any clause without an overt preverbal aspect marker (per @cite{mateo-toledo-2008} §1.1.1, citing Mateo 2004a/2007b), attributed to nominalization following Larsen & Norman 1979. The shared case-assignment table in Fragments.Mayan.caseExtErg captures the alignment convergence, not the morpheme-class convergence.

Descriptive vs analytical framing of the non-perfective pattern #

Identical situation to Chol. @cite{mateo-toledo-2008} §1.1.1 (p. 50) characterizes Q'anjob'al's non-perfective alignment as "nominative-accusative system (Dixon 1994:104)" — Set A/ergative morphemes mark BOTH transitive and intransitive subjects in aspectless contexts. The "extended ergative / Set A = GEN-from-D" framing is from formal-syntactic analyses (Coon 2013, Imanishi 2020), where Set A is analyzed as genitive licensed by D under nominalization. The substrate's extendedErgative.assignCase returns .gen (analytical view); a descriptive-grammar implementation would return .nom.

Why the shared substrate works #

@cite{mateo-toledo-2008} footnote 3 (p. 50): "in Q'anjob'alan languages, split ergativity is associated with the lack of an aspect marker (that is likely to be driven by nominalization, see Larsen and Norman 1979)." This is the same nominalization-driven mechanism Coon (2013) argues for Chol. The two languages converge on the alignment pattern via independent grammaticalization (sister branches of Western Mayan, no common-inheritance unit), which is why the substrate is named caseExtErg (the typological convergence) rather than after a single language family.

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@[reducible, inline]
abbrev Fragments.Mayan.Qanjobal.ArgPosition :
Type

Argument positions in a Q'anjob'al clause. Aliased to the canonical Features.Prominence.ArgumentRole (S/A/P/R/T) so cross-Mayan and cross-framework code shares one inventory. Use the canonical constructor names .A / .P / .S directly.

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    @[reducible, inline]
    abbrev Fragments.Mayan.Qanjobal.ArgPosition.case :
    ArgPosition → Core.Case

    Perfective case assignment for Q'anjob'al. Shared with Chol via Fragments.Mayan.ergCaseQanjobalan (= Alignment.ergative.assignCase).

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      @[reducible, inline]
      abbrev Fragments.Mayan.Qanjobal.ArgPosition.accCase :
      ArgPosition → Core.Case

      Non-perfective case assignment for Q'anjob'al. Shared with Chol via Fragments.Mayan.accCaseQanjobalan (= Alignment.extendedErgative.assignCase). The shared substrate makes the Chol/Q'anjob'al accusative-side parallel explicit by construction rather than coincidentally true.

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        def Fragments.Mayan.Qanjobal.absPosition :
        ABSPosition

        Q'anjob'al's absolutive morphemes appear in high position (on the aspect marker, pre-stem). Observable from morpheme order: ASP-ABS-ERG-ROOT-SUFFIX.

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          def Fragments.Mayan.Qanjobal.setAExponentPreC :
          PersonNumber → String

          Set A (ergative/possessive) markers: pre-consonantal allomorphs (@cite{coon-mateo-pedro-preminger-2014} table (13)).

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            def Fragments.Mayan.Qanjobal.setAExponentPreV :
            PersonNumber → String

            Set A (ergative/possessive) markers: pre-vocalic allomorphs (@cite{coon-mateo-pedro-preminger-2014} table (13)).

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              @[reducible, inline]
              abbrev Fragments.Mayan.Qanjobal.setAExponent :
              PersonNumber → String

              Canonical Set A exponent table for cross-Mayan typology. The pre-consonantal allomorph is the citation form; per-context realization uses setAExponentPreV before vowels.

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                def Fragments.Mayan.Qanjobal.setBExponent :
                PersonNumber → String

                Set B (absolutive) markers: suffixes (@cite{coon-mateo-pedro-preminger-2014} table (13)).

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                  theorem Fragments.Mayan.Qanjobal.p3sg_abs_null :
                  setBExponent PersonNumber.p3sg = "-∅"

                  3rd person absolutive is null (∅).

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                  theorem Fragments.Mayan.Qanjobal.p3sg_erg_allomorphy :
                  setAExponentPreC PersonNumber.p3sg = "s-" ∧ setAExponentPreV PersonNumber.p3sg = "y-"

                  3rd person ergative (pre-vocalic) is y-, pre-consonantal is s-.