Tseltal Agreement Fragment

Agreement morphology for Tseltal (Tseltalan, Mayan). Tseltal and Tsotsil are closely related within the Tseltalan subgroup of Western Mayan, sharing most syntactic properties relevant to possessor extraction ([AP25]; [Pol13a]).

Main declarations

• Tseltal.ArgPosition with .case, .accCase: argument positions and their case (ergative-absolutive, no aspect split).
• Tseltal.setALinearity, Tseltal.setBLinearity: prefixal Set A, consistently suffixal Set B.
• Tseltal.setAExponent, Tseltal.setBExponent: Oxchuc Tseltal exponent tables ([Pol13a]).
• Tseltal.Extraction.realize: unmarked extraction (no Agent Focus).

Implementation notes

Tseltal has the same two agreement paradigms as Tsotsil: Set A (ERG/GEN) prefixes cross-reference the transitive agent and possessor; Set B (ABS) markers, consistently suffixal in Tseltal, cross-reference the absolutive argument (intransitive subject and transitive patient). The key difference from Tsotsil is Set B position — consistently suffixal in Tseltal, prefixal or suffixal by context in Tsotsil. 3rd person singular Set B has no overt exponent (∅). Grammatical-function classification is shared across Tseltalan (Mayan.Tseltalan).

Tseltalan languages are uniformly ergative-absolutive with no aspect-conditioned split (in contrast with Cholan; per [Pol13a]): Set A indicates A, Set B indicates S and P alike.

Argument positions

@[reducible, inline]

abbrev Tseltal.ArgPosition : Type

Argument positions in a Tseltal clause, aliased to the canonical Features.Prominence.ArgumentRole (S/A/P/R/T).

Equations

• Tseltal.ArgPosition = Features.Prominence.ArgumentRole

@[reducible, inline]

abbrev Tseltal.ArgPosition.case : ArgPosition → Case

Case assignment for Tseltal: Mayan.caseTseltalan .Perf (A → ERG, S/P → ABS). No aspect-conditioned split, so a single function covers perfective and non-perfective.

Equations

• Tseltal.ArgPosition.case = Mayan.caseTseltalan UD.Aspect.Perf

@[reducible, inline]

abbrev Tseltal.ArgPosition.accCase : ArgPosition → Case

Non-perfective case assignment for Tseltal: identical to perfective (no aspect split, [Pol13a]); provided for cross-Mayan shape-uniformity.

Equations

• Tseltal.ArgPosition.accCase = Mayan.caseTseltalan UD.Aspect.Imp

Absolutive position (LOW-ABS)

def Tseltal.absPosition : Mayan.ABSPosition

Tseltal's absolutive morphemes appear in low (post-stem) position, consistent with Tseltalan being LOW-ABS.

Equations

• Tseltal.absPosition = Mayan.ABSPosition.low

Agreement marker linearity

def Tseltal.setALinearity : Mayan.MarkerLinearity

Set A markers in Tseltal are prefixal (per [AP25] Table 1; pan-Mayan invariant).

Equations

• Tseltal.setALinearity = Mayan.MarkerLinearity.prefixal

def Tseltal.setBLinearity : Mayan.MarkerLinearity

Set B markers in Tseltal are consistently suffixal, contrasting with Tsotsil (prefixal or suffixal by context; [AP25] Table 1, footnote 9).

Equations

• Tseltal.setBLinearity = Mayan.MarkerLinearity.suffixal

Set A/B exponents (Oxchuc Tseltal)

def Tseltal.setAExponent : Mayan.ExponentTable

Set A (ERG/GEN) exponents for Oxchuc Tseltal ([Pol13a]): prefixes on the verb or possessed noun, shown as pre-C/pre-V allomorph pairs.

Equations

• One or more equations did not get rendered due to their size.

def Tseltal.setBExponent : Mayan.ExponentTable

Set B (ABS) exponents for Oxchuc Tseltal ([Pol13a]): suffixes on the verb stem; 3rd person singular is null (-∅).

Equations

• One or more equations did not get rendered due to their size.

theorem Tseltal.p3sg_abs_null : Agreement.Paradigm.realize setBExponent (Agreement.Cell.pn UD.Person.third UD.Number.Sing) = some "-∅"

3rd person absolutive is null — invariant across the standard Mayan branches per [KN84] Table 8. Not pan-Mayan: see Mam exception via Mayan.isStandard.

theorem Tseltal.setB_is_suffixal : setBLinearity = Mayan.MarkerLinearity.suffixal

Tseltal Set B differs from Tsotsil in linearity (suffixal vs prefixal-or-suffixal); the marker set assignment is identical.

Extraction marking

def Tseltal.Extraction.realize : Extraction.ExtractionTarget → List (Morphology.Reflex Empty)

No Agent Focus morphology is required for A-extraction, consistent with Tseltal being LOW-ABS.

Equations

• Tseltal.Extraction.realize x✝ = []

def Tseltal.Extraction.strategy : Extraction.ExtractionMarkingStrategy

WALS-style label: extraction is unmarked.

Equations

• Tseltal.Extraction.strategy = Extraction.ExtractionMarkingStrategy.unmarked