Split Ergativity and Word Order in Ch'orti'

Mayan Morphosyntax

“…Ch'ol's split pattern is triggered by progressive and imperfective aspects. Aspectual splits are also found in Ch'orti' (Quizar 1994), Poqom (Santos and Benito 1998); Yucatec (Bricker 1981), Mopan (Danziger 1996), Q'anjob'al (Mateo Toledo 2003Mateo Pedro 2009), Chuj (Buenrostro 2007); and Ixil (Larsen and Norman 1979); see Quizar andKnowles-Berry 1988 andLaw et al 2006 on splits in Ch'olan generally. Splits occur either only in the progressive (e.g.…”

“…Mayan languages are generally considered to be verb initial, though as discussed by Brody () and England (), defining ‘basic’ word order is not always straightforward. Especially in Yucatec, there has been debate over whether SVO or VOS is most basic (Durbin and Ojeda ; Gutiérrez Bravo and Monforte ; Skopeteas and Verhoeven ), and Quizar () lists SVO as basic in Ch'orti’. Because nominal arguments may be pro‐dropped, and because arguments front to preverbal position for topic and focus, the most frequently used order may not line up with a ‘discourse neutral’ order.…”