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Antipassive Constructions in the Maya Glyphic Texts
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- Source: Written Language & Literacy, Volume 3, Issue 1, Jan 2000, p. 155 - 180
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Abstract
The Classic Maya hieroglyphic texts of the Southern Lowlands provide morphological and syntactic evidence for antipassive constructions. Two sets of signs, wa/wi and ni, are involved in the relevant spellings, probably rendering suffixes of the shape -(V)w and -(V)n. These two suffixes are related to attested Tzeltalan and Ch’olan antipassive suffixes, and they have ancestors reconstructible for proto-Greater Tzeltalan. Other Mayan languages outside Greater Tzeltalan also have cognate -(V)w and -(V)n antipassive suffixes. The proto-Mayan ancestors have been reconstructed as *-(V)w and *-(V)n (Smith-Stark 1978) or *-(o)w ~ *-(a)w and *-o-an ~ *-an (Kaufman 1986).
© 2000 John Benjamins Publishing Company