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- Volume 3, Issue, 2000
Written Language & Literacy - Volume 3, Issue 1, 2000
Volume 3, Issue 1, 2000
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Numeral Classifiers and Counted Nouns in the Classic Maya Inscriptions
Author(s): Martha J. Macripp.: 13–36 (24)More LessYucatecan, Ch’olan, and Tzeltalan languages have numeral classifiers which obligatorily follow numbers. Although such classifiers are not present in every number expression, several numeral classifiers occur frequently in the Classic Maya inscriptions. The most common of them, the period glyphs, constitute a feature which distinguishes Maya inscriptions from Mixe-Zoquean inscriptions, since the classifiers required in Mayan languages do not occur in Mixe-Zoquean languages. Any glyph immediately following bar/dot numbers should be examined carefully for that possibility. Several morphemes which immediately follow numbers are discussed here, and evaluated for the likelihood of their having functioned as classifiers.
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Issues of Language and Ethnicity in the Postclassic Maya Codices
Author(s): Gabrielle Vailpp.: 37–75 (39)More LessResearchers have long attributed the prehispanic Maya codices to a Yucatecan provenience, based on their style and on the occurrence of Yucatec words spelled phonetically in the glyphic texts. This interpretation has recently been challenged by two studies that demonstrate the presence of Ch’olan vocabulary and morphological features in the Dresden and Madrid codices, alongside the better known Yucatec spellings (Wald 1994, Lacadena 1997). The present study identifies the linguistic affiliation of lexical items in the codical texts (Yucatecan, Ch’olan, or indeterminate), and charts the distribution of Yucatecan and Ch’olan terms in the Madrid Codex as a means of identifying patterns of usage. Several models are examined to account for the linguistic diversity of the manuscript, including (a) possible bilingualism of scribes; (b) lexical borrowing; (c) errors introduced by copying; and (d) the likelihood that certain glyphs were logographic, and could have different values depending on the language being recorded. It is argued that the Madrid Codex was drafted by Yucatecan scribes who were influenced in various ways by Ch’olan speakers — a situation comparable to the use of Spanish loanwords in the Colonial Books of Chilam Balam.
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Bilingualism in the Maya Codices and the Books of Chilam Balam
Author(s): Victoria R. Brickerpp.: 77–115 (39)More LessThe bilingualism recently discovered in the Maya codices by Robert Wald and Alfonso Lacadena has parallels in the Colonial Maya Books of Chilam Balam, which show both linguistic and scriptural bilingualism — involving, on the one hand, the Maya and Spanish languages, and on the other, the logosyllabic and alphabetic scripts of these two cultures. The article explores the continuities and discontinuities in these language contact phenomena with respect to vocabulary, morphology, syntax, spelling conventions, style, and text format.
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Temporal Deixis in Colonial Chontal and Maya Hieroglyphic Narrative
Author(s): Robert F. Waldpp.: 123–153 (31)More LessComparison of a set of Colonial Acalan Chontal documents with inscriptions of the Classic period reveals that a deictic enclitic -ihi or -iji(y) occurs on verbs in similar contexts in both bodies of texts. Certain forms of this clitic have been interpreted elsewhere as inflection for aspect, or as a different temporal clitic from that proposed here. This investigation confirms that the element is an adverbial clitic, and thus allows its identification in otherwise unrecognized instances. While serving as an integral part of the discourse pattern, it also helps demarcate more clearly the lines between aspect and time in the verb systems under study. In a broader view, this proposal carries implications both for the nature of Classic Maya historical narrative and for the identity of the languages in which it was written.
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Antipassive Constructions in the Maya Glyphic Texts
Author(s): Alfonso Lacadenapp.: 155–180 (26)More LessThe 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).
Volumes & issues
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Volume 26 (2023)
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Volume 25 (2022)
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Volume 24 (2021)
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Volume 23 (2020)
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Volume 22 (2019)
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Volume 21 (2018)
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Volume 20 (2017)
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Volume 19 (2016)
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Volume 18 (2015)
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Volume 17 (2014)
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Volume 16 (2013)
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Volume 15 (2012)
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Volume 14 (2011)
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Volume 13 (2010)
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Volume 12 (2009)
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Volume 11 (2008)
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Volume 10 (2007)
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Volume 9 (2006)
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Volume 8 (2005)
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Volume 7 (2004)
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Volume 6 (2003)
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Volume 5 (2002)
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Volume 4 (2001)
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Volume 3 (2000)
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Volume 2 (1999)
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Volume 1 (1998)
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