Morphosyntactic features of progressive in the K’iche’an languages of the Mayan family

Abstract

The article deals with the morphosyntactic features of the aspectual category of progressive in K’iche’an languages. The analysis is carried out using methods of intragenetic typology. It is proposed to clarify Vinogradov’s classification of progressive in the Mayan languages in relation to the K’iche’an group. Three types of K’iche’an progressive as well as three strategies for the distribution of ergative–absolutive markers in the progressive are proposed. The boundary between the uniclausal and biclausal analyses of complex aspect constructions in Mayan languages is proposed. The application to K’iche’an languages Robert Dixon’s generalization for aspectually based split ergativity is also described. Three strategies of verb argument marking in the progressive constructions are determined. It was found out that all aspectually conditioned splits in the ergative–absolutive strategy of argument marking in K’iche’an languages are observed in progressive (or historically progressive) constructions.

Keywords

• mayan progressive
• split ergativity
• tense/aspect/modality
• argument marking