The Jakaltek Popti’ noun classifier system
Changes due to Spanish contact
After having resisted adaptation in the 70s, the Jakaltek Popti’ (of the Q’anjob’alan branch of the Mayan family) noun classifier system has recently undergone extensive restructuring. These changes are largely due to the need that was felt to classify nouns for artifacts made of untraditional or new materials that have been incorporated into the culture, particularly nouns of Spanish origin. The absence of classifiers for these nouns meant an absence of anaphoric pronouns, in contrast to the obligatory article and pronominal forms organizing the vocabulary of the dominant colonial Spanish language through gender-marking. Discussions with the local branch of the Academy of Mayan Languages of Guatemala, the Jakaltek linguistic community, reveal their concern with revitalizing and standardizing the now clearly endangered Jakaltek Popti’.
References
Aikhenvald, Alexandra Y
2012 The Languages of the Amazon. Oxford: Oxford University Press.
Academia de Lenguas Mayas de Guatemala (Comunidad Lingüística Jakalteka)
2001a Stzotib’al Popti’. Vocabulario Jakalteko (Popti’). Ciudad de Guatemala.
Academia de Lenguas Mayas de Guatemala (Comunidad Lingüística Jakalteka)
2001b Ak’b’oj payat tzoti’ yul ab’xub’al popti’. Actualización lexical idioma maya jakalteko (Popti’). Ciudad de Guatemala.
Academia de Lenguas Mayas de Guatemala (Méndez Cruz, A.F.)
2001c Stxolb’anil Ab’xub’al Popti’. Gramática descriptiva jakalteka Popti’. Ciudad de Guatemala.
Berlin, Brent
1968 Tzeltal Numeral Classifiers: A Study in Ethnographic Semantics. The Hague: Mouton.
Bisang, Walter
1999 Classifiers in East and Southeast Asian languages: Counting and beyond. In
Numeral Types and Changes Worldwide,
Jadranka Gvozdanovic (ed.), 113-185. Berlin: Mouton de Gruyter.
Breitborde, Lawrence B
1973 Selection and Setting in Jacaltec Noun Classifier Usage. Paper presented at the summer meetings of the Linguistic Society of America. Ann Arbor MI.
Craig, Colette
1977 Jacaltec Syntax: A Study of Complex Sentences. Austin TX: University of Texas Press.
Craig, Colette
1979 Jacaltec: Fieldwork in Guatemala. In
Languages and Their Speakers,
Timothy Shopen (ed.), 3-57. Cambridge MA: Winthrop.
Craig, Colette
1987 Jacaltec noun classifiers: A study in grammaticalization,
Lingua 70(4): 241‑284.
Craig, Colette
1990 Los clasificadores de nombre en Jacalteco: una innovación kanjobalana. In
Lecturas sobre la lingüística maya,
Nora C. England &
Stephen R. Elliot (eds), 221-252. Antigua, Guatemala: CIRMA.
Craig, Colette
1992 Classifiers in a functional perspective. In
Layered Structure and Reference in a Functional Perspective: Papers from the Functional Grammar Conference, Copenhagen, 1990,
Michael Fortescue,
Peter Harder &
Lars Kristoffersen (eds), 277-303. Amsterdam: John Benjamins.
Day, Christopher
1973 The semantics of social categories in a transformational grammar of Jacaltec. In
Meaning in Mayan Languages,
Munro S. Edmonson (ed.), 85-105. The Hague: Mouton.
de León, Lourdes
1988 Noun and Numeral Classifiers in Mixtec and Tzotzil: A Referential View. PhD dissertation, University of Sussex.
Delgado Rojas, Edna Patricia, Silvestre Sanchez, José Aurelio, Silvestre Diaz, María Elizabeth & Ross Montejo, Antonio Benicio
2007 Stz’ib’nheb’anil ab’xub’al popti’. Gramática normativa Popti’. Guatemala City: Academia de Lenguas Mayas de Guatemala.
Dorian, Nancy C
2010 Investigating Variation: The Effects of Social Organization and Social Setting [Oxford Studies in Sociolinguistics]. Oxford: Oxford University Press.
England, Nora C
1992a Introducción a la lingüística: Idiomas mayas. Guatemala: PLFM, Editorial Cholsamaj.
England, Nora C
1992b Endangered languages: Doing Mayan linguistics in Guatemala.
Language 68(1): 29-35.
Goldwasser, Orly & Grinevald, Colette
2012 What are determinatives good for? In
Lexical Semantics in Ancient Egyptian [
Lingua Aegyptia Studia Monographica 9],
Eitan Grossman,
Stéphane Polis &
Jean Winand (eds), 17-53. Hamburg: Widmaier Verlag.
Grinevald, Colette
2000 A morpho-syntactic typology of classifiers. In
Systems of Nominal Classification,
Gunter Senft (ed.), 50-92. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.
Grinevald, Colette
2002 Linguistique et langues mayas du Guatemala. [
Faits de Langues 20]. Meso-Amérique, Caraïbes, Amazonie Volume 1: 17-27. Paris: Ophrys.
Grinevald, Colette
2006 Encounters at the brink: Linguistic fieldwork among speakers of endangered languages. In
The Vanishing Languages of the Pacific Rim, Chapter 3,
Osahito Miyaoka,
Osamu Sakiyama, &
Michael E. Krauss (eds), 35-76. Oxford: Oxford University Press.
Grinevald, Colette
2009 The (Jakaltek) Popti’ noun classifier system: From its origins to recent developments. The Diachrony of Classification Systems COST Workshop (Action A31), Paper given in Wassenaar, 12-14 March.
Grinevald, Colette
2010a Quarante ans de perspective sur deux langues en danger: Le jakaltek popti’ du Guatemala et le rama du Nicaragua. In
Linguistique de terrain sur langues en danger: Locuteurs et linguistes [
Faits de Langues 35-36],
Colette Grinevald &
Michel Bert (eds), 39-78. Paris: Ophrys.
Grinevald, Colette
2010b Linguistique de terrain sur LED: Locuteurs et méthodes. In
Linguistique de terrain sur langues en danger: Locuteurs et linguistes [
Faits de Langues 35-36],
Colette Grinevald &
Michel Bert (eds), 133-177. Paris: Ophrys.
Grinevald, Colette
2015 Classifiers, Linguistics of. In
International Encyclopedia of the Social and Behavioral Sciences, 2nd edn., Vol. 3,
James Wright (ed.), 811-818. Oxford: Elsevier.
Hopkins, Nicholas Arthur
1967 The Chuj Language. PhD dissertation, University of Chicago.
Hopkins, Nicholas Arthur
2012 The noun classifiers of the Cuchumatanes: A case of diffusion from Otomanguean.
International Journal of American Linguistics 78(3): 411-427.
Kaufman, Terrence S
1974 Idiomas de Mesoamérica [
Seminario de Integración Social Guatemalteca 33]. Guatemala City: Editorial José de Pineda Ibarra y Ministerio de Educación.
La Farge, Oliver & Byers, Douglas
1931 The Year Bearer’s People [
Middle American Research Institute Series 3]. New Orleans LA: Tulane University Press.
Lucy, John A
1996 Grammatical Categories and Cognition: A Case Study of the Linguistic Relativity Hypothesis. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.
Martin, Laura Ellen
1977 Positional Roots in Kanjobal. PhD dissertation, University of Florida.
Méndez Cruz, Atonio Feliciano
1997 Diccionario Popti’ (Jakalteko)-CASTELLANO Morfosemántico. Hej stzoti’al jab’xub’al. Ciudad de Guatemala: Nawal Wuj, NORAD.
Mithun, Marianne
1990 Language obsolescence and linguistic description.
International Journal of American Linguistics 56: 1-26.
Mithun, Marianne
2001 Who shapes the record: The speaker and the linguist. In
Linguistic Fieldwork,
Paul Newman &
Martha Ratcliff (eds), 34-54. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.
Montejo, Ruperto & De Nicholas, Pedro
1996 Gramática del idioma q’anjob’al. Antigua, Guatemala: Proyecto Lingüístico Francisco Marroquín.
Mora-Marín David F
2002 Full phonetic complementation, semantic classifiers, and semantic determinatives in ancient Maya hieroglyphic writing.
Ancient Mesoamerica 19(2): 195-213.
Rehg, Kenneth L
1981 Ponapean Reference Grammar [
PALI Language Texts: Micronesia]. Honolulu HI: University Press of Hawaii.
Seifart, Frank & Payne, Doris
2007 Nominal classification in the North West Amazon: Issues in areal diffusion and typological characterization.
International Journal of American Linguistics 73(4): 381-387.
Zavala Maldonado, Roberto
1989 Los clasificadores nominales del kanjobal de San Miguel Acatán: Esbozo gramatical y tipología de sistemas clasificatorios. Tesis de licenciatura. Escuela Nacional de Antropología e Historia. México, D.F.
Zavala Maldonado, Roberto
2000 Multiple classifier systems in Akatek (Mayan). In
Systems of Nominal Classification,
Gunter Senft (ed.), 114-146. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.
Cited by
Cited by 1 other publications
Chacon, Thiago Costa
2022.
Gender and Noun Class Markers in Kubeo (Tukanoan).
Faits de Langues 52:2
► pp. 11 ff.
This list is based on CrossRef data as of 21 april 2024. Please note that it may not be complete. Sources presented here have been supplied by the respective publishers.
Any errors therein should be reported to them.