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Journal of Undergraduate Research

Keywords

Mayan languages, *-e:r, adverbial deictic clitic, past tense

College

Humanities

Department

Linguistics and English Language

Abstract

Common Mayan had a suffix, *-e:r, which was an adverbial deictic clitic indicating past tense. (1) Its form and function remained fairly regular throughout the evolution of Common Mayan into more than 30 distinct languages. This study focuses on its evolution in the construction #-TIME-e:r, a Mayan phrase meaning “# days ago,” and that of its complementary phrase #-TIME, meaning “# days from now.” The most frequently occurring construction uses a form of the morpheme *-e:j “day,” as in Colonial Kaqchikel coh-eh-er “four days ago.”

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Linguistics Commons

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