A Grammar of the Yucatecan Mayan Language
by David & Alejandra Bolles

PRONOUNS

30.  There are two major points about the pronouns in the Mayan language which sets them apart from the English pronouns. First and most important, there are two sets of personal pronouns in Mayan. Second, as already mention in other places, there is no differentiation in gender for the third person pronouns. The simplicity of the second point is more than made up for by the complexity of the first. We will try to lay out the rules which govern which of the two sets is to be used in any given situation with the hope that the reader will get a good feel of when each of the two sets should be employed. Some of these rules will be given in this chapter on pronouns. Others will be given in the chapter on verbs.

The two sets of personal pronouns are:

31.  Set A is used with certain verb tenses, prefixed sometimes by the time indicators c' or t'. The set is also used as possessive adjectives as already noted in the chapter on nouns. As personal pronouns this set is only used as the subject of a verb.

The first person plural c' and the time indicators c' and t' can be pronounced in three ways depending on custom and the word both preceding it and following it. It can be either tacked onto one of the words on either side of it in which case it is pronounced as a consonant belonging to that word or it can be pronounced by itself. If it pronounced by itself then it is pronounced with a clipped vowel, the value of which is a.

As mentioned in Section 4 in the paragraph about the consonants u and y, when Set A is used with a certain class of words which begin with vowels, then Set A uses the consonant u for the first and second person singular and second person plural, and the consonant y for the third person singular and plural:

The colonial grammars give this alternative Set A as follows:

However, it is not clear from the colonial Mayan texts such the Books of Chilam Balam that this was a standard rendering of this set, and in particular in the case of the first person singular, it seems to be unusual that the pronoun in should not be part of the construction. Perhaps though, due to contractions which seem to come into vogue and then go out of vogue again, there could have been a time, at the period when the Spanish friars were first writing Mayan Grammars, i.e. in the late 1500's, that this contraction of Set A was in vogue, but from comments by Fr. Pedro Beltran who wrote a grammar in the mid 1700's, this contraction seems no longer have been in use.

Below is an example of the use of Set A with the intransitive immediate present verb tense of the verb hokol (to come out). The translation of this tense is, "I am coming out" / "you are coming out" / etc.:

In this case the first person plural personal pronoun c' is appended to the auxiliary verb tan.

Set A as possessive adjectives, modifying "hanal" (food):

Here the first person plural pronoun c' is pronounced ca, with a clipped a.

Next is an example of the use of the alternative Set A given with the same tense in front of a verb beginning with a vowel, in this case the verb okol (to cry). The translation of this tense is, "I am crying" / "you are crying" / etc.:

Alternative Set A as possessive adjectives, modifying ich (face, eye):

Again, the first person plural pronoun c' is pronounced ca, with a clipped a. Note that there is nothing to indicate that "face" is plural in the plural paradigm, but from the context it would have to be plural.

In the colonial grammars the alternative Set A would be given as follows:

Here c' is appended directly to the following word as the consonant "c".

32.  The use of the time indicators c' and t' will be looked at more fully in the chapter on verbs. Generally c' is used for the habitual action tenses and t' for the past perfect tenses and the negation of the habitual action tenses. These time indicators are combined with Set A as follows:

An example of the use of the time indicator c' with Set A in the transitive habitual action verb tense for the verb betic (make, do). This tense is translated as, "I make" / "you make" / etc.:

Note that for the second and third person plural the contracted forms ca betceex and cu betcoob would be normally used in common speech.

Actually, the time indicator c' is derived from the contraction of the auxiliary verb lic / licil which has the meaning more or less of "now, at this moment". Its use is presently rarely heard, but it is used from time to time to add emphasis. For example, in the sentence:

Ma bey lic in ualic tech!     "Isn't that what I am telling you!"

the word lic adds emphasis to the phrase. Unemphasized the sentence is:

Ma bey cin ualic tech?     "Isn't that what I am telling you?"

The use of the words lic / licil is quite common in colonial texts, but the use of the contracted form is also quite common.

33.  Set B is used with verbal forms both as the subject or the object of the verb to which it is affixed. If the verb is either intransitive or passive then the pronoun is the subject, since of course there can be no direct objects for these verbs. If the verb is transitive then the pronoun is the object, either direct or indirect depending on total makeup of the sentence.

For the third person singular the -i is usually a subject and the -e the object:

34.  Set B is transformed into personal pronouns as follows:

For the third person singular and plural there are two pronouns each. Leti and letiob are generally used as subjects and direct objects and ti and tiob are used as indirect objects.

In colonial times Set B was also transformed into personal pronouns as follows:

Some examples of the various types of pronoun usages in sentences:

Ten cin yacunticech tumen tech ca yacunticen.   "I love you because you love me." Ten and tech are emphatic subjects and are not obligatory. That is, the sentence can get along without them. Cin and ca are obligatory subjects. -en and -ech are direct objects of the transitive verbs.

Ten cin dzic tech uah utial ca a uanten.   "I give you tortillas so that you help me." Ten is again an emphatic subject. Cin is the obligatory subject. Tech is the indirect object. Note that for some verbs the object is suffixed to the verb and for others, as in this case, it is a separate entity. The clause utial ca means here "so that": the individual parts utial and ca both have several meanings.

Letiob cu ppazticenoob.   "They are making fun of me." Letiob is again an emphatic subject. The sentence could stand by itself as: Cu ppazticenoob. In this sentence -en is the direct object. When an object is suffixed to the verb then the plural markers -eex and "-oob" are suffixed to the object as is done here.

Dzoc in ualic ti yan u betic tiob u hanal.   "I have already told him/her that he/she has to make them their food." The use of the dative case pronouns ti and tiobis shown.

35.  Set A is transformed into possessive pronouns by adding the suffix -tial:

36.  Set A combines with other particles to form special clauses. The following are the most common:

With etel (with) giving "with me" / "with you" / etc.:

Colonial sources, in particular the Motul dictionary, give this set as follows:

With olal (because of) giving "because of me" / "because of you" / etc.:

Also possible:

The colonial sources give this set as follows:

With men (because of) giving "because of me" / "because of you" / etc.:

In the colonial texts this is given as:

With icnal (beside, with) giving "beside me" or "with me" / "beside you" or "with you" / etc.:

The colonial sources give this set as follows:

37.  There is some variation in the Set A pronouns when they are combined with the various auxiliary verb tense indicators. Therefore these tense indicators are listed here with the personal pronouns. The use of these tense indicators will be seen in the chapter on verbs.

With dzoc (just); immediate past perfect:

Contracted:

Contracted dropping the dz:

With tan ("to be" as an auxiliary verb); immediate present:

Contracted:

Note that the contracted form of tan is with the exception of the first person plural the same as Set A with the time indicator t'.

With zuc (accustom); accustomed habitual:

With n- caah; immediate future:

Note that nin caah, na caah, etc. are contractions of bin in caah / bin a caah / etc. Nin caah can stand by itself and means "I am going." It is used when a person is ready to leave or in the act of leaving. The full form bin in caah / bin a caah / etc. is rarely used today and seems to be found mainly in formal speech. The colonial form binel in caah / binel a caah / etc. is quite common and the contracted form is not encountered, but then one could presume that written colonial Mayan is a reflection of formal speech. The personal pronoun in / a / u /etc. is used only with the transitive verbs; not with the intransitive and passive verbs. Thus:

With tac (want); desired future:

With kabet (need); necessitated future:

With yan ("to have" as an auxiliary verb); obligated future:

With he (will (predicate) if); conditional future:

Contracted:

With bin ("to go" as an auxiliary verb); definite future:

With bin, but as an interrogative definite future:

Normally this form is contracted in regular speech:

With bin but as a negated definite future:

Frequently this form is contracted in regular speech:

With ma (not) for those tenses where an auxiliary verb or a time indicator is not used the declension of Set A is as follows:

Contracted:

With ma (not) for those tenses in which the time indicators c' and t' are used:

With ma (not) for the contracted form of the immediate present tense:

Notice that in the last two paradigms only the 1st person plural is different.

38.  Set A combines with the reflexive suffix -ba (sometimes written -bah by modern authors) to form the reflexive pronouns "myself" / "yourself" / etc.:

Alternatively:

However, in our estimation, this alternative spelling is incorrect, because the h in -abaheex and -ubahoob is not, in our experience, pronounced.

Examples:

Tzelabaex!   "Make way!" (Literally: "One-side yourselves!")
Tin cantitzcinba uaye.   "I cross myself here."

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