Academic literature on the topic 'Yucatec Maya language'

The aim of this paper is to outline the means for encoding information structure in Yucatec Maya. Yucatec Maya is a tone language, displaying a three-fold opposition in the tonal realization of syllables. From the morpho-syntactic point of view, the grammar of Yucatec Maya contains morphological (topic affixes, morphological marking of out-of-focus predicates) and syntactic (designated positions) means to uniquely specify syntactic constructions for their information structure. After a descriptive overview of these phenomena, we present experimental evidence which reveals the impact of the nonavailability of prosodic alternatives on the choice of syntactic constructions in language production.

Against the background of worldwide processes of language abandonment that are taking place at an unprecedented and rapid pace, in the last two decades language revitalisation has become an ever more prominent area of academic research. This thesis looks at the ideological underpinnings of Yucatec Maya language promotion in the Yucatán Peninsula of Mexico, based on the discourses of both official institutions and grassroots actors. After introducing the historical processes that have led to the present sociolinguistic minorisation of speakers of Maya in the Yucatán Peninsula, I analyse salient themes for language policy and planning pointed out by activists and institutions. Both official and grassroots discourses gathered in the field overwhelmingly revolve around the key concepts of revalorisation and rescate. These notions undergird the strategies that most participants consider as necessary for Maya language promotion, namely, the drafting of specific language legislation; the use of Maya in the education system; and an emphasis on the development of literacy in Maya. While policies in these areas may have a positive impact on raising the status and public profile of Maya and may lead to its legitimation, I argue that they present considerable limitations for actual revitalisation, which I believe should be part of a wider sociopolitical movement coming from the grassroots. On the one hand, vertical language policies that emanate from official institutions, the school being a prominent one, have been central in the cultural and linguistic assimilation to Spanish of indigenous peoples in Mexico. On the other hand, institutional policies that replicate the essentialist tenets of hegemonic languages on minorised languages, such as standardisation, actually devalue plurilingual and mixed practices on the ground and raise the issue of purism, which in the case of Yucatán may be contributing to language shift to Spanish and hindering the revitalisation process. Seen as an alternative and complementary project that comes above all from the ground up, I maintain that grassroots language promotion beyond institutional settings and control is effectively working towards the revitalisation of Maya. Along these lines, the use of this language in social media and modern music genres by youths, as part of their expanding communicative repertoires and heteroglossic practices on the ground, is opening up promising spaces for its maintenance and reproduction.

The investigation analyses the grammatical and semantic properties of a number of commonly occurring time words in Lakandon Maya, the least described of the four existing Yukatekan languages spoken in southern Mexico and in parts of Guatemala and Belize. Lakandon Maya has around 800 speakers who live in one of two settlements in the southeastern lowlands of Chiapas, Mexico. The language materials that the analysis rests on were collected by the author in the field as part of a documentation effort supported and funded by the Endangered Languages Documentation Programme (ELDP) at SOAS, University of London. In Lakandon Maya, deictic time words such as 7uhch ('before', 'long ago') and ka7chik ('before', 'previously') have pragmatically dependent features of meaning that relate to the indexical ground rather than the before-after relations relevant to time reference proper. The salient meaning in the two forms can best be described in terms of knowledge asymmetries between the speech participants. However, such modal-like semantics do not exclude the forms from being considered as operators of time reference since they are only used in specific temporal contexts. The results of the investigation point to a shift in meaning in the forms that cannot be anticipated from the available literature on other Yukatekan languages. There, cognates of the investigated forms have been described solely as temporal operators with simultaneous, anterior, and posterior meaning. The investigation argues for a separation between time words that uses the speech situation as the sole point of reference and time words that denote a relation between two events. This separation is defined in terms of speaker-dependent and event-dependent time reference. These concepts are analogous to absolute and relative time reference but should be considered as separate due to the pragmatic motivations that underlie the function and use of the forms.

Dans cette thèse, je montre que la production de la glottalisation dans l’espagnol parlé au Yucatán, Mexique, se manifeste différemment selon sa position dans le mot et selon la compétence linguistique du locuteur. La consonne glottale à l’intervocalique se distingue d’une glottalisation en finale par des variations de la glotte. Ces différences physiologiques sont confirmées dans ce travail par l’analyse des signaux de parole et laryngographiques. Les différences se manifestent par un DEV (durée d'établissement du voisement) de la consonne glottale significativement inférieur à celui des occlusives glottalisées chez tous les locuteurs Yucatèques et une réponse du bruit de l’explosion (résonance) plus faible. Ce dernier effet résulte de décalage temporel qui s’établit entre les articulateurs de la cavité buccale et ceux de la glotte pour la production des occlusives glottalisées. La fréquence d’énergie de l’explosion et la durée des occlusives glottalisées et de la consonne glottale sont influencées par leur position dans le mot. Elles varient aussi en fonction des locuteurs (bilingue-monolingue). La consonne glottale (entre deux voyelles ou en position finale), considérée par des phonéticiens mayanistes comme une occlusive glottale, est produite comme une fricative glottale à l’intervocalique, comme une fricative ou une occlusive glottale en finale par les Yucatèques<br>In this dissertation, I demonstrate that the realization of the Spanish glottalization accounted for in Yucatán, México, differs depending on its position in the word and the linguistic ability of the speaker. The glottalization of an intervocalic stop is distinguished from a final glottalization by a distinct action of the glottis. I document these physiological differences by acoustic analyses and by the use of laryngography. The discrepancy in question appears in the VOT (voice-onset time), which is significantly shorter for glottal consonant than for the glottalized stops of all Yucatecan speakers. Likewise, the explosive noise response (resonance) is wea-er in the glottal stop. This last effect results from a temporal shift that is established between the articulators of the oral cavity and the glottis to produce these glot-talized stops. The location of ener-gy concentration of the explosion and the duration of the glottalized stop and glottal consonant are influenced by their position in the word. They also vary according to whether the speaker is bilingual or mono-lingual. The glottal consonant (between two vowels or in initial or final position) considered by some mayan phoneticians as a glottal stop, is produced more like a glottal fricative in initial position and like a glottal stop or a glottal fricative in final position by Yucatecan<br>En esta tesis, pongo de manifiesto que la producción de la glotalización en el español hablado en Yucatán, Méjico, se manifiesta diferentemente según su posición en la palabra y según la competencia lingüística del locutor. La consonante glotal entre dos vocales se distingue de una glotalización en final por varia-ciones de la glotis. Estas diferencias fisiológicas son confirmadas en este trabajo por el análisis de las señales de la voz y laryngográficas. Las diferencias se manifiestan por un VOT (voice-onset time) de la consonante glotal significativamente inferior al de las oclusivas glotalizadas en todos los locutores Yucatecos y una respuesta del ruido de la explosión (resonancia) más escasa. Este último efecto resulta del desfase temporal que se establece entre los articuladores de la cavidad oral y los de la glotis para la producción de las oclusivas glotalizadas. La frecuencia de energía de la explosión y la duración de las oclusivas glotalizadas y de la consonante glotal son influidas por su posición en la palabra. Varían también en función de los locutores (bilingüe-monolingüe). La consonante glotal (entre dos vocales o en posición inicial o final), considerada por unos foné-ticos mayanistas como una oclu-siva glotal, es producida más a menudo como una fricativa glotal entre dos vocales y como una oclu-siva o una fricativa en posición final por los Yucatecos

Par une approche linguistique et ethnologique, l'auteur etudie la facon dont les mayas yucateques contemporains - en particulier les mayas crusoob (quintana roo, mexique), expriment dans leur langue leurs experiences de la temporalite. Le premier versant du travail etudie les modes d'expression de la temporalite determines par la structure de la langue, leurs regles d'usage ainsi que l'organisation conceptuelle qu'ils sous-tendent. Il est procede a l'analyse detaillee de la morphologie verbale et de son systeme complexe de marques aspecto-modales, ainsi qu'a celle des adverbes temporels, appartenant a un ensemble plus large de deictiques relatifs aux domaines de la determination, la participation a l'enonciation, l'espace et la modalite. L'analyse explicite plusieurs traits morphologiqueset semantico-pragmatiques communs aux deux systemes ; elle revele differents cadres temporels de reference ainsi qu'un lien intime entre l'expression de la temporalite et celle des statuts discursif et epistemique de l'information. Le second versant envisage plus precisement la facon dont s'operent les choix linguistiques des locuteurs, grace a l'etude de discours de types distincts, allant de laconversation au recit mythique, retranscrits et traduits dans le second tome. Le domaine de l'histoire collective est traite de facon plus approfondie. Cette analyse permet de definir des types de choix linguistiques, depuis ceux prescrits par l'usage commun jusqu'a ceux personnels, revelant comment les locuteurs peuvent detourner les regles habituelles. Elle donne des clef nouvelles pour la definition de genres du discours. Elle met enfin en evidence certaines formes de conceptualisation profonde des evenements dans la culture maya yucateque : le caractere definitoire du parcours dans les actes de creation, la valeur des paroles prophetiques, le statut des evenements historiques determine par la double relation temporelle cyclique/lineaire, le lien entre temps et savoir.

The Linguistic Interdependence Hypothesis as developed by Cummins (1978) argues that certain first language (L1) knowledge can be positively transferred during the process of second language (L2) acquisition. The L1 linguistic knowledge and skills that a child possesses can be extremely instrumental to the development of corresponding abilities in the L2. An integral component of these facilitative aspects of language influence is that the L1 be sufficiently developed prior to the extensive exposure to the L2 as would be found, for example, in an educational environment. An additional theoretical framework that has motivated this study incorporates principles of Universal Grammar, namely, that there are innate properties of language shared by the human species, and that language acquisition is the result of the interaction between these biologically determined aspects of language with the learner's linguistic environment. The principal goal of this dissertation is to examine children's knowledge of one area of Yucatec Maya L1 syntax, specifically, the word order of simple transitive sentences. By means of an experiment conducted with 28 Mayan children of 4 and 5 years of age, data were gathered and analyzed. Overall, the findings suggest that the subjects of the study are still in the process of acquiring the syntactic structure under investigation, that their L1 is still developing. Very few of the subjects demonstrated mastery of the structure under investigation. With regards to pedagogical concerns within the context of minority language education, the potentiality for these findings to enhance or inhibit the subsequent acquisition of Spanish as an L2 is examined.