Yucatec Maya: Variation in Space and Time
Applied Linguistics, Computational Linguistics
Final Report Abstract
The goal of this project was to investigate sources of variation in contemporary Yucatec Maya. The broader aim was to strengthen the interface between linguistic theories and empirical tools for deriving inferences from rich data. To achieve this, the project developed data resources to study language variation and tested grammatical models' predictions concerning the sources of variation in specific grammatical phenomena. A key outcome of the project is the Atlas of Yucatec Maya, an online resource providing tools for retrieval, visualization, and statistical analysis of dialectal data. Data was collected from 86 locations (176 speakers) across the Yucatecan peninsula, where participants translated 664 prompts from Spanish to Yucatec Maya, addressing questions of dialectal variation in the lexicon and all layers of grammar (phonology, morphology, syntax). Using this resource, the project identified major dimensions of variation in geographical space, revealing a dialectal continuum with significant variation along the East-West axis. The data also showed that variation patterns differ crucially in minority languages: unlike dominant languages, where urban varieties are prestigious, minority languages are more vivid in rural contexts. This difference is reflected in spatial diffusion patterns that can be diagnosed in the effect of population size in the prediction of dialectal variants. Further studies examined sources of variation in specific grammatical phenomena, focusing on major constructions of Yucatec Maya extensively researched in Mayan linguistics. A study on numeral classifiers tested the predictions of different syntactic models of these constructions regarding the spatial distribution of related dialectal variants. Studies on the expression of plurality revealed that the source of optionality lies in properties of the noun denotation. An experimental study on agent-focus constructions demonstrated that structurally-determined variation (between different agent focus constructions) is basically related to speaker density and as such, only indirectly determined by spatial variation (between different dialectal areas).
Publications
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Discontinuous noun phrases in Yucatec Maya. Journal of Linguistics, 58(3), 609-648.
Skopeteas, Stavros; Verhoeven, Elisabeth & Fanselow, Gisbert
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Collective Corpus of Yucatec Maya (CoCoYum) Berlin: Humboldt-Universität zu Berlin.
Verhoeven, Elisabeth; Lehmann, Nico & Blum, Frederic
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Yucatec Maya Dialect Atlas (Version 2.1.0) [Data set]. Zenodo
Blaha Pfeiler, Barbara
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Atlas of Yucatec Maya Online. Online resource. Version 0.0.1
Blaha Pfeiler, Barbara; Skopeteas, Stavros & Verhoeven, Elisabeth
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Discourse-Independent Variation in V-Initial Constituent Order : The Yucatec Mayan Preverbal Domain Revisited. R. Hörnig, S. von Wietersheim, A. Konietzko and S. Featherston (eds.) Proceedings of Linguistic Evidence 2020: Linguistic Theory Enriched by Experimental Data. Tübingen: University of Tübingen. 459–477.
Lehmann, Nico & Verhoeven, Elisabeth
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Sources of convergence in indigenous languages: Lexical variation in Yucatec Maya. PLOS ONE, 17(5), e0268448.
Blaha Pfeiler, Barbara & Skopeteas, Stavros
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La variación del maya yucateco en la percepción de hablantes nativos. Estudios de Cultura Maya, 62, 297-326.
Canché, Teh Bella Flor; Blaha Degler, Barbara & Skopeteas, Stavros
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Optionality, variation and categorial properties. Studies in Language Companion Series, 284-314. John Benjamins Publishing Company.
Yu, Yidong
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Pluralizing Entities and Events in Yucatec Maya. PhD Dissertation, University of Göttingen
Yu, Yidong
