Split Ergativity in the History of the Ch’olan Branch of the Mayan Language Family

Abstract

An unchallenged assumption regarding the linguistic history of the Ch’olan branch of the Mayan language family is that this common language was “split ergative”—demonstrating an ergative/absolutive pattern of pronominal inflection in the completive aspect and a nominative/accusative pattern in the incompletive. Such a hypothesis is untenable in light of the data, which show that the Ch’olti’an branch of Ch’olan did not share in the split ergative innovation. To support this conclusion, the evolutionary history of tense/aspect in each of the modern Ch’olan languages is presented. From a straight ergative ancestral system, a typologically plausible series of changes can account for various systems found in the modern languages. No such account is possible if scholars assume a split ergative system for Common Ch’olan.