The Interclausal Relations Hierarchy in Q’eqchi’ Maya

Abstract

The interclausal relations hierarchy describes the systematic correlations that exist between the semantic structure of complement‐taking predicates and the morphosyntactic structure of their complements. In particular, the closer the semantic relation between the narrated events denoted by a predicate and its complement, the more the morphosyntactic encoding of the predicate–complement construction appears as a single clause. In this article, I describe the grammatical categories and complement types of verbal predicates in Q’eqchi’. I use these categories and complements to order predicate–complement constructions according to the degree to which their morphosyntactic expression looks like a single clause. I use this ordering to deduce a variety of covert semantic classes in Q’eqchi’. And I compare these Q’eqchi’‐specific classes of complement‐taking predicates to the cross‐linguistic expression of the interclausal relations hierarchy as theorized by Role and Reference Grammar.