Variation and Change: The Case of Movement Verbs in Kaqchikel

Abstract

This paper describes a morphological change which is currently taking place in Kaqchikel, a Mayan language of Guatemala. Historically, verbal movement morphemes appear between the ergative and the absolutive pronominal prefixes (Abs—Mvmt—Erg—Verb Root). However, this paper documents a change in the movement construction wherein the movement morpheme appears next to the main verb root rather than between the pronominal prefixes (Abs—Erg—Mvmt—Verb Root). The use and distribution of these forms were examined in terms of sociological and geographic variables, as well as phonological ones. Results show that the current distribution of the new formation where the movement morpheme follows the ergative prefix is largely governed by phonological factors, namely, whether or not the morpheme break between the ergative and the absolutive aligns with a syllable boundary.