Two Routes to the Mayan VOS: From the View of Kaqchikel

Abstract

There are two major proposals regarding how to derive the VOS word order in the Mayan family. One is a right-specifier analysis, according to which specifiers of lexical categories are located to the right of the heads and the subject occupies a right-specifier. The other is a predicate fronting analysis, in which vP is preposed across the subject. Comparing two Mayan languages, Chol and Kaqchikel, this paper argues that Kaqchikel reaches VOS via a right-specifier route rather than a predicate fronting route, and suggests a possibility of extending the right-specifier analysis to Chol VOS sentences.