Chapter 14: Directionals and Verbs of Motion

Starting point#

A Tz'ikin is waiting with Ana at the roadside in Tecpán. A Tojil is due from Sololá, and Tz'ikin and Ana are going on to Comalapa.

Find every pe, el, apo, kan, qa and wi in this dialogue. Each one is a directional or a location particle, and each one follows a verb. That placement is the first rule of the chapter.

How it works#

What a directional is#

A directional is a short uninflected particle that follows a verb and tells you the direction in which the event is oriented, usually relative to the speaker. The grammar summary of the source calls them "directional particles" or auxiliaries; they never take person marking and never change for tense. Six are well attested:

A seventh, ok "in, inward", is listed in the outline of verbs of motion; the source attests it only in a single example with the verb "enter" (Xinok ok pa tuj "I went into the sweatbath"), but the reference grammar lists ok "inward" among the directionals, and the sequel grammar counts it as a full member of the set, with the same doubling: Xok ok pa rujul ri umül "The rabbit went into its hole" (Kik'aslemal ri Kaqchikela', draft, p. 230). So it is real, just rare; this book does not practice it.

Five of the six are transparently related to verbs: pe to -pe "come", el to -el "leave", qa to -qa "go down", kan to -kanäj "stay, remain", apo to -apon "arrive there". Aqanäj "up" is the odd one out: it comes from no Kaqchikel verb (its closest relative is a K'iche' verb of ascending), and the sequel grammar treats it as an adverb pressed into directional service rather than a directional proper. Knowing the sources of the particles helps you feel their meaning.

Where the directional goes#

The directional stands immediately after the verb word, before any object, complement or prepositional phrase. Here is one example in full, then two more in a glossing table:

x-Ø-u-ya'   kan   ri  ru-wuj
COMPL-3sB-3sA-put   DIR   the  3sA-paper
"she left her papers (behind)"

Two other small words compete for the slot right after the verb: the trace particle wi (Chapter 5) and the irrealis ta (Chapter 19). When wi and a directional both appear, wi comes first and the directional second: ¿Akuchi' xaya' wi kan ri apo't? "Where did you leave your blouse?"; ¿Akuchi' xel wi pe ri ya'? "Where did the water come out from?". When a negative ta and a directional both appear, ta likewise precedes: Man xuk'ayij ta el ri ixim "He didn't sell off the corn"; Man xink'äm ta pe "I didn't bring it". Remember the order as VERB + wi / ta + DIRECTIONAL + the rest.

pe: toward here#

Pe points the action at the speaker or at "here". With verbs of motion it means "hither"; with verbs of transfer it means "to me / to us"; with verbs that are not about motion at all it marks an event arriving into the speaker's present.

Non-motion uses are common and worth learning as set phrases:

-pe is also the verb "come", and when it is conjugated in its own right no extra pe follows it: Nipe ri jöb' "The rain is coming", Xepe ri winaqi' "The people came". The particle and the verb are two different words that happen to look alike.

el: away, out#

El points away from the scene. With intransitives of motion it is "out, off"; with transitives it marks the object moving away from the subject, so it appears with "sell", "pour out", "throw out", "send away".

By the same pattern -k'äm "bring, take" plus el means "take away" (xuk'äm el "he took it away"); the conversational source does not happen to show that combination, but the reference grammar and the colonial chronicles both use it, so you may too. For "take it (along)" the source prefers -k'waj: Tak'waj "Take it".

Like -pe, -el is also a verb, "leave, go out"; xel el "he went out" is verb plus particle.

apo: toward there#

Apo points away from the speaker toward a third location or person, and it can carry a sense of "across, over there, on ahead". It is especially frequent with "say" and "look":

The difference between pe and apo is the difference between "this way" and "that way". Tab'ij pe chwe "tell me", Tab'ij apo chre "tell her". If Ana asks Tz'ikin to pass her the salt, it is Taya' pe chwe; if she asks him to pass it to Tojil at the far end of the table, it is Taya' apo chre.

kan: remaining, left behind#

Kan marks that something stays while the action or the actor moves on. With "put, give" it yields "leave"; with "stay" it reinforces staying; with "write, keep, put out" it means the result remains after you walk away.

Kan is also used with expressions of time reckoned into the past: kaji' q'ij kan "four days ago", waqi' q'ij kan "six days ago", ojer kan "long ago", ojer ojer kan "long, long ago" (the stock opening of a tale). The logic is the same: that time is behind us, left in place. Its mirror image is apo for time ahead: the source has wuqub'ix apo "seven days from now", juna' apo "next year", and chwa'q kab'ij apo "from tomorrow on"; oxi' q'ij apo "three days from now" follows the same pattern.

Do not confuse directional kan with the intensifying adverb kan "really, very", which comes before an adjective or verb rather than after a verb: kan jeb'ël "really pretty", kan qitzij "truly". When kan follows a verb it is the directional; when it precedes a predicate it is the intensifier. (Chapter 8 treats the intensifier.)

qa: down, completely#

Qa points downward, and from "down" it extends to "to the end, completely". With "sleep" it gives "fall asleep"; with "lose, finish" it gives "vanish, run out".

-qa the verb and qa the particle combine happily: Xqa qa "it fell down".

aqanäj: up#

Aqanäj is the mirror image of qa, much less frequent, and found with verbs of rising:

The source glossary spells the directional aqanäj (with dialect variants aqanej, aqanij) and the body-part noun "leg, foot" aqanaj; despite the likeness, the two are different words. The sequel grammar explains why this "up" word behaves differently from the other particles: -jote' "go up" is derived from a positional root, not a root verb of motion, so no verb was there to shorten into a directional; instead an adverb "up" (which it spells aqanïj, cognate with a K'iche' verb of ascending) fills the slot (Kik'aslemal ri Kaqchikela', draft, p. 233).

The verbs of motion#

Here are the core intransitive verbs of coming and going. All are ordinary intransitives conjugated with Set B (absolutive), the set that marks the subject of an intransitive verb (Chapter 10). Note which ones are vowel-initial, because that changes the shape of the Set B prefix (at-, in-, e'- before a vowel; a-, i-, e- before a consonant). One form fully worked:

x-oj-apon
COMPL-1pB-arrive.there
"we arrived (there)"

y-in-el
INCOMPL-1sB-leave
"I leave, I go out"

The full table:

Two pairs deserve a closer look.

-apon vs -oqa. English "arrive" covers both; Kaqchikel splits it by viewpoint. -apon is "arrive there", at a place away from the speaker; -oqa is "arrive here", at the speaker's location. Tz'ikin, standing in Tecpán, says Xoqa ri a Tojil "Tojil has arrived (here)", but of his own trip he will say Xojapon Chiq'a'l "we arrived in Comalapa (there)". The source glosses -oqa wawe' as "arrive here, come", and gives the hortative Kinoqa wawe' "let me arrive here".

-b'e vs -pe. -b'e "go" and -pe "come" likewise divide the world by the speaker's position. Yib'e pa k'ayb'äl "I'm going to the market"; Xpe ri jöb' "The rain came". Note the spelling: -pe keeps its vowel tense in every form.

A note on 3rd-person incompletives: nqa (no i) because -qa begins with a consonant cluster that Kaqchikel tolerates, while nib'e, nitzolin insert i before b', tz and most other consonants. Follow the source's spelling for each verb rather than a single rule.

"Go to a place": pa, chi, and bare place names#

After a verb of motion, a common noun naming the destination takes the preposition pa "in, at, to": Yib'e pa k'ayb'äl "I'm going to the market", Xojb'e pa nimaq'ij "We went to the festival", Xeb'e pa juyu' "They went to the countryside", Yojb'e pa taq'aj "We go to the coast". A possessed house or other possessed destination takes chi (Xkib'e chi wochoch "I'll go to my house", literally POT-1sB-go, as in the source's wuqub'ix apo xkib'e chi wochoch "seven days from now I'll go home"; Xib'e chi rochoch ri a Tojil "I went to Tojil's house") or pa (Xtzolin pe pa rochoch "She returned to her house"); both occur in the source. Town names usually take no preposition at all: Nb'e Iximche' "He goes to Tecpán", Yab'e Xelajub' "You go to Quetzaltenango", Xeb'e Armita "They went to Guatemala City", Yojb'e Chiq'a'l "We're going to Comalapa". Pa does appear with some place words that are also common nouns or regions: pa B'oko' "in Chimaltenango". In one name the pa has become part of the name itself: the United States is Pa Jotöl, literally "up, north" (the source glossary lists it as a proper name, and its own example is xkib'e pa jotöl "I'd go to the States"). This book writes it as the name it is, with no further preposition: Xkib'e Pa Jotöl.

Asking "where?" and the particle wi#

When you question the place of a motion or location verb with akuchi' "where", the verb takes the particle wi (Chapter 5). The source states that with simple intransitives of motion and location wi is required, and that with transitives of motion it usually appears:

Answers drop wi unless the place is fronted: Xib'e pa k'ayb'äl "I went to the market", but Pa k'ayb'äl xib'e wi "It was to the market that I went". The source notes that younger speakers sometimes omit wi when the sentence has a heavy object; Ana will hear both.

The "go and do it" construction#

Kaqchikel can compress "he went to do it" into a single verb word by inserting b'e- "go" between the person markers and the stem. The pattern, based on the forms the source provides, is:

ASPECT + Set B + b'e + (Set A) + stem (+ -V' on root transitives)

Three things stand out. First, with an intransitive stem the Set B subject marker comes before b'e (xib'ekarun, xojb'eb'iyaj), while with a transitive stem the Set A subject marker comes after it (xb'entz'eta', xb'erub'ana') and the Set B slot before b'e holds the object (zero for "it"); the 1sA marker shows up as n- after the vowel of b'e, a reduced form of in-. Second, a root transitive inside this construction takes the same harmonic -V' suffix you learned for the imperative (-tz'eta', -b'ana'), with the root vowel tensed; in the glosses above it is labeled DEP, for "dependent", because here the suffix simply marks the stem as dependent on b'e, not as a command; derived -Vj stems take nothing (xb'erutzijoj "he went to tell it", a form found in a traditional tale in Salazar Tetzagüic 1995; the same tale has xeb'erutz'eta' "he went to see them", where e- before b'e is the plural object). Third, a vowel-initial stem gets a glottal stop after b'e (yab'e'etz'an), as always happens when two vowels meet.

The conversational source does not show a parallel "come and do it" form, but the reference grammar records one: an element ul- "come" (in some towns to-) slots in exactly where b'e does, as in xojulwa' "we came to eat". The sequel grammar attests the same idea with a slot-filling o-: xontz'eta' "I came to see it", which it derives from xo'intz'eta' exactly as xb'entz'eta' comes from xb'e'intz'eta', by dropping the glottal stop and blending the vowels (Kik'aslemal ri Kaqchikela', draft, p. 209). Recognize these if you meet them; for your own speech, two verbs are always safe: Xpe, xutz'ët "She came and saw it", or a purpose clause with richin and the incompletive, the pattern the source uses: Xpe richin nutz'ët "She came to see it".

A line from a tale#

One short line from a traditional narrative in Salazar Tetzagüic 1995 shows a directional at work in authentic prose:

x-Ø-tzolin   pe    chi   ru-chi'     ri   siwan
COMPL-3sB-return   DIR   at   3sA-edge   the  ravine
"she came back to the edge of the ravine"

The verb is -tzolin "return", the directional pe tells us she returns toward the point from which the story is being told, and the destination is a relational noun phrase chi ruchi' "at its edge" (-chi' "mouth, edge", Chapter 21) with its possessor ri siwan "the ravine" following. Every piece of the sentence is something you now recognize.

Reading: Tojil's trip#

A Tojil tells Ana how he got to Tecpán. Read it once for the gist, then once more marking every directional.

Iwir nimaq'a' xinel el Tz'olöj Ya'. Xib'e Pan Q'än pa ch'ich'.
Yesterday morning I left Sololá. I went to Antigua by bus.
Chi ri' xixule' qa, xib'iyin jub'a' pa tinamit, xinlöq' pe jun koton.
There I got down, walked a little in town, and bought a sweater (to bring along).
Xikanäj kan jun aq'a' chi rochoch jun wachib'il.
I stayed one night at a friend's house.
Wakami nimaq'a' xinel pe jukumaj, xinik'o pa B'oko', k'a ri' xinoqa Iximche' pa nik'aj q'ij.
This morning I left early, passed through Chimaltenango, and then arrived here in Tecpán at midday.
Ri a Tz'ikin chuqa' ri Ana e k'o chi ri'. Xinya' kan ri wejqa'n pa ruch'ich' ri a Tz'ikin.
Tz'ikin and Ana were there. I left my load in Tz'ikin's car.
Chwa'q yojb'e Chiq'a'l; kab'ij yojtzolin pe.
Tomorrow we go to Comalapa; the day after tomorrow we come back.

Patterns at a glance#

The six directionals#

Slot order after the verb#

VERB + wi / ta + DIRECTIONAL + object / complement

Arrive, go, come#

Destination marking#

Go-and-do#

ASPECT + Set B + b'e + (Set A) + stem (+ -V' if root transitive): xb'entz'eta', xib'ekarun, xojb'eb'iyaj

Vocabulary#

Usage and dialect notes#

• Particles are unstressed. Say xuya' kan as one phrase with the stress on ya'; kan is a light tail. Learners who stress the particle sound as if they are saying a separate word "stay".
• pe and apo with "tell": tab'ij pe "tell me/us", tab'ij apo "tell him/them". The choice depends on who is the target, not on distance.
• kan "ago" vs apo "from now": kaji' q'ij kan "four days ago", wuqub'ix apo "seven days from now". For one or two days the inflected words iwir, kab'ijir "day before yesterday", chwa'q, kab'ij are used instead (Chapter 9).
• Directionals can shade into aspect. In the authors' newer grammar, qa after a verb of working or eating means "slowly, thoroughly" (Xewa' qa "They ate slowly"), and kan can mark something done once and for all, as when elders' advice is given kan, to hold from then on (Kik'aslemal ri Kaqchikela', draft, p. 232). You have already met the germ of this in xwär qa "fell asleep" and xuchüp kan "put it out (and left it out)".
• Town names without pa. Saying pa Iximche' is not wrong, but the source's own texts go to towns without a preposition: nb'e Iximche', xeb'e Armita. Regions and common nouns keep pa.
• -el variants. The glossary lists ntel and ndel as dialect forms of nel "he leaves". The nd- pronunciation of the incompletive before a vowel is a regional trait (Appendix D).

Pitfalls#

1. Do not translate "bring" and "take" with different verbs; use -k'äm plus pe ("bring") or -k'waj ("take along"). Expect -k'äm el for "take away" but do not rely on it until you hear it.
2. Do not put the directional at the end of the sentence, English-style: "bring the book here" is tak'ama' pe ri wuj, not tak'ama' ri wuj pe.
3. Do not say xapon for someone arriving where you are; that is xoqa. Xapon is for arriving somewhere else.
4. Do not put wi after the directional: ¿Akuchi' xaya' wi kan?, never xaya' kan wi.
5. Do not read the verb xpe "he came" as needing a particle pe after it; -pe conjugated is the verb, and the particle pe goes on other verbs.
6. In the go-and-do verb, do not put a Set B subject before b'e when the stem is transitive: xb'entz'eta' "I went to see it", not xib'entz'eta' (the slot before b'e is the object there).

Looking back and ahead#

Directionals sit in the slot you met in Chapter 5 (wi) and Chapter 13 (commands like taya' kan), always right after the verb word. The verbs of motion are plain intransitives from Chapter 10, with -apon and -oqa splitting "arrive" by viewpoint, and the go-and-do construction borrows the harmonic -V' suffix of Chapter 13. Chapter 15 uses b'enäq "gone", the perfect of -b'e, to talk about states and results, and Chapter 21 treats the relational nouns (chi ruchi', pa ruwi', chuwäch) that name where motion ends up.