Chapter 18: Positionals

Starting point#

Ana arrives at the house of ma Kawoq and te Ixk'at in the early afternoon.

Count the words that describe a position or state: pa'äl "standing", tz'uyül "seated", kotz'öl "lying", tzeqël "hanging", jaqäl "open", ch'eqël "wet", and beside them the actions yitz'uye' "I sit down", katz'uye' "sit down!", nujotob'a' "he lifts/stacks it", xintzeqeb'a' "I hung it". Every one of them is a positional root wearing a different suffix.

Here is the same house described in a short text. Read it for the gist now and again after "How it works".

Nimaq'a' ri ma Kawoq pa'äl chuwäch ri jay. Ri te Ixk'at tz'uyül pa ruwi' jun pöp; nkemon. Ri tz'i' kotz'öl chuxe' ri ch'atal. Jaqäl ri ruchi' jay roma k'atän. K'o jun setesik chakäch pa ruwi' ri ch'atal; xjotob'äx roma ri xta Ixchel. Chirij ri ruchi' jay tzeqël ri rukoton ri ma Kawoq. Toq'a' yekotz'e' ri ak'wala' pa ch'at, ri te Ixk'at nuchüp ri q'aq'. Wakami chupül ri q'aq', tz'apäl ri ruchi' jay, tz'iran ri jay.

In the morning ma Kawoq is standing in front of the house. Te Ixk'at is seated on a mat; she is weaving. The dog is lying under the table. The door is open because it is hot. There is a round basket on the table; it was lifted up there by xta Ixchel. Behind the door hangs ma Kawoq's jacket. At night the children lie down in bed, and te Ixk'at puts out the fire. Now the fire is out, the door is closed, the house is quiet.

How it works#

What a positional is#

A positional is a root (not yet a word) that names a position, posture, shape or physical state: seated, standing, lying face down, hanging, round, bent, extinguished, open. The roots have the shape consonant-vowel-consonant: tz'uy- (seated), pa'- (standing), kotz'- (lying), jot- (up, raised), set- (round), chup- (put out, extinguished).

Nothing about the meaning alone makes a root a positional. What defines the class is its derivational possibilities, that is, the set of suffixes it accepts and what they produce. A positional root can take:

Not every root takes every suffix (some have no verb, some have no adjective), but only positional roots take this family of suffixes. That is why Kaqchikel grammar treats them as a class of their own, even though the resulting words behave like ordinary statives, verbs and adjectives.

A note on the term stative: a stative is a word that describes a state rather than an action and is used as a predicate without any verb "to be", like the nouns and adjectives of Chapter 3: Pronouns and "Being". Statives do not take aspect prefixes.

The stative: -Vl, "being in the position"#

Add to the root a lax copy of the root's vowel plus l. Here is one form taken apart:

tz'uy-ül
seated-STAT
"seated, sitting"

Why is the suffix vowel lax? Because the suffix is the last syllable of the word, and lax vowels (Chapter 1: Sounds and Spelling) live only in last syllables. The root vowel itself, now no longer final, is tense. So the stative always sounds like a full vowel followed by a lax echo of itself: tz'u-yül, ko-tz'öl, se-tël.

Two phonological details:

• Roots ending in l or r cannot add another l; they take -an instead: xul- gives xulan "down, descending, downhill", b'ol- gives b'olan "cylindrical", tzal- gives tzalan "on its side", sir- gives siran "circular", tz'ir- gives tz'iran "deserted, lonely".
• Roots whose vowel is i take -il: pik'il. (The source writes this suffix with a plain i; the same authors' newer grammar writes the lax vowel out, pik'ïl, simïl "tasty", so the suffix is the regular lax echo there too. This book keeps the first book's spelling.)

You already know one of these words very well. Jeb'ël "beautiful" is the stative of the root jeb'-, which is why it ends in the same -ël as tzeqël and setël.

Subjects of the stative: the free Set B words#

A stative is a non-verbal predicate, so its subject is expressed by the free Set B (absolutive) words in, at, Ø, öj, ïx, e (Chapter 3), not by the prefixes used on verbs. These free forms keep their own lax vowels (öj, ïx) because each is a separate word with its own final syllable. Fill in the blanks below before you read on; the full table follows immediately underneath.

The full table:

With a noun subject, the stative comes first, then the subject, usually with a place phrase built on a relational noun (Chapter 5: Existence, Location, and Having; Chapter 21: Relational Nouns in Depth):

Tz'uyül ri ak'wal pa ruwi' ri ch'akät.
The child is sitting on the chair.

Kotz'öl ri tz'i' chuxe' ri ch'atal.
The dog is lying under the table.

Pa'äl ri ma Kawoq chuchi' ri jay.
Ma Kawoq is standing at the door of the house.

E xukül ri ixoqi' chuwäch ri q'aq'.
The women are kneeling in front of the fire.

Tzeqël ri ya'l chirij ri ruchi' jay.
The bag is hanging behind the door.

Jaqäl ri ruchi' jay, tz'apäl ri rutzub'al jay.
The door is open, the window is closed.

Chupül ri q'aq'.
The fire is out.

Yakäl ri ixim pa jay.
The corn is stored in the house.

Negation uses the frame man ... ta around the stative and its free pronoun, as with all non-verbal predicates (Chapter 3):

Man in tz'uyül ta, in pa'äl.
I'm not sitting, I'm standing.

Man jaqäl ta ri ruchi' jay.
The door is not open.

Questions take la:

¿La at kotz'öl? Are you lying down?

¿La e tz'uyül ri tijoxela'?
Are the students seated?

Because statives carry no aspect, "was sitting" and "is sitting" look the same; a time word or the surrounding story supplies the time: Iwir kotz'öl ri tz'i' chuxe' ri ch'atal "Yesterday the dog was lying under the table."

Everyday stative idioms. Jotöl rajil "its price is up" means "expensive", and its opposite qasan rajil "cheap"; jotöl q'ij is the morning (the sun is up) and jotöl aq'a' the evening hours; setël ik' is the full moon (the moon is round); and the firefly was once called chupül q'aq' "extinguished fire", a name the source glossary marks as Colonial-era (the everyday word, chupüy q'aq', keeps the same image). Pa Jotöl, literally "in the high place", is the name for the United States, the country "up north"; far from being a glossary curio, it is the ordinary word in the same authors' sequel, which speaks throughout of aj Pa Jotöl "people from the States" and pairs it with pa xulan for the lands to the south (Kik'aslemal ri Kaqchikela', draft, p. 29).

The intransitive verb: -e', "getting into the position"#

Add -e' to the root and you have an intransitive verb meaning to move into the position or state. It is inflected like every other intransitive verb (Chapter 10: Intransitive Verbs in the Incompletive; Chapter 12: Talking About the Past and the Future): aspect prefix plus Set B prefix plus stem.

y-i-tz'uye'
INCOMPL-1sB-sit.down
"I sit down / I am sitting down"

x-i-tz'uye'
COMPL-1sB-sit.down
"I sat down"

xk-i-tz'uye'
POT-1sB-sit.down
"I will sit down"

k-a-tz'uye'
IMP-2sB-sit.down
"sit down!"

Full incompletive: yitz'uye', yatz'uye', ntz'uye', yojtz'uye', yixtz'uye', yetz'uye'. (Some speakers say nitz'uye' for the third singular, with a supporting i before the consonant cluster.)

Xitz'uye' pa ruwi' ri ch'akät.
I sat down on the chair.

Xkotz'e' ri tz'i' chuxe' ri ch'atal.
The dog lay down under the table.

Yojxuke' chuwäch ri Ajaw.
We kneel before God.

Xjote' ri ak'wal pa ruwi' ri che'.
The child climbed up the tree.

Xexule' ri achi'a' pa k'ayb'äl.
The men went down to the market.

Xtane' ri jöb'.
The rain stopped.

Commands are common and useful:

¡Katz'uye'! Sit down!

¡Kixtz'uye'! Sit down, all of you!

¡Kapa'e'! Stand up! / Stop!

¡Kakotz'e', yawa'!
Lie down, you're sick!

¡Kojtz'uye' chuchi' ri q'aq'!
Let's sit by the fire!

Not every root has a verb: set- "round" and chup- "extinguished" have statives and adjectives but no -e' verb (you do not "become round" by moving).

The rule: process verb while moving, stative once arrived#

This is the single most important thing to understand about positionals, and English makes it hard because one verb covers both ideas. I am sitting can mean that I am in the process of lowering myself onto a chair, or that I am already seated and staying there. Kaqchikel keeps them strictly apart:

So you cannot say yitz'uye' to mean "I am sitting here waiting for you." The moment the movement is over, the verb stops being true and the stative takes over: in tz'uyül. Likewise:

Xkotz'e' ri ak'wal. Wakami kotz'öl.
The child lay down. Now he is lying down.

Xjote' ri rajil ri ixim. Wakami jotöl rajil.
The price of corn went up. Now it is high.

Xtane' ri ch'ich'. Wakami tanäl.
The car stopped. Now it is stopped.

Why does the language insist on this? Because the -e' verb is a verb of change, and Kaqchikel verbs in the incompletive describe an ongoing or habitual action; a state that is simply holding is not an action at all. The stative, which takes no aspect, is the natural home for "staying put". If you keep the pair "change versus result" in mind, you will get this right, and you will also understand the perfect forms in -näq/-inäq of Chapter 15: States, Results, and Ongoing Actions, which express the same idea for ordinary verbs.

The transitive verb: -Vb'a', "putting into the position"#

Most roots that form an intransitive verb also form a transitive one, meaning to put someone or something into the position. The suffix is a copy of the root vowel plus b'a':

These are derived transitives: they take Set A (ergative) for the agent and Set B for the patient, and because the stem ends in a glottal stop, the imperative adds nothing (Chapter 13: Commands, Requests, and Wishes).

n-Ø-in-tz'uyub'a'
INCOMPL-3sB-1sA-seat
"I seat him / I set it down"

x-Ø-in-jotob'a'
COMPL-3sB-1sA-raise
"I lifted it"

t-Ø-a-tz'uyub'a'
IMP-3sB-2sA-seat
"seat him!" / "set it down!"

y-e-ru-kotz'ob'a'
INCOMPL-3pB-3sA-lay
"she lays them down"

Xinjotob'a' ri chakäch pa ruwi' ri ch'atal.
I lifted the basket onto the table.

Xukotz'ob'a' ri ak'wal pa ch'at ri te Ixk'at.
Te Ixk'at laid the child on the bed.

Tatz'uyub'a' ri ala' pa ruwi' ri ch'akät.
Seat the boy on the chair.

Xqatzeqeb'a' ri tzyäq chuwäch ri q'aq'.
We hung the clothes up in front of the fire.

Xupab'a' ri che' ri ma Kawoq.
Ma Kawoq stood the pole upright.

Nuxulub'a' ri si' ri a Tz'ikin.
Tz'ikin is lowering the firewood.

Tatanab'a' ri ch'ich'.
Stop the car.

The passive: -Vb'äx#

As Chapter 17: Voice: Passive, Antipassive, and Focus showed for other derived transitives, the passive replaces the final -a' with -äx. The patient becomes the Set B subject and the agent may follow with roma:

Xjotob'äx ri chakäch pa ruwi' ri ch'atal.
The basket was lifted onto the table.

Xetz'uyub'äx ri ak'wala' chuwäch ri tijonel.
The children were seated in front of the teacher.

Xtzeqeb'äx ri koton chirij ri ruchi' jay roma ri te Ixk'at.
The jacket was hung behind the door by te Ixk'at.

The adjective: -VC-ik, plural -VC-äq#

The fourth derivation is the most productive of all: many positional roots that have no verbs at all still make an adjective. The pattern is: root + copy of the root vowel + copy of the root's first consonant + -ik. The plural replaces -ik with -äq.

Look at setesik: set + e + s + ik. The echoed syllable "se" is what gives these adjectives their characteristic bouncing rhythm.

Adjectives stand before the noun they describe, or serve as predicates, like any adjective (Chapter 8: Describing Things and People). What sets positional adjectives apart is that they have a plural form at all: ordinary root adjectives do not change for number.

Jun setesik ab'äj.
A round stone.

E setesäq ri taq ab'äj.
The stones are round.

Kotokik ri b'ey pa juyu'.
The road in the mountains is winding.

Jun b'olob'ik che'.
A cylindrical log.

Jisijik ri che'.
The stick is pointed.

Jilijik ri b'ey roma ri jöb'.
The road is slippery because of the rain.

Jeb'ël ri yuchuyik uq.
The pleated skirt is beautiful.

Rab'arik ri kumätz.
The snake is long and flexible.

E ch'anach'äq ri taq ak'wala'; yemuxan pa ya'.
The children are naked; they are swimming in the water.

How is the adjective different from the stative? The stative setël says that something is in the round condition right now (the moon tonight is full); the adjective setesik names roundness as a characteristic (a round stone, a round loaf). For positions of people the difference is small (tz'uyül / tz'uyutz'ik), and the stative is far more common.

One root, one family#

Putting it together for a root that takes everything:

And a worked example in context:

Xinjotob'a' ri chakäch. Wakami jotöl pa ruwi' ri ch'atal. Xjotob'äx woma. Setesik ri chakäch.
I lifted the basket. Now it is up on the table. It was lifted by me. The basket is round.

Patterns at a glance#

Vocabulary#

Reference: more shape adjectives#

The glossary records many more shape adjectives on the same -VC-ik / -VC-äq pattern. These three are worth recognizing when you meet them; they are not drilled in this book.

Usage and dialect notes#

• Sit: -tz'uye' and -ch'oke'. The general verb "sit down" is -tz'uye'; the glossary records -ch'oke' as a regional variant. ch'oköl more precisely means "astride", as on a horse or a bench.
• Stand and stop. pa'äl covers both "standing" and "stopped, at a standstill" (a bus that has stopped is pa'äl); -pa'e' is both "stand up" and "stop (moving)". For a machine or the rain, -tane' / tanäl is the word for stopping.
• Two roots that are also transitive verbs. jaq- and yak- appear both as root transitives (-jäq "open", -yäk "store") and as positional roots (jaqäl "open", yakäl "stored"). Do not be troubled by this overlap: the transitive says what someone does, the stative says the resulting state. Tz'apäl "closed" goes with the derived transitive -tz'apij, and chupül "out" with -chüp "put out". The opposite of chupül is tzijil "lit, burning, on", which pairs the same way with the transitive -tzij "light, turn on": both sources attest the pair, as in leaving a light on (tzijil) versus putting it out (chupül).
• Jeb'ël as an adverb. Besides being the stative "pretty, beautiful", jeb'ël placed before a verb or another adjective works as an adverb, "well, beautifully": Jeb'ël nkemon ri te Ixk'at "Ixk'at weaves beautifully". The sequel grammar singles this word out as the one positional that routinely modifies verbs and adjectives this way (Kik'aslemal ri Kaqchikela', draft, p. 270); you met the combination jeb'ël ütz "very well" as far back as Chapter 2.
• Up and north. jotöl and xulan also mean "north" and "south" in some usages, reflecting the highland landscape where "up" is toward the mountains. Expect to hear jotöl for "uphill, upstream, upstairs" as well as for a high price.
• The supporting i. With a zero third person subject, ntz'uye' and nitz'uye', nxule' and nixule' are both heard; the i simply eases the consonant cluster. The source grammar writes nijote', nixule', nikotz'e'.
• Plural adjectives. Only a handful of ordinary adjectives have plural forms (Chapter 8); the -äq plurals are a signal that you are dealing with a positional adjective. Use them with the plural predicate word e: e setesäq.
• Pitfalls for English speakers:
• Adding n- to a stative: ntz'uyül does not exist. The stative never takes aspect; the verb does (ntz'uye').
• Using the -e' verb for a held position: yitz'uye' wawe' is "I am (in the act of) sitting down here"; for "I am sitting here" say in tz'uyül wawe'.
• Using verb prefixes on the stative: yin tz'uyül, e' tz'uyül. The stative takes the free words in, at, öj, ïx, e.
• Translating "I am standing" as a past or perfect (xipa'e' "I stood up"). Choose by phase: change = verb, state = stative.
• Forgetting the lax echo vowel: tz'uyül, kotz'öl, setël, never tz'uyul, kotz'ol.
• Pluralizing an ordinary adjective on the positional model: only positional adjectives have -äq plurals (e setesäq); nim "big" stays e nimaq, ütz stays e ütz.

Looking back and ahead#

Positionals pull together threads from several earlier chapters: the free Set B words of Chapter 3: Pronouns and "Being", the place phrases of Chapter 5: Existence, Location, and Having, the tense/lax vowel rule of Chapter 1: Sounds and Spelling, and the -Vx passive of Chapter 17: Voice: Passive, Antipassive, and Focus. The change-versus-state contrast you learned here is the same one that underlies the perfect forms of Chapter 15: States, Results, and Ongoing Actions. The relational nouns that located everything in this chapter (pa ruwi', chuxe', chirij, chuwäch, chuchi') are treated in full in Chapter 21: Relational Nouns in Depth.