Chapter 3: Pronouns and "Being"

Starting point#

a Tz'ikin teaches at the school in Comalapa. Ana has come to see it, and outside the door they meet his friend a Tojil.

Everything here except three words is already yours from Chapters 1 to 2. The three new ones are tijoxel "student" and the two forms öj and ïx, which do for "we" and "you (pl)" what in and at already do for "I" and "you".

Notice that no word in these sentences means "am", "are" or "is". In tijoxel is a complete sentence: "I (am a) student."

How it works#

3.1 Six people, six pronouns#

Kaqchikel has six personal pronouns. They stand on their own as words, so grammarians call them independent pronouns.

Three things to notice:

• There is no difference between "he" and "she". Rija' covers both; context tells you which.
• There is no difference between subject and object forms. Rin is "I" and "me"; rija' is "she" and "her".
• Singular and plural "you" are different words. Rat is one person, rix is two or more, so a family or a class is always rix.

Mind the lax vowels of röj and rix, and the final glottal stop of rija' and rije'; do not let them trail off into a plain vowel.

You do not need these pronouns to make a sentence. English needs the "I" in "I am a teacher"; Kaqchikel builds the subject into the predicate, which leaves the independent pronouns free for other work: emphasis, contrast, setting up a topic. First, the built-in subject.

3.2 No verb "to be": the predicate carries its own subject#

In English a predicate that is a noun ("a student") or an adjective ("tired") cannot stand alone; it needs the linking verb "be". Kaqchikel does not have such a verb at all. Instead, the noun or adjective itself is the predicate, and a small subject marker is placed in front of it. That marker comes from the pronoun set we call Set B (the grammatical name is absolutive). Set B marks the subject of anything that is not a transitive verb: the subject of a noun predicate, of an adjective predicate, and later (Chapter 10) the subject of an intransitive verb and the object of a transitive verb.

The other set, Set A (ergative), marks possessors and the subjects of transitive verbs. You met one Set A form already when you said your name (nub'i' "my name"); Chapter 4 is all about Set A. Keep the two sets apart in your mind from the start: Set B = "who is / who is affected"; Set A = "whose / who does it to something".

Here is one sentence taken apart. The gloss line uses the labels 1sB (first person singular, Set B), and so on:

in tijonel
1sB teacher
"I am a teacher"

The full set:

Öj and ïx keep their lax vowels because, as one-syllable words, their vowel is final (Chapter 1).

A word like tijonel already means "be a teacher" as much as "a teacher". What it needs is not a verb but a subject, and Set B supplies it. The same markers will make yiwär "I sleep" a sentence in Chapter 10: to the grammar, "I am a teacher" and "I sleep" are the same kind of sentence. Two consequences follow. A non-verbal predicate has no tense, so In yawa' is "I am sick" or "I was sick", and context or a time word such as wakami "now, today" settles which. And there is no dummy "it": Tew. is "It is cold."

The zero third person. The most surprising line in the table is the third singular: nothing at all. "He is a teacher" is simply tijonel. Third person singular is the unmarked case across the whole grammar; you will meet the same zero on verbs (niwär "he sleeps" next to yiwär "I sleep"). So a bare noun can be a full sentence about "him", "her" or "it", and to make clear who you mean, you add the person's name or a noun phrase:

Notice the order: predicate first, then the subject noun phrase with ri "the". Kaqchikel puts the predicate first by default, so when you read, find the predicate first and the rest falls into place. The subject can also come first when you are talking "about" it: Ri a Tz'ikin tijonel, "As for Tz'ikin, he is a teacher." Both orders are correct; the predicate-first one is the neutral way to state a fact.

Plural nouns. When the subject is plural, the predicate noun is plural too. Human nouns take a plural suffix, usually -a' or -i': tijonela' "teachers", ak'wala' "children", ixoqi' "women", achi'a' "men". Chapter 7 covers plurals in full.

Two predicates you already know. The aj + place phrase from Chapter 2 is a noun predicate like any other, so it takes Set B: In aj Iximche' "I am from Tecpán", Aj Tz'olöj Ya' ri a Tojil "Tojil is from Sololá". So does the naming formula, where the name is the predicate and nub'i' "my name" the subject: Ana nub'i'. The formula also names things and places: ¿Achike rub'i' re'? "What is this called?" Tz'ib'ab'äl rub'i'. "It is called a pen." Iximche' rub'i' nutinamit. "My town is called Tecpán." One more noun you will see often in this chapter's examples is ajkem "weaver".

3.3 Adding the independent pronoun: emphasis and topic#

Two words mean "I", and they are not interchangeable. In is the Set B marker, the actual grammatical subject, and it is not optional. Rin is an independent pronoun, added to in and never used instead of it. The same holds for rat with at, röj with öj, and rix with ïx. When you add one, it usually goes in front and tells the listener "this is who we are talking about" or "this one, as opposed to others":

The third person line is the one to memorize: Rija' ajkem, pronoun plus bare noun, with nothing to insert between them. Here the pronoun does more than add emphasis. Since the third person has no marker, rija' supplies the reference itself, picking out which person is meant. For 1st and 2nd person the independent pronoun is emphasis; for 3rd person it is often the only thing identifying who you are talking about.

Typical reasons to add the pronoun:

• Contrast: Rija' tijonel; rin in tijoxel. "He is a teacher; I am a student."
• Answering "who": ¿Achike ri tijonel? Rin. "Who is the teacher?" "Me." A bare pronoun is fine as an answer, since there is no predicate and so no Set B slot to fill.
• Starting a self-introduction: Rin Ana nub'i'. In aj Chicago. In tijoxel.
• Politeness when turning a question back: ¿Rat? "And you?"

The pronoun can also follow the predicate, In tijonel rin, which is neutral. In front, it takes up a topic that is already in the air: asked ¿Rat? "And you?", you answer Rin in tijoxel.

3.4 Adjectives as predicates#

Everything said about nouns holds for adjectives: they are predicates on their own, with Set B subjects.

With things, the zero third person again means that adjective plus noun phrase is a sentence:

Careful: jeb'ël po't (adjective directly before noun, no ri) is a phrase, "a beautiful blouse", not a sentence. Jeb'ël ri po't (with ri setting the noun off as the subject) is a sentence, "the blouse is beautiful." Chapter 8 builds on this.

3.5 Yes/no questions with la#

A statement becomes a yes/no question in two steps: put la in front, and let your voice rise at the end. La has no meaning of its own; it simply announces "question coming". In writing it is preceded by the Spanish-style inverted question mark.

In fast speech la is often dropped and the rising tune does the work alone, but la is never wrong, so keep it.

Answers:

• Ja'. "Yes." Often followed by an echo: Ja', in tijonel.
• Manäq. "No." (shortened in conversation to näq). Usually followed by the negative sentence: Manäq, man in tijonel ta.
• It is polite and natural to echo the predicate rather than answer with a bare yes or no.

3.6 Saying "not": the frame man ... ta#

Negation of a noun or adjective predicate uses the two-part frame man ... ta. Man goes before the thing denied; ta closes the frame right after it. The Set B marker stays inside the frame, attached to its predicate:

man in tijonel ta
NEG 1sB teacher IRR
"I am not a teacher"

Why two words? Man is the actual "not"; ta is a particle that marks something as unreal, not the case; grammarians call it irrealis (IRR in the gloss). Together they fence off exactly the piece of the sentence being denied. The fence is tight: it encloses the smallest unit that makes sense, which for a non-verbal predicate is the predicate plus its Set B marker. A subject noun phrase stays outside: Man tijonel ta ri a Tojil, "Tojil is not a teacher." So does an independent pronoun: Rin man in tijonel ta. Leave out ta and the sentence is unfinished; and manäq answers a question ("No") but does not negate a sentence on its own.

With names, what you deny is the name, so the name sits inside the frame and nub'i' outside:

A few short negatives you will hear constantly: Man wetaman ta "I don't know"; Man ütz ta "It's not good / that's not right"; Man ke ri' ta "It's not like that."

Tojil and Ana keep talking outside the school. Every line is the frame you have just learned, and it brings in po "but", which joins a positive statement to the negative that qualifies it:

3.7 "Too", "also", "and": chuqa'#

Chuqa' means "also, too, and". With pronouns it is the easiest way to say "me too", "you too":

Note the last sentence: chuqa' can link two nouns ("and"), and the predicate then takes plural e. "Neither" in a negative sentence is still chuqa': Rin chuqa' man in k'ulan ta, "I am not married either."

3.8 Reading: Tojil introduces his friends#

Read this short text twice: once for meaning, once underlining every Set B marker and every man ... ta frame.

Rin Tojil nub'i'. Rin in aj Tz'olöj Ya'. In tijoxel; chuqa' in b'ixanel. Man in k'ulan ta. Ri a Tz'ikin wachib'il. Rija' aj Iximche', po tijonel pa Chiq'a'l. Man aj Chiq'a'l ta rija'. Ri ma Kawoq tikonel; ri te Ixk'at ajkem. Ri xta Ixchel k'ayinel pa Iximche'; man ajkem ta. Jeb'ël ri rupo't. Ri Ana chuqa' wachib'il. Rija' aj Chicago, man aj Iximche' ta. Rija' tijoxel chuqa'. Öj tijoxela', röj. Man öj b'eyoma' ta, po man öj yawa' ta. Ütz.

My name is Tojil. I am from Sololá. I am a student; I am also a singer. I am not married. Tz'ikin is my friend. He is from Tecpán, but he is a teacher in Comalapa. He is not from Comalapa. Kawoq is a farmer; Ixk'at is a weaver. Ixchel is a vendor in Tecpán; she is not a weaver. Her blouse is beautiful. Ana is also my friend. She is from Chicago, not from Tecpán. She is a student too. We are students, we two. We are not rich, but we are not sick. Good.

(Wachib'il "my friend" and rupo't "her blouse" carry Set A prefixes; Chapter 4 explains them. Use them as chunks here.)

Patterns at a glance#

Pronouns and Set B free forms

Sentence frames

Vocabulary#

(Words carded in earlier chapters, such as tinamit, jay, ütz and nim, are not repeated in this table.)

Usage and dialect notes#

• No "is" is hiding anywhere. English speakers reach for a verb and produce rija' k'o tijonel or similar. K'o means "there is / is located" (Chapter 5) and is wrong here: Rija' tijonel is complete.
• Aj phrases in questions. The set question ¿Aj akuchi' rat? "Where are you from?" has no at, and origin questions of the same shape, like ¿La aj Chiq'a'l rat?, often drop it too. In statements, keep the marker: Rin in aj Chicago, Öj aj Pa Jotöl "We are from the States".
• Polite "you". There is no tú/usted split. Rat is used for everyone; respect is shown with titles (Chapter 2) and with tone, not with pronouns.
• Regional pronouns. In many towns yïn (or yin) is the everyday "I", and roj or ri'oj is "we". Some towns near the lake lengthen the pronouns instead: riyin "I", riyät "you". Understand them all; write the standard forms in the table.
• Ïx and öj spellings. Some materials write ix and oj for the free forms. The lax vowel is what speakers actually say; this book keeps the dots.

Looking back and ahead#

Behind the greetings of Chapter 2 sits a simple machine: a predicate that carries its own Set B subject, and a negation frame that wraps exactly the word it denies. Chapter 4 turns to Set A and possession, and Chapter 5 adds k'o, the one kind of "being" that needs a word of its own.