Chapter 11: Transitive Verbs in the Incompletive

Starting point#

Xta Ixchel is at her vegetable stall in the market in Tecpán (Iximche'). Ana, the learner from the United States, stops by.

Every verb Ixchel and Ana use here except the greetings has two participants: someone who acts (Ana, Ixchel, the young man) and something acted on (greens, avocados, fish, tortillas, the money). Those are transitive verbs, and all of them begin with n- or ni-: nakanoj, ninkanoj, nak'ayij, nink'ayij, natz'ët, nub'än, nuk'ayij, natij, nintij, ninqüm, ninya'. This chapter explains exactly what sits inside each of those words.

How it works#

What "transitive" means, and why Kaqchikel cares so much#

A transitive verb is one with two participants built into it: a doer (the subject) and a thing or person the action lands on (the object). "Eat it", "see her", "buy tortillas" are transitive. An intransitive verb has only one participant: "sleep", "go", "cry". Chapter 10 (Intransitive Verbs in the Incompletive) covered the one-participant type.

English marks the difference weakly: "I eat" and "I eat it" use the same verb form. Kaqchikel marks it loudly. A transitive verb carries both of its participants on the verb itself, as prefixes, and it uses a different pronoun set for the subject than an intransitive verb does. That is ergativity, and it is worth a paragraph in plain English.

Kaqchikel has two sets of person markers:

• Set A (ergative): marks the subject of a transitive verb ("I" in "I see it") and the possessor of a noun ("my" in "my house"). You met Set A as possessives in Chapter 4 (Possession).
• Set B (absolutive): marks the subject of an intransitive verb ("I" in "I sleep"), the object of a transitive verb ("me" in "she sees me"), and the subject of a non-verbal predicate ("I" in "I am a teacher", Chapter 3).

So the "I" of "I sleep" and the "me" of "she sees me" are the same marker in Kaqchikel, while the "I" of "I see it" is a different one, the same marker as "my". That is unusual from an English point of view, but it is perfectly regular, and once you accept it the whole verb system becomes transparent.

The transitive template#

Every transitive verb word is built on this frame:

ASPECT + Set B (object) + Set A (subject) + STEM

The object comes before the subject, and the subject sits right next to the stem. Compare the intransitive frame from Chapter 10, which has the same first two slots and simply lacks the third:

ASPECT + Set B (subject) + STEM

For the incompletive (present), the aspect marker is n- when the Set B slot holds the zero third-person singular (Ø, "him/her/it"), and y- when the Set B slot holds anything else (i-, a-, oj-, ix-, e-). This is the same n-/y- alternation you learned for intransitives; it is driven by what follows the marker, not by whether the verb is transitive.

Here is the template filled in three ways:

Read the last two carefully. The difference between "I see you" and "you see me" is only the order of at and in inside the word, and which of them is the Set B object (first) and which the Set A subject (second). The object is always the one nearer the aspect marker.

The Set A (ergative) forms on verbs#

Set A has two shapes, chosen by the first sound of what follows it: one before a consonant, one before a vowel. On verbs the first-person singular is in- / inw- (on nouns, as you saw in Chapter 4, it is nu- / w- instead; that is the one place where nouns and verbs part company).

Two details need a word:

1. Third singular ru- loses its r after an aspect prefix. Before a consonant, "she buys it" is nulöq', not nrulöq'. The underlying form is ru- (you see it intact on nouns: rochoch "her house", and after a vowel, as in yarutz'ët "she sees you", where a- precedes it). The sequence n + r + u + consonant is awkward to say, so the r drops; what remains is n-u-löq'. Before a vowel the r stays, because n-r-a- is easy enough: nrajo' "she wants it", nrak'axaj "he hears it". Many speakers ease the cluster with a short i: nirajo', nirak'axaj. Both spellings occur; the book uses nr- as the basic form and treats nir-* as a common variant.

2. A bridging vowel can appear after n-. Before qa- and ki- you will often hear (and sometimes read) niqatz'ët, nikitz'ët alongside the standard nqatz'ët, nkitz'ët. The i is a pronunciation aid, not a grammatical piece. The standard spelling leaves it out; the book follows that.

Two model verbs: -tz'ët and -kanoj#

Let us conjugate two verbs with the default third-singular object "it/him/her". The first is a root transitive (one syllable, consonant-vowel-consonant, lax vowel): -tz'ët "see". The second is a derived transitive (two or more syllables, ending in -Vj): -kanoj "look for". Both begin with a consonant, so they take the pre-consonantal Set A forms.

Start with one form taken fully apart:

n-Ø-in-tz'ët
INCOMPL-3sB-1sA-see
"I see it"

The rest of the paradigm follows the same template, with the Set A prefixes from the table above:

n-Ø-u-kanoj
INCOMPL-3sB-3sA-look.for
"she looks for it"

n-Ø-ki-kanoj
INCOMPL-3sB-3pA-look.for
"they look for it"

Note the trap in the second person plural: nitz'ët "you all see it" has the 2pA prefix i-. Do not confuse it with the n-i- of a mispronounced bridging vowel. In the standard spelling, nitz'ët can only mean "you (plural) see it".

Now the vowel-initial verbs, which take the pre-vocalic Set A forms. Here is -ajo' "want, love" and -ak'axaj "hear, listen to":

n-Ø-inw-ajo'
INCOMPL-3sB-1sA-want
"I want it"

n-Ø-r-ajo'
INCOMPL-3sB-3sA-want
"he wants it"

n-Ø-k-ak'axaj
INCOMPL-3sB-3pA-hear
"they hear it"

Ninwajo' is one of the most frequent words in the language; learn its shape well. The w in ninwajo' and nawajo' belongs to the pronoun, not the verb: the verb is -ajo', and the w is the same one you see in wochoch "my house", awochoch "your house".

Root transitives and derived transitives#

Kaqchikel transitive verbs fall into two families, and the family a verb belongs to determines how it behaves later (imperatives in Chapter 13, passives and antipassives in Chapter 17). Learn to tell them apart now.

Root transitives are a single syllable of the shape consonant + vowel + consonant (CVC), and the vowel is normally lax (ä, ë, ï, ö, ü). Why lax? Because, as Chapter 1 explained, lax vowels live only in the last syllable of a word, and a bare root is all last syllable. When a suffix is added the vowel tenses up (the imperative tab'ana' "do it!", from -b'än). The one exception: roots ending in the glottal stop ' have a tense vowel: -ya' "give", -to' "help", -tzu' "look at", -ti' "bite, sting", -sa' "grill", -su' "wipe".

(A few roots, such as -tij, -tik and -kem, have a tense vowel; the lax vowel is a strong tendency, not an absolute law. Memorize the vowel as part of the word.)

Derived transitives are longer stems built from a root plus a suffix, and they end in -Vj: -aj, -ej, -ij, -oj, -uj. The vowel before the j depends on the derivation, so again learn it with the word. The most important derivational endings:

Whatever the ending, all derived transitives conjugate exactly like -kanoj in the incompletive. The difference shows only when a suffix is added (imperative, passive, antipassive): root transitives get a vowel suffix, derived ones do not. Chapter 13 and Chapter 17 work this out in full.

A quick test: if you can hear the verb as one short syllable, it is a root; if it has two or more syllables and ends in j, it is derived.

Two common verbs are irregular against that test, and it is worth naming them as such rather than filing them in the wrong class. -b'ij "say" and -k'waj "carry" are single syllables, so the test correctly calls them roots, but they behave like derived stems in one respect: they take no vowel suffix in the imperative (tab'ij "say it!", tak'waj "take it!", not *tab'ija'), and -k'waj also keeps a tense vowel, which a root not ending in the glottal stop normally lacks. Treat them as an irregular subclass of root transitives, not as derived verbs. A handful of such words exist and are flagged when they appear. Chapter 13 returns to tab'ij as a fixed form to memorize.

The full subject-object matrix#

Now we fill the Set B slot with every person, not just "it". The rule stays the same: aspect marker, then object (Set B), then subject (Set A), then stem. The aspect marker is y- because the object slot is no longer empty.

Set B object forms, repeated from Chapter 10: before a consonant i-, a-, Ø, oj-, ix-, e-; before a vowel in-, at-, Ø, oj-, ix-, e'-. Whether the Set B marker is "before a vowel" depends on the Set A marker that follows it, not on the verb: in yatintz'ët the 2sB is at- because the next piece is in- (vowel-initial); in yarutz'ët it is a- because the next piece is ru- (consonant-initial).

One cell of the matrix, taken apart:

y-oj-ki-tz'ët
INCOMPL-1pB-3pA-see
"they see us"

A few assembled slot by slot, to show the template doing its work:

Below, rows are the subject and columns the object. Cells where subject and object are the same person, or where first and second person of the same number would "overlap" (I see myself, we see me, you see you all), are left empty: Kaqchikel expresses those with the reflexive relational noun -i' (nintz'ët wi' "I see myself"; Chapter 21: Relational Nouns in Depth).

-tz'ët "see" (consonant-initial stem, pre-consonantal Set A)

A few of these, taken apart:

y-at-in-tz'ët
INCOMPL-2sB-1sA-see
"I see you"

y-in-a-tz'ët
INCOMPL-1sB-2sA-see
"you see me"

y-i-ru-tz'ët
INCOMPL-1sB-3sA-see
"she sees me"

y-a-ru-tz'ët
INCOMPL-2sB-3sA-see
"she sees you"

y-ix-qa-tz'ët
INCOMPL-2pB-1pA-see
"we see you all"

y-e'-in-tz'ët
INCOMPL-3pB-1sA-see
"I see them"

y-e-ru-tz'ët
INCOMPL-3pB-3sA-see
"he sees them"

Look at the pairs yinatz'ët / yinitz'ët ("you see me" / "you all see me") and yatintz'ët / yixintz'ët ("I see you" / "I see you all"): the only thing that changes is the piece that names the person who changed.

-kanoj "look for" is identical except for the stem: yatinkanoj "I'm looking for you", yinakanoj "you're looking for me", yerukanoj "she's looking for them", yojkikanoj "they're looking for us", ye'inkanoj "I'm looking for them", nkikanoj "they're looking for it".

-ajo' "want, love" (vowel-initial stem, pre-vocalic Set A)

y-at-inw-ajo'
INCOMPL-2sB-1sA-want
"I love you"

y-in-aw-ajo'
INCOMPL-1sB-2sA-want
"you love me"

y-i-r-ajo'
INCOMPL-1sB-3sA-want
"he loves me"

y-a-q-ajo'
INCOMPL-2sB-1pA-want
"we love you"

y-e-k-ajo'
INCOMPL-3pB-3pA-want
"they love them"

Notice yirajo' and yarajo': the 3sA here is the pre-vocalic r- (before ajo'), and the Set B in front of it is the pre-consonantal i-/a- (because r is a consonant). Each prefix looks only at the very next sound.

Third-person objects: singular, plural, and "unmarked"#

With a third-person object you have two choices: zero (Ø, with n-) for "him / her / it", and e- (with y-) for "them":

But the plural object marker is used much less than English "them" would suggest. Kaqchikel tends to leave the plurality of things low on the animacy scale (objects, produce, animals, abstractions) unmarked on the verb, especially when the noun itself is not pluralized. "I'm buying tortillas" is simply ninlöq' wäy, with the zero object, not ye'inlöq' wäy. With people, and especially with named people, ye- is normal: ye'intz'ët ri tijonela' "I see the teachers". The practical result, as the grammar books point out, is that the overwhelming majority of transitive verbs in real speech have a zero object and therefore begin with n-*. When in doubt, use zero.

When the object is a noun phrase#

So far the object has been a pronoun inside the verb. When you name the object with a noun, the noun simply follows the verb, and the verb still carries the matching Set B marker (zero for singular, or e- for a plural that you choose to mark). Then, if you also name the subject with a noun, it comes after the object. This gives the basic Kaqchikel order Verb - Object - Subject (VOS):

n-Ø-u-tij   wäy       ri  ak'wal
INCOMPL-3sB-3sA-eat   tortilla   the child
"The child eats tortillas."

The article ri marks a definite or already-mentioned noun ("the"); an indefinite object usually has no article or takes jun "a, one". A bare noun right after the verb is read as the object, which is why nutij wäy ri ak'wal cannot mean "the tortilla eats the child".

Very often the subject is fronted for topic or emphasis, producing Subject - Verb - Object, which looks reassuringly English:

Both orders are correct. VOS is the neutral order; SVO puts a spotlight on the subject ("as for the child, ..."). Fronting the subject of an intransitive verb or a non-verbal predicate is free; fronting the subject of a transitive verb traditionally required a change in the verb, the antipassive of Chapter 17.

When both subject and object are third-person nouns and both could plausibly do the action, the verb form alone (nutz'ët) does not tell you which is which; word order and context do, and since the authors' reference grammar allows Verb - Subject - Object as well as Verb - Object - Subject after the verb, such a sentence can be genuinely ambiguous. Nutz'ët ri tz'i' ri ak'wal is by default "the child sees the dog" (object first), but a speaker who wants to be unmistakable will front the subject: Ri ak'wal nutz'ët ri tz'i'. You can do the same with independent pronouns for clarity or contrast: Rija' yirutz'ët rin "SHE sees ME" (the pronouns add nothing grammatically; the verb already says it all).

Verbs with two objects: giving, telling, asking, showing#

Verbs like "give", "say", "ask", "show" have a thing (what is given) and a person (who receives it). Only one of them can be the object inside the verb, and it is always the thing. The person goes into a phrase with the relational noun -e "to, for", which you met in Chapter 5 and will study in depth in Chapter 21. A relational noun is a possessed noun that does the work of an English preposition; here its possessor is the recipient:

With -ya' the verb's own object is zero (the thing given, singular), so the verb begins with n-: ninya', naya', nuya', nqaya', niya', nkiya'. The English "me" of "give me" is not in the verb at all; it is chwe. So "you give it to me" is naya' chwe. This is one of the most common errors learners make: do not say yinaya' for "you give me (something)". That would mean "you give me (away) to someone". Say naya' chwe*.

"I eat" versus "I eat it"#

English lets one verb swing both ways. Kaqchikel usually has two different verbs, one intransitive and one transitive, and you must pick:

Many of the intransitive partners end in -an or -on (tz'ib'an, tzijon, b'ixan "sing", k'ayin "sell"): these are antipassive stems, the verb's way of dropping its object. Chapter 17 explains them; for now, learn them as vocabulary pairs. The shortcut rule: if you can put "it" or a noun after the English verb, you need the transitive form with Set A; if there is no object, you need the intransitive with Set B.

Reading a transitive verb off the page#

When you meet an unfamiliar incompletive transitive verb, decode it in this order:

1. Strip n- or y-. If it was n-, the object is Ø (him/her/it). If it was y-, read the next piece as the object: i-/in- me, a-/at- you, oj- us, ix- you all, e-/e'- them.
2. Read the next piece as the subject (Set A): in-/inw- I, a-/aw- you, u-/r- he/she, qa-/q- we, i-/iw- you all, ki-/k- they.
3. What is left is the stem. If it is one syllable, it is a root; if it ends in -Vj, it is derived.

Two forms are worth flagging because beginners misread them: nitz'ët is "you all see it" (2pA i-), and niwajo' is "you all want it" (2pA iw-), not a first-person form. The first person always shows in- / inw-.

A short reading: ma Kawoq's family#

Read this once for meaning, then go back and find the subject and object of every verb.

Ma Kawoq k'o rawän. Q'ij q'ij nutik ixim chuqa' kinäq', nuch'är si'. Te Ixk'at nukem po't pa rochoch; nuk'ayij ri po't pa k'ayb'äl. Xta Ixchel, ri rume'al, nuk'ayij ichaj chuqa' oj pa k'ayb'äl. A Tz'ikin, ri ruk'ajol, jun tijonel: nuk'üt ri tz'ib' chike ri ak'wala' pa Chiq'a'l. Pa nimaq'a' nkitij wäy junam, nkiqüm kape. Toq'a' a Tz'ikin nusik'ij jun wuj, ma Kawoq nrak'axaj q'ojom. Rije' nkajo' ri kisamaj.

Ma Kawoq has a cornfield. Every day he plants corn and beans, and he splits firewood. Te Ixk'at weaves blouses at her house; she sells the blouses at the market. Xta Ixchel, his daughter, sells greens and avocados at the market. A Tz'ikin, his son, is a teacher: he teaches writing to the children in Comalapa. In the morning they eat tortillas together and drink coffee. In the evening Tz'ikin reads a book, and Kawoq listens to music. They love their work.

Patterns at a glance#

Template: ASPECT + Set B (object) + Set A (subject) + stem

Aspect marker (incompletive): n- before Ø object; y- before every other object.

Set A (ergative) on verbs:

Set B (absolutive) as object:

"It" as object, root and derived, consonant-initial and vowel-initial:

Non-third-singular objects, selection (with -to' "help"):

Word order: Verb - Object - Subject is neutral; Subject - Verb - Object for topic/emphasis.

Recipients: chwe, chawe, chre, chqe, chiwe, chike after the verb (ninya' ... chawe "I give ... to you").

Vocabulary#

Usage and dialect notes#

• Pronounce the prefixes as one word with the stem. Yatintz'ët is one phonological word, stressed on the last syllable like everything else. Learners who pause between yat- and -intz'ët are hard to understand.
• The n- / ni- question. Written standard: nqatz'ët, nkitz'ët, nrajo'. Spoken reality in much of the Kaqchikel area: niqatz'ët, nikitz'ët, nirajo'. Both are correct Kaqchikel; only the spelling convention differs. In ordinary speech most speakers also slip a d or t sound in after the n when the verb word is a single syllable (something like ndel for nel "he goes out"); you will hear it everywhere, and dictionaries list ndel as a variant, but the standard spelling leaves it out.
• ru- or u-? After a vowel the third-person Set A keeps its r: yarutz'ët, yirukanoj, yojruto'. After the aspect prefix and a zero object it loses it: nutz'ët, nukanoj, nuto'. Before a vowel-initial stem it is r-: nrajo', nril. The spelling nu- versus ru- is therefore not a dialect difference; it is position.
• Do not double the subject. Ri ak'wal nutij wäy already contains "he" (u-) as subject; adding rija' is possible only for emphasis. Likewise do not add rin to every nintz'ët. Kaqchikel speech uses independent pronouns far less than English.
• Plural objects. Use ye- freely with people; with things, follow the noun: if you say taq wuj "books", ye- is natural; if you say wuj, use zero. Never force a plural onto mass nouns like wäy, ixim, ya'.
• "To" with giving is not in the verb. English "give me", "tell me", "show me" all become verb + chwe. If you find yourself saying yinaya', yinab'ij, yinak'üt for these meanings, stop and rebuild with chwe.
• Vocabulary variants you may meet: -tzu' and -tz'ët overlap in meaning ("look at / see"); the imperative tatzu' "look!" is very common. Market appears both as k'ayb'äl and k'ayb'äl; both are in use. "Take, bring" is -k'äm in most towns and -k'em in some.

Pitfalls for English speakers#

1. Using Set B for the subject of a transitive verb. English "I" is one word, so learners write yitz'ët for "I see it". The subject of a transitive verb is Set A: nintz'ët. If the verb has an object, the subject is in-/a-/u-/qa-/i-/ki-*.
2. Forgetting that the object comes first. yatintz'ët is "I see you", not "you see me". The piece right after y- is always the object.
3. Reading nitz'ët / niwajo' as "I ...". The i there is the 2p Set A. First person is always in-/inw-.
4. Writing the r of ru- after n-: nrutz'ët. Before a consonant it is nutz'ët; the r survives only before a vowel (nrajo') or after a vowel (yarutz'ët*).
5. Putting the recipient inside the verb: yinaya' for "you give me". The recipient is chwe: naya' chwe*.
6. Using the transitive verb with no object ("I eat" as nintij). With no object, switch to the intransitive partner: yiwa'*.
7. Marking every plural object with ye-. With things, zero is the norm: ninlöq' wäy, not *ye'inlöq' wäy.

Looking back and ahead#

You now have the whole person-marking engine of the Kaqchikel verb: Set B (Chapter 3) for the object, Set A (Chapter 4) for the subject, and the n-/y- choice you first met with intransitives in Chapter 10. Chapter 12 (Talking About the Past and the Future) keeps every prefix you learned here and only swaps the aspect marker: x- for the completive, xt-/xk- for the potential, with a few sound adjustments (the dropped r of ru-, the bridging i). Chapter 13 (Commands, Requests, and Wishes) is where the root/derived distinction starts to earn its keep, and Chapter 17 (Voice) shows what happens when a transitive verb gives up one of its two participants.