The family of complex predicates in Q'anjob'al (Maya); their syntax and meaning

This dissertation describes six syntactic complex predicates in Q'anjob'al (Maya) spoken in Santa Eulalia, Huehuetenango, Guatemala: the Directional Construction (DIRC), Verbal Resultative Predicate (resultative V1V2), Causative Predicate (causative V1V2), Complement-like Predicate (complement-like V1V2), Preverbal Resultative Predicate (R2°P), and Positional Resultative Construction (PRC). They resemble resultatives, serial verbs, and causatives in other languages.;The dissertation describes their monoclausal structure, meaning, event and argument structure, and lexical restrictions. These translate into five parameters: (a) they have a single value of time, aspect, modality and polarity, (b) they have a single set of arguments, (c) they have one intonational contour, (d) the elements denote a single event or subparts of a macro event, and (e) the elements minimally involve argument sharing, but could also involve argument fusion, or composition.;Q'anjob'al complex predicates have two main features: (a) they are of an asymmetric type in that one element functions as the 'primary' element, and (b) they always have a verbal element (V) with another element that can be verbal or nonverbal (NV). Thus, these complex predicates always have a verbal 'primary' element. Regarding their structure, complex predicates involve four constructions: (a) a nonverbal-verbal construction used by the R2°P and shared by depictives (where it is a non-complex predicate and multi-headed clause), (b) a verb-verb construction used for causative, resultative, and complement-like V1V2s and shared by DIRCs, (c) a verbdirectional construction, a serial verb type, where V is the main verb and DIR corresponds to up to three motion verbs, and (d) a verb-positional construction used by the PRC. In their argument structure, resultatives and causative V1V2s, PRCs, and R2°Ps involve argument fusion, complement-like V1V2s involve raising, and DIRCs may involve argument sharing or fusion depending on the particular type. Regarding event structure, resultative V1V2s, and aspectual DIRCs denote a single event, and other complex predicates denote macro events. Finally, lexical semantics is central for distinguishing complex predicates from each other and from other multi-headed clauses.;This dissertation contributes to the documentation of Q'anjob'al and advances the syntactic and semantic analysis of Mayan languages. It also contributes to our understanding of complex predicates through a case study.