Numeral classifiers in Yucatec Maya

Microvariation and syntactic change

Abstract

Numeral classifiers in Yucatec Maya are subject to two processes of language change that create variation in the contemporary language. The first process is the use of a general classifier instead of specific sortal classifiers. The second process is the use of the general classifier along with mensural classifiers. Our study examines the microvariation of the contemporary language in space and time, based on data from the Atlas of Yucatec Maya and draws inferences about the entity of change in diachronic perspective. Our findings show that these processes are partially interconnected, reflecting the emergence of a general marker of Cardinality (Krifka 1995, Bale & Coon 2014, Bale, Coon & Arcos 2019). The dispersion of these phenomena in geographical space shows that they only partially overlap, suggesting that the underlying processes may apply independently from each other. Furthermore, the use of the general classifier in expressions of measure does not apply equally to all mensural classifiers. Hence, a further source of variation comes from mensural classifiers: some of them lose their function as classifiers and are only used as measure nouns. Contemporary variation can thus be understood as the cumulative effect of these processes.