142 Nora C. England
HUMAN PROPENSITY (cotlt.)
Non-roots
tx'u'j 'fierce'
xmeletz 'inconsistent'
xpo'w 'stubborn'
Many words for DIMENSIONS are positional, for instance: tukl 'lying there, some-
thing short', patch 'placed, long thing'. Another way to form dimensional adjectives
is with the roots «ee"small', matiij 'big', or nim 'many (big)'. When combined with
body parts or relational nouns, they are extended to mean small or big in a certain
dimension. For instance, from tqan 'leg, foot' there is nee tqan 'short', matiij tqan
'long', and nim tqan 'long', and from twitz 'face' there is nee' twitz 'narrow' and nim
twitz 'wide'.
Mayan languages in general have five basic COLOUR terms. Mam has added
another term for red, yooxh, and has shifted the original term for yellow, q'an, to
mean 'ripe', while a derived term, xhq'an, is used for the colour. It is fairly common
to extend the use of nouns that refer to objects of particularly noteworthy colours
to the colour itself, as in xhe'q 'a blue mushroom' for 'blue', ch'el 'parrakeet' for green,
or spo'q 'dandruff' for grey'.
Non-adjective QUANTIFIERS include 'all', tkyaqiil, which is an always-possessed
noun, and the words for 'only', noq and o'kx, which are adverbs with no derived
forms. The NUMBERS 'one,jun, and 'two', kab', are used for the indefinites 'a/an and
'some', respectively, and a derivation from the number 'one,juu'n, indicates 'each'.
Other classes of words that have something to do with POSITION are the rela-
tional nouns, directionals, and positionals. One of the main functions of relational
nouns is to introduce locative NPs, encoding meanings such as 'in, on, between,
beside, above, beneath', etc. The directionals are grammaticalized forms of intransi-
tive verbs of motion that are inserted into the verbal complex to indicate the direc-
tion of movement. They are also used as the base to form cardinal directions, either
as a participial form (with -no) or as an abstract noun form modifying the noun
q'iij sun. The directions are:
(75) okna 'east' < ok 'in
elna 'west' < el 'out'
kub'na 'south' < kub' 'down'
jawna 'north, above' < jaw 'up'
telex q'iij 'west' < el 'out', xi' 'away', q'iij 'sun'
tkub'al q'iij 'south' < kub' 'down', q'iij 'sun
tjawal q'iij 'north' < jaw 'up', q'iij 'sun'
tjawatz q'iij 'east' < jaw 'up', tzan 'toward', q'iij 'sun'
Positionals encode a combination of semantic notions, including position (far,
standing, sitting, lying down, crouching, leaning, hanging, etc.) and physical char-
acteristics (round, spherical, fat, thin, long, lightweight, cylindrical, uneven, etc.)