Copyright by Tammi Leann Stout 2017 The Dissertation Committee for Tammi Leann Stout certifies that this is the approved version of the following dissertation: An investigation of projection and temporal reference in Kaqchikel Committee: David Beaver, Supervisor Nora England Hans Kamp Danny Law Judith Tonhauser An investigation of projection and temporal reference in Kaqchikel by Tammi Leann Stout Dissertation Presented to the Faculty of the Graduate School of The University of Texas at Austin in Partial Fulfillment of the Requirements for the Degree of Doctor of Philosophy The University of Texas at Austin August 2017 To my mom, who always believed in me, even when I forgot to believe in myself. Acknowledgments I have to begin by thanking my linguistic consultants in Guatemala without whom this dissertation would have been absolutely impossible. I am hugely indebted to all of them for being so generous with their time and their wisdom with a special heartfelt thanks to my two primary consultants, Rigo Choy and Lucy Choy, who not only worked with me year after year but also became dear friends. I will miss the yearly trips and time we spent as you taught me so much about your language. I’m also incredibly grateful to the Kaqchikel teachers and the organizers of the Oxlajuj Aj for their introduction both to the Kaqchikel language but also to their culture when I arrived in Guatemala for the first time 4 years ago. Matyox!¨ I also want to thank the friends I made, namely Raul,´ Kerry, and Fernando, for always being such warm and welcoming faces when I arrived in Antigua. I always know I have family and a comfortable place to stay in Guatemala so long as you’re there. In addition to the consultants, who really were the heart of this dissertation, fieldwork would be impossible without generous financial support. Over the past four years, I have received research scholarships from various sources including Carlota Smith memorial fellowships, a Joel Sherzer fellowship, fellowships from the Pan-American Round Tables of Texas, a Tinker Field Grant, and a FLAS fellow- ship. This project was also partially funded by a collaborative research grant from the National Science Foundation, BCS-1452663, awarded to my adviser David Beaver. v My committee members, David Beaver, Hans Kamp, Nora England, Judith Tonhauser, and Danny Law, have been invaluable resources throughout this project, and for that I am incredibly grateful. Starting with Nora, I have to say that I appre- ciate her no bullshit approach to life and people. In many ways, I wish I could be more like that, so I can be the one telling other people that they should stop under- estimating me just as she did over the years. I’m grateful to Danny for being that person on the committee, who as the young guy on the team, that I was able to talk to about my anxieties with finishing up and the intimidation of the job search. To Judith, I am always in awe at her brilliance and work ethic. She offered copious amounts of advice helping me to be a better field researcher. As for Hans Kamp, it was truly an honor to work with such a renowned and brilliant man, who also hap- pens to be one of the sweetest, humblest and most generous humans I’ve had the chance to know. I am so grateful to he and Antje to opening their home in Stuttgart to me in the fall of 2015 and offering endless amounts of encouragement. Finally, I would not have been able to get this far and write this little document without the support (and occasional nudging) of my adviser, David Beaver. I wanted to give up and quit at several points along the way, but he didn’t let me. Thank you. I also want to express my appreciation to other faculty and staff members, who were supportive and kind along the way: John Beavers and Steve Wechsler for the fruitful conversations in reading groups, to John for teaching me how to be a better teacher, the incredible staff (Leslie Crooks, Ben Rapstine, Liz Merrick, and Faith Hanley) in the linguistics department over the years for helping make the bu- reaucratic nonsense much less stressful, and Rajka Smiljanic and Tony Woodbury for being such great professors to TA for my first few years. I also had the privilege of being in a department headed by Richard Meier, who is a genuinely kind and car- ing individual. To him, I am indebted for the endless support and encouragement. vi Graduate school would have been unbearable without friends and wicked smart colleagues, so I appreciate the friendships I developed with my colleagues in the linguistics department (and with my two favorite philosophers) over the past six years including Rachael Gilbert, Kyle Jerro, Chris Brown, Daniel Valle, Leah Velleman, Niamh Kelly, Aimee Lawrence, Leah Geer, Justin Cope, Conni Loos, Adam Tallman, Kate Mesh, Jason Mielens, Jungsoo Kim, Joey Frazee, Jorn¨ Klinger, Cindy Blanco, Jim Evans, Mar Bassa, Laura Faircloth, Natalia Bermudez, Eric Holgate, Michael Everdell, Emilie Destruel Johnson, Grace Neveu, Katja Lev- ina, and Jaime Perez Gonzalez, Megan Hyska, and Case Woolwine. To my dear friend Bonnie, I honestly don’t know what I would do without you. Thank you for always pointing out when I’m being to hard on myself and for having so much faith in me. Your friendship means the world to me. Finally, none of this would be possible without the love and support of fam- ily. To my parents, thank you for giving birth to me! I turned out to be such a delight, and that in a large part is thanks to you. But seriously, I am lucky to have a mother who truly believes her children can do anything, and a father who wouldn’t try to stand in the way of me trying to reach my goals. I am also grateful to all of my siblings for their love, support, and ability to make me laugh so hard I can’t breathe. Shawn and Dale - thanks for making me feel like the star of my own show, and thanks for your cable password! Bryan - thanks for being a champ and helping me move two summers in a row in the horrible Austin heat. Terra - people may say they have a great sister, but I know they have no idea what they’re talking about because they don’t have you as a sister. Words are failing me because none would be able to express how grateful I am for your unending love, support and friendship. And thanks for giving the world Kayden, who I want to thank for all of the hugs, love you’s, and belly laughs that reminded me of the beauty and joy in the world. vii To my beautiful, sweet GMK - pat, pat. I love you, tons! TAMMI LEANN STOUT The University of Texas at Austin August 2017 viii Abstract An investigation of projection and temporal reference in Kaqchikel Tammi Leann Stout, Ph.D. The University of Texas at Austin, 2017 Supervisor: David Beaver This dissertation is an investigation of two categories of meaning: projective con- tent and temporal reference. Both topics have been discussed widely in literature for better studied languages, primarily English, but have received much less at- tention in both formal semantics and in documentary and descriptive literature for languages that are under-studied. Using data from primary fieldwork conducted in Guatemala on the Mayan language, Kaqchikel, I contribute to the discussion of the semantics of under-studied languages by investigating linguistic expressions that trigger implications, which are said to project out of the scope of entailment cancel- ing operators, such as negation. For the first half of the dissertation, I introduce the concepts and diagnostics to determine if an implication is projective both in English ix and in Kaqchikel. I then show how the diagnostics are borne out in Kaqchikel both for projection and for at-issue meaning. I then turn to an investigation of temporal reference and provide an analysis of Kaqchikel as a tenseless language, which leads into the discussion in Ch. 6 on particles in the language with projective and tempo- ral implications. I conclude by drawing on the results from both studies to discuss the implications for future studies both in Kaqchikel and for other languages. x Table of Contents List of Tables xiv List of Figures xvi Chapter 1 Introduction 1 Chapter 2 Background 7 2.1 An introduction to Kaqchikel . 7 2.1.1 The Kaqchikel language and people . 7 2.1.2 Orthography and phonology . 9 2.1.3 Morphology and word classes . 11 2.1.3.1 Nouns . 11 2.1.3.2 Verbs . 14 2.1.3.3 Positionals . 21 2.1.3.4 Prepositions and relational nouns . 22 2.1.4 Syntax and morphosyntax . 24 2.1.4.1 Basic word order and movement . 24 2.1.4.2 Predication . 25 2.2 A note on data collection . 28 2.2.1 Speaker information . 28 2.2.2 Methodology . 29 2.3 Background to studies on projection . 33 2.3.1 Presuppositions and projection . 35 2.3.2 Semantic vs. pragmatic presuppositions . 36 2.3.3 Implicatures . 38 2.3.4 A question-based approach to projective content . 41 xi Chapter 3 Projective Content 43 3.1 Identifying content that projects . 43 3.1.1 Strong Contextual Felicity and Obligatory Local Effect . 47 3.1.1.1 Strong Contextual Felicity . 48 3.1.1.2 Obligatory Local Effect . 52 3.2 Projective implications in Kaqchikel .