<html><body style="word-wrap: break-word; -webkit-nbsp-mode: space; line-break: after-white-space;" class="">Dear lingtyp members,<br class=""><br class="">Reading Kockelman’s (2020) insightful analysis of Kekchí Maya =<i class="">toj</i> ‚until (spatial), until (temporal), still, etc'<div class="">I noticed an striking parallel between certain uses of this marker and regional uses of Spanish <i class="">hasta ‚until </i><span style="font-style: normal;" class="">that</span></div><div class="">made think if we’re maybe dealing with an areal phenomenon.</div><div class=""><br class=""></div><div class="">The relevant function/use is the following (simplifying slightly):</div><div class=""><br class=""></div><div class="">In Kekchí, with <b class="">negated</b> <b class="">and imperfective predicates</b> <i class="">toj</i> means ‚<b class="">up until </b>a certain time‘<br class="">(e.g. ’They don’t go to school until they are six years old’).</div><div class=""><br class=""></div><div class="">With the <b class="">perfective and prospective predicates</b> in <b class="">positive</b> polarity, the same marker means ‚<b class="">at</b> a certain time‘</div><div class="">(’They go to school when they are six years old’). The semantic and discourse-functional parallels are obvious</div><div class="">(and discussed in detail by Kockelman 2020). I assume that the use with the positive perfective and prospective</div><div class="">is the more innovative one, possibly through an intermediate step of implied negation ’not until a certain time’.</div><div class=""><br class=""></div><div class="">Exactly the latter situation appears to be the case in Mesoamerican Spanish, where (according to the</div><div class="">Royal Academy, <a href="https://dle.rae.es/hasta?m=form" class="">https://dle.rae.es/hasta?m=form</a>) hasta ‚until‘ can be used as ’not until’:</div><div class=""><i class="">Abrimos hasta las seis</i> ‚We don’t open <b class="">before</b> six (lit. We open <b class="">until</b> six).‘</div><div class=""><br class="">To cut a long story short: I wonder if anyone has observed a similar pattern in other languages of Mesoamerica, or maybe</div><div class="">even discussed this phenomenon from an areal perspective, possibly with regards to the influence of local<br class="">languages on Spanish?</div><div class=""><br class=""></div><div class="">I guess a candidate for the spreading for such a pattern could be Classical Nahuatl, but a first look at the "usual</div><div class="">suspects“ (Andrews 2003, Carochi 1645, Karttunen 1992, Launey 2011) has not been very fruitful thus far.</div><div class=""><br class=""></div><div class=""><div class="">Best,</div><div class="">Bastian</div><div class=""><br class=""></div><div style="font-size: 14px;" class="">
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<div class="column"><p style="font-size: 16px;" class=""><span style="font-size: 12.666666984558105px; font-family: LinBiolinumO-Identity-H;" class="">Andrews, James Richard. 2003. </span><span style="font-size: 12.666666984558105px; font-family: LinBiolinumOI-Identity-H;" class="">Introduction to Classical Nahuatl</span><span style="font-size: 12.666666984558105px; font-family: LinBiolinumO-Identity-H;" class="">. Rev. ed. Norman: University of
Oklahoma Press. </span></p>
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<div class="column"><p style="font-size: 14px;" class=""><span style="font-size: 12.666666984558105px; font-family: LinBiolinumO-Identity-H;" class="">Carochi, Horacio. 1645. </span><span style="font-size: 12.666666984558105px; font-family: LinBiolinumOI-Identity-H;" class="">Arte de la lengua mexicana</span><span style="font-size: 12.666666984558105px; font-family: LinBiolinumO-Identity-H;" class="">. Mexico: Ruyz.</span></p><p style="font-size: 14px;" class=""><span style="font-size: 12.666666984558105px; font-family: LinBiolinumO-Identity-H;" class="">Karttunen, Frances E. 1992. </span><span style="font-size: 12.666666984558105px; font-family: LinBiolinumOI-Identity-H;" class="">An analytical dictionary of Nahuatl</span><span style="font-size: 12.666666984558105px; font-family: LinBiolinumO-Identity-H;" class="">. Norman: University of Oklahoma
Press.</span></p><p style="font-size: 13px;" class="">Kockelman, Paul. 2020. Dual operators and their doubling, in Q’eqchi’ (Maya). <i class="">International Journal of American Linguistics</i> 86. 449–484.</p></div></div></div></div><div class=""><br class=""></div></div></body></html>