Noun Classifier Extension in Q'anjob'al (Mayan): Acquiring a Gender Stereotype

Linguists have not fully explored the correlation between sociolinguistic variation and pragmatics of nominal classifier systems. When pragmatics is discussed, the focus is usually on anaphora under a restricted conceptualization of “discourse” that closely resembles the co-text of an utterance, that is, the surrounding text context (e.g., Craig 1994; Aikhenvald 1994; Sands 1995; Zavala 2000). Zavala (2000:139) discusses at length the “discourse-pragmatic” properties and functions of classifiers in Akatek Mayan which control “[t]he presence or absence of noun classifiers.” Under this framework, “noun classifiers are used to mark third-person nominals as individuated, referential and thematically important items in discourse” (Zavala 2000:140). However, this notion of “discourse-pragmatic” is quite constrained, in that “discourse” is generally limited to the immediately surrounding utterances (i.e., the co-text) and “pragmatic” largely operates under the sense of other-than-syntactic, such as overt use of a noun classifier in early discourse for purposes of foregrounding that changes to zero anaphora in subsequent utterances. Q‟anjob‟al is a Mayan language principally spoken in the department of Huehuetenango in Guatemala (Mateo Pedro 2004) and, along with Akatek, Chuj, and Jakaltek, is part of the Q‟anjob‟alan branch (Campbell 1997:163; Robertson 1992:3). Within the last decades, some speakers of Q‟anjob‟al have been employing noun classifiers in a manner that extends them and is coupled with a particular intentional use (Mateo Pedro 2004). This use exhibits characteristics that suggest a broadening the aforementioned concepts of “discourse” and “pragmatics” is necessary in order to capture classifier function and use as a gender-based variation. This paper investigates noun classifier use in one dialect of Q‟anjob‟al and argues that recent sociolinguistic change of canonical classifier use by adult male speakers is principally pragmatic and ideological, discursively (re)producing social constructions of gender. This pragmatic and ideological usage by men informs child overextension of noun classifiers, though the latter does not exhibit entirely similar pragmatic and ideological function. The Santa Eulalia dialect of Q‟anjob‟al (Q‟SE) is of particular interest with regard to the phenomenon of gender-based noun classifier extension. Speakers of the Q‟SE dialect seem to have triggered this “innovation,” though it is also current among speakers of Q‟anjob‟al of Soloma because of contact and diffusion (Mateo Pedro 2004:1).