Kotek, Hadas and Michael Yoshitaka Erlewine, 2018.
“Non-interrogative wh-constructions in Chuj (Mayan).”
Proceedings of the Workshop on the Structure and Constituency of the Languages of the Americas (WSCLA) 21, pages 101–115.
We present a comprehensive survey of non-interrogative uses of wh-words in Chuj, an understudied Mayan language of Guatemala. Cross-linguistically, wh-words are commonly used not only for question-formation but also in a range of other constructions, including in quantification and in the formation of relative clauses. We will show that Chuj can use wh-words to form indefinites in certain limited environments, and that it can additionally use wh-words to form free choice items and a universal quantifier. In addition, Chuj uses wh-words to form free relatives, including definite free relatives but also typologically rare indefinite free relatives.