Editing Mam language (section)

==Child Language==
An overview of child language acquisition in Mam can be found in Pye (2017). Child language data for Mam challenge many theories of language acquisition and demonstrate the need for more extensive documentation of native American languages.<ref>{{Cite journal |last=Pye |first=Clifton |date=May 2021 |title=Documenting the acquisition of indigenous languages |url=https://www.cambridge.org/core/product/identifier/S0305000920000318/type/journal_article |journal=Journal of Child Language |language=en |volume=48 |issue=3 |pages=454–479 |doi=10.1017/S0305000920000318 |pmid=32500845 |issn=0305-0009|url-access=subscription }}</ref>

Children acquiring Mam produce a higher proportion of verbs than children acquiring K’iche’, but a lower proportion of verbs compared to children acquiring Wastek and Chol. They produce a higher proportion of intransitive verbs relative to transitive verbs than children acquiring other Mayan languages (Pye, Pfeiler and Mateo Pedro 2017:22).{{clarification needed|date=September 2024}} Their high proportion of relational noun production is tied to their frequent use of intransitive verbs.{{sfn|Pye|2017}}

The following examples illustrate the children's use of intransitive verbs to express events with two participants. Ages are shown as (years;months.days). WEN (2;0.2) used the intransitive verb {{lang|mam|-kub’}}  ("go_down") in reference to an event of picking coffee. She used the relational noun phrase {{lang|mam|t-uʔn-a}} to express the agent in an oblique phrase. CRU (2;5.12) used the intransitive verb {{lang|mam|-el}}  ("go_out") in reference to an event of taking out an object. She used the relational noun phrase {{lang|mam|w-uʔn-a}} to express the agent. JOS (2;6.17) used the intransitive verb {{lang|mam|-b’aj}} ("finish") in reference to finishing a drink. He used the possessive prefix on the noun {{lang|mam|k’aʔ}} ("drink")to express the agent. The examples overturn the hypothesis that children tie their use of transitive verbs to object manipulation events.

*WEN (2;0.2) 
{{fs interlinear|glossing=link|indent=5|lang=mam
|{} {} kuʔ pe tuʔn?
|ma pa 0-kub’ kape t-uʔn-a?
|REC already ABS.3.SG-go_down coffee ERG.2.SG-by-ENC
|"Did you already pick the coffee?" (Lit. "Did the coffee already go down by you?")}}

*CRU (2;5.12) 
{{fs interlinear|glossing=link|indent=5|lang=mam
|{} nech woona.
|ntiʔ n-0-el-tzaj w-uʔn-a.
|NEG PROG-ABS.3.SG-go.out-come ERG.1.SG-by-ENC
|"I can’t get it to come out." (Lit. "It is not coming out by me.")}}

*JOS (2;6.17) 
{{fs interlinear|glossing=link|indent=5|lang=mam
|kal kama paj?
|tqal {t-k’aʔ ma} n-0-b’aj?
|what {ERG.3.SG-drink COMP} PROG-ABS.3.SG-finish
|"What is he drinking?" (Lit. "What is his drink that is finishing?")}}

Two-year-old Mam children produce the consonants {{IPA|/m, n, p, t, t͡ʃ, k, ʔ, l, j and w/}}. They produce {{IPAblink|ʔ}} in place of glottalized stops, {{IPAblink|p}} in place of {{IPAslink|ɓ}}, {{IPAblink|k}} in place of {{IPAslink|kʲ}} and {{IPAslink|q}}, {{IPAblink|t͡ʃ}} in place of {{IPAslink|t͡s}} and {{IPAslink|ʈ͡ʂ}}, {{IPAblink|ʃ}} in place of {{IPAslink|ʂ}}, and {{IPAblink|l}} in place of {{IPAslink|ɾ}}. Mam children begin producing ejective consonants after they are three and a half years old.<ref>{{Cite journal |last1=Pye |first1=Clifton |last2=Mateo |first2=Pedro |last3=Pfeiler |first3=Barbara |last4=Stengel |first4=Donald |date=2017-10-01 |title=Analysis of variation in Mayan child phonologies |url=https://linkinghub.elsevier.com/retrieve/pii/S0024384117300761 |journal=Lingua |volume=198 |pages=38–52 |doi=10.1016/j.lingua.2017.07.001 |issn=0024-3841}}</ref> The early production of /t͡ʃ/ and /l/ in Mam, as well as the late production of /s/, overturns predictions that all children have similar phonologies due to articulatory development.{{cn|date=September 2024}}

{{cn span|The acquisition of morphology in Mam is heavily influenced by prosody. Two-year-old children favor the production of word syllables with primary stress, and most often produce syllables with the form CVC. Children do not consistently produce inflectional prefixes on nouns and verbs before they are four years old, although two-year-olds frequently produce verb suffixes, including the directional suffixes. Their production of the directional suffixes is evidence that two-year-old Mam children understand the complex grammatical constraints on the use of directionals. They distinguish between the use of the directional clitics and directional suffixes in indicative and imperative verbs. Two-year-old Mam speakers omit the person enclitic on nouns and verbs despite its high frequency of use in adult speech.|date=September 2024}}

The following examples illustrate WEN’s verb complex production.{{sfn|Pye|Pfeiler|2019}} In (1), WEN produced the vowel /a/ from the verb root {{lang|mam|-q'a}} ("give"), the imperative suffix -n, and the directional suffix -tz as /xh/. (Many directionals have contracted forms as suffixes.). WEN omitted the person enclitic -a. In (2), WEN produced the progressive prefix n-, the vowel /e/ from the verb root {{lang|mam|-el}} ("go out"), a spurious /n/, and the directional suffix -tz as /ch/. The intransitive verb {{lang|mam|-el}} belongs to the class of motion verbs that take directional suffixes. Intransitive verbs outside of the class of motion verbs do not take directional suffixes except in imperative contexts. The verb {{lang|mam|-el}} contracts with the directional suffix -tz to produce the stem {{lang|mam|-etz}} ("go out to") in adult speech. WEN’s omission of the person enclitic and production of a spurious consonant overturn the hypothesis that children produce forms that are frequent in adult speech.

*WEN (1;9.2) 
{{fs interlinear|glossing=link|indent=5|lang=mam
|aanxh!
|0-q’a-n-tzaj-a
|ERG.2.SG-give-IMP.TV-hither-ENC
|"Give it!")}}

*WEN (1;8.21) 
{{fs interlinear|glossing=link|indent=5|lang=mam
|nench.
|n-0-el-tzaj
|PROG-ABS.3.SG-go_out-hither
|"She is going out toward something")}}

The children’s production of the directional suffixes demonstrates their early recognition of the distinction between intransitive and transitive verbs in Mam. This distinction is a core feature of Mam grammar, and underpins the ergative morphology on the verbs and nouns. The semantic diversity of the verbs and positionals overturns the hypothesis that children use prototypical activity scenes as a basis for constructing grammatical categories. The children’s grammatical acumen is best seen in their use of the ergative and absolutive agreement markers on verbs. The children produced the prevocalic allomorphs of the ergative markers in nearly all of their obligatory contexts. They produced the preconsonantal allomorphs of the ergative markers in 20% of their obligatory contexts.{{sfn|Pye|2017}}

Two-year-old Mam children display a remarkable awareness of the contexts for extending the use of ergative markers to cross-reference the subject of intransitive verbs. Outside of these contexts, they consistently produced absolutive person markers on intransitive verbs. Three Mam children produced ergative person markers on intransitive verbs in half of the obligatory contexts for extended ergativity.{{sfn|Pye|Pfeiler|Mateo Pedro|2013|p=323}} The children’s awareness of the contexts for extended ergative use is all the more remarkable because the contexts are tied to clauses in dependent contexts in which aspect is not overtly marked.{{sfn|England|1983|p=264}} The following example shows JOS’s use of extended ergative marking (in bold) on the intransitive verb {{lang|mam|-ok}} ("go_in") in a purpose clause headed by the adverb {{lang|mam|ii}} ("so that"). The children’s production of ergative markers on intransitive verbs in dependent contexts overturns the theory that children link ergative markers to the subjects of transitive verbs in all contexts.

*JOS (2;6.14) 
{{fs interlinear|glossing=link|indent=5|lang=mam
|i '''t'''ok mahʔ.
|i '''t'''-ok mal...
|so_that '''ERG.3.SG'''-go_in CL
|"So that it is put..."}}

Mam two-year-olds produce sentences with a predicate-initial word order. The children, like adults, rarely produce the subject argument in transitive sentences. The Mam children show an ergative pattern of argument production that similar to the adult pattern.{{sfn|Pye|2017|pp=224-225}} {{cn span|The children produced subject arguments in 7 percent or fewer of sentences with transitive verbs. The children produced subject arguments in 40 percent of sentences with intransitive verbs, and produced object arguments in 45 percent of sentences with transitive verbs.|date=September 2024}}

{{cn span|The acquisition data for Mam and other Mayan languages have profound implications for language acquisition theory. Children demonstrate an early proficiency with verb inflection in languages with a rich morphology and where the language’s prosodic structure highlights the morphology. The Mam children’s use of directionals and extended ergative marking shows that two-year-olds are capable of using complex affixes appropriately in their obligatory contexts. This morphology accounts for the language-specific look of the children’s early utterances and guides its development in later stages.|date=September 2024}}
<section begin="list-of-glossing-abbreviations"/><div style="display:none;">
REC:recent past
AP:antipassive suffix
PAS:passive suffix
POT:potential aspect
ABS:absolutive agreement (Set B)
ERG:ergative agreement (Set A)
DEP:dependent suffix
DIR:directional
ENC:person enclitic
INTENS:intensive
REL:relational noun
PAT:patient
TV:transitive verb
IMP:imperative
CL:noun classifier
</div><section end="list-of-glossing-abbreviations"/>