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FULL PHONETIC COMPLEMENTATION, SEMANTIC CLASSIFIERS, AND SEMANTICDETERMINATIVES IN ANCIENT MAYAN HIEROGLYPHIC WRITING

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  20 November 2008

David F. Mora-Marín
David F. Mora-Marín*
Affiliation:
University of North Carolina, 325 Dey Hall CB #3155, Linguistics Department, Chapel Hill, NC 27599, USA
*
E-mail correspondence to:davidmm@unc.edu
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Abstract

This paper discusses a little understood spelling practice of Mayan hieroglyphicwriting, the use of full phonetic complementation of logograms, and someimplications derived from this practice, particularly when compared with similarpractices in other logosyllabic scripts from around the world (e.g., Egyptianand Luvian), which suggest that such practice existed in association withsemantic classifiers. Also, a preliminary distinction between two types ofsemantograms is made: semantic classifiers and semantic determinatives. Previousdiscussions of both types of signs are reviewed, and it is proposed that the twoare more widespread and important in Mayan writing than previously thought. Theimplications of these results are clear: Mayanists, particularly epigraphers,need to pay more attention to this distinction in their decipherment efforts, aswell as in any future philological and paleographic endeavors. The paperconcludes with a proposal for the interrelationship between the stylisticevolution of graphemes and the development of semantic classifiers anddeterminatives.

Information

Type
Research Article
Information
Ancient Mesoamerica , Volume 19 , Issue 2 , Fall 2008 , pp. 195 - 213
Copyright
Copyright © Cambridge University Press 2008

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