Tracing Eastern Mayan Perfect ‐maχ: Outcomes of Direct Affix Borrowing in the Sacapulas Corridor

Abstract

Abstract Several Eastern Mayan languages of central highland Guatemala have an innovative perfect participle suffix ‐maχ , whose distribution suggests that it diffused areally. This article describes the innovation of ‐maχ in Poqom and argues that it spread to other Mayan languages in a newly proposed contact area called the “Sacapulas Corridor.” I explore three case studies where the distribution of the perfect participle ‐maχ changed in the recipient language: functional change to a general passive in Uspantek, matter replication without pattern replication in Sakapultek and Sipakapense, and contact‐induced multiple exponence in Northern Mam. The diffusion of ‐maχ exemplifies how structural similarity and bilingualism between the source and recipient language can facilitate direct affix borrowing.