Thousands more make up a Mam diaspora throughout the United States and Mexico, with notable populations living in Oakland, California[3][4] and Washington, D.C.

[11] Neighboring languages include Jakaltek and Qʼanjobʼal to the north, Tektitek and Qato'k to the west, and Ixil, Awakatek, Sipacapense, and Kʼicheʼ to the east.

[13] Primary stress falls on the long vowel in a word if there is one, e.g. aq'ú:ntl 'work'.

Mam uses Set A (ergative) markers on nouns to mark possessor agreement and on verbs to cross-reference the transitive subject.

Verbs in Mam can include inflection for person, aspect and mode, as well as auxiliaries in the form of directionals.

Intransitive verb complex with directional[21] maRECchinABS.1.SGjawDIRtz'aq-aslip-ENCma chin jaw tz'aq-aREC ABS.1.SG DIR slip-ENC"I slipped (just now).

"Mam extends the Set A (ergative) person markers in the context of focused adverbials and certain subordinate clauses.

"REC:recent past POT:potential aspect ABS:absolutive agreement (Set B) ERG:ergative agreement (Set A) DEP:dependent suffix DIR:directional ENC:person enclitic REL:relational noun PAT:patient Transitive verbal affixes Intransitive verbal affixes

Both verbal and non-verbal predicates occur in sentence-initial position unless a focused or topicalized phrase is present.

Verbal predicates are either transitive or intransitive according to the number of arguments cross-referenced in the verb complex.

England notes examples of transitive verb roots that only appear in their antipassive or passive forms where they only cross-reference a single participant.

"My penny was found in the garbage")Another possibility is the use of intransitive motion verbs to express transitive events.

England and Martin (2003) found a low frequency of transitive sentences in Mam texts.

[full citation needed] Pye (2017) found a low use of overt subjects in transitive sentences in adults speaking to children.

[35] Mam adds Set B person markers to nouns and adjectives to form non-verbal predicates.

[38] 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 An overview of child language acquisition in Mam can be found in Pye (2017).

[clarification needed] Their high proportion of relational noun production is tied to their frequent use of intransitive verbs.

The examples overturn the hypothesis that children tie their use of transitive verbs to object manipulation events.

Two-year-old Mam speakers omit the person enclitic on nouns and verbs despite its high frequency of use in adult speech.

In (2), WEN produced the progressive prefix n-, the vowel /e/ from the verb root -el ("go out"), a spurious /n/, and the directional suffix -tz as /ch/.

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.

")nench.n-0-el-tzajPROG-ABS.3.SG-go_out-hithernench.n-0-el-tzajPROG-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.

[40] 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.

[44] The following example shows JOS’s use of extended ergative marking (in bold) on the intransitive verb -ok ("go_in") in a purpose clause headed by the adverb ii ("so that").

iiso_thattokt-okERG.3.SG-go_inmahʔ.mal...CLi tok 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 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.

[citation needed] 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