Interesting data

[Frances Karttunen]

Dear listeros,

I was sent the following Nahuatl data from a very recent publication.  It
seems that for the provider of these data, the fact that Nahuatl does not
distinguish masculine and feminine third person singular subjects is a
problem that has been solved by resort to Spanish el/ella.

Has anyone else recorded data of this sort?  It's new ot me but plausible.

Fran



The reference is
MacSwan, Jeff.  A minimalist approach to intrasentential code switchine.
1999.  NY:  Garland.  (this is a revision of his 1998 UCLA dissertation)

Some acceptable examples with el and ella are:

El kikoas tlakemetl
'He will buy clothes'

Ella kikoas tlakemetl
'She will buy clothes'

The comparable ungrammatical ones are:

*Yo nikoas tlakemetl
'I will buy clothes'

*Tu tikoas tlakemetl
'You will buy clothes'

These are all on page 192 of his book.