another interp

[Frances Karttunen]

>  > 3. "nipixtos" = preterite form of "piya" + "ti" ligature, + "o" (to be
>  > lying) + "s" (future). This is the Nahuatl equivalent of the past
>  > subjunctive in Spanish.

There is another possible way to look at this.  There are "purposive"
suffixes -quiuh/-co meaning 'to come to do something' and -tiuh/-to 'to go
to do something.'

The -co and -to forms tend to be generalized at the expense of the
-quiuh/-tiuh forms.

So maybe "nipixtos" can be understood as 'I (would) go to take care of
(something)' with the future -s still carrying a sense comparable to the
Spanish subjunctive.

After all, -s (spelled -z in the Spanish-based orthograpy) appears at the
end of Nahuatl conditional forms such as "nicnequi nicochi-z" 'I want to
sleep' and in the middle of conditional forms such as nicmaca-z-quiya 'I
would sell it.'  So it would make sense that it would be identified with the
Spanish subjunctive.

What I notice in this form is that the object prefix is missing.  One would
expect "ni-k-pixtos."  Is it possible that there is a soft, barely audible
-h- where I have written -k-?  Or is it really gone?

Fran