two more on Huastecan Nahuatl

[Michael Mccafferty]

John,

In "nimitzilia" ~ "nimitzihlia" which syllable is the strong one?

Or, put another way, how are these pronounced?

[ni-mitz-i-lya] where [-i-] is the strong syllable, or

[ni-mitz-i-li-a] where [-li-] is the strong syllable?



As for the future plural question, this is really interesting.

fut. sing. [cokas]
fut. pl.   [cokaseh]  (or is that [cokase?], where [?] = glottal stop?)
cond.      [cokaskiya] ~ [cokaskia]

It looks like future plural is form analogically on future singular, but I
don't know.

Michael


On Tue, 24 Jun 2003 idiez at mac.com wrote:

> There are two further characteristics of Huastecan Nahuatl that puzzle
> me:
> 1. The plural of the future tense has no /k/, while the
> conditional/unfulfilled
> action construction does. Here's an example:
> future singular: "chocaz"
> future plural: "chocaceh"
> conditional/ unfulfilled action: "chocazquia"
> 2. Instead of "nimitzilhuia", "I tell  you", we have "nimitzilia" with
> the apparent
> loss of the /w/ (And it's the same in all tenses). At least one of my
> native
> speaking friends, pronounces a very slight aspiration before the "l".
> Something
> like "nimitzihlia". I understand that this is metathesis: a reverse
> case of what
> Lockhart comments on as the origin of the "-lhuia" applicative suffix
> for Class 3
> verbs.
> 	Would anyone like to comment on what's going on in these two cases?
>
> John Sullivan, Ph.D.
> Instituto de Docencia e Investigación Etnológica de Zacatecas, A.C.
> Francisco García Salinas 604
> Colonia CNOP
> Zacatecas, Zac. 98053
> México
> +52 (492) 768-6048
> idiez at mac.com
> www.idiez.org.mx
>
>
>


Michael McCafferty
Center for Latin American and Caribbean Studies
Indiana University
Bloomington, Indiana
47401
mmccaffe at indiana.edu

"...as a dog howls at the moon, I talk."

-Rumi