dictionary verb citations

[Frye, David]

On the other hand, there is no reason why you couldn't list the verbs in the same way that most English-English dict's list English verbs, i.e. by the standard form (which could very well be the future) followed by other relevant forms. E.g. "write (vb), wrote, written," etc. In this case, "temoz (vb), temo" could be one entry, and "temoz (vb), temoa" could be another. 
 
david

________________________________

From: Nahua language and culture discussion on behalf of Frances Karttunen
Sent: Tue 2/15/2005 2:59 PM
To: NAHUAT-L at LISTS.UMN.EDU
Subject: Re: dictionary verb citations



> My questions is, why didn't Molina and his successors use this as the
> dictionary headword form?

One reason is that one can form the future from the present by regular
rules, but future forms are ambiguous. Since the final vowel is dropped
from Class 2 and 3 (b and c) verbs in the future, one can hypothesize
more than one possible stem for a verb that ends in iz or oz. Leaving
aside contrastive vowel length for a moment, is temoz from invariant
temo or from temoa?  Is yoliz form yoli or yolia?

Fran


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