nepatia Re: [Nahuat-l]

[R. Joe Campbell]

    To add to John's suggestions for alternatives to what she may have 
said, there is a morphological reason for not believing that she said
"nepahtia", 'it cures itself'.  The reflexive prefix for finite verbs is 
not "ne-", but "mo-", so 'it is cured' is "mopahtia".  "ne-" is a 
non-specific reflexive prefix and appears only on *derived* forms of 
verbs (or impersonal forms).

    Examples:

   derivation         meaning           base verb

   nehtolli           vow               ihtoa

   nezahualiztli      fast (act of)     zahua

   necuepaliztli      return (act of)   cuepa

   nealtilo           there is bathing  altia

   nealtiayan         bathing place     altia

   nezomalli          anger             zoma

    I have a more basic problem with the situation that Matthew described.
What would lead us to believe that the woman was speaking Nahuatl?  Could 
it have been one of the other approximately 55 indigenous languages of 
Mexico?  Or a language from Central America or someplace else in the 
world?

    Further, bearing witness to a language event can be dangerous, more so 
in a language not our own, and certainly outside of a situation where we 
can say, "mande?", "come again?", "I'm sorry?" (as some people now say), 
etc.

    One of my own iconic language listening experiences happened about 
forty years ago when I had no doubts about the accuracy of my hearing.
I came out of my house on a winter morning carrying a heavy 
university-owned tape recorder.  When I took my third step down an icy 
sidewalk, I fell flat on my back, probably cushioning my fall by pushing 
the tape recorder down, so that it received the first impact.
    Later that day, I was walking down a hallway filled with the burble of 
students walking by and I narrated the event to an older colleague with 
whom I had a polite relationship.  He replied, "Well, that says something 
about your ability with the taperecorder!"   ...I was stunned that he 
would speak to me with that kind of irony, even rising to sarcasm...
No, he wouldn't say that to me...  If not, what did he say?  I played it 
back in my head over and over.  By the time we had walked about three 
classrooms down the hall, I heard it differently and realized that now I 
had it right...  He had said, "Well, that says something about the 
durability of the tape recorder."

    We just don't hear segment by segment, syllable by syllable, with
total accuracy.

Iztayohmeh

Joe




On Thu, 26 Oct 2006, John Sullivan, Ph.D. wrote:

> It also could have been "cheneh patiyoh", "way too expensive". And maybe you 
> just heard the last syllable of "cheneh".
> John
>
> On Oct 26, 2006, at 9:39 PM, John Sullivan, Ph.D. wrote:
>
>>> Maybe what she said was "nel patiyoh", "It's really expensive".
>>> John
>>>
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