-eh/-huah

[Michael McCafferty]

Estimados/-as,

Here is Susana Moraleda's original message of September 10 followed by 
my message of today.

 ===============================================================================


Date: 10 Sep 2009 12:29:27 +0200
Subject: [Nahuat-l] -eh and -huah
From: "Susana Moraleda" <susana at losrancheros.org>
To: "Nahuat-l (messages)" <nahuatl at lists.famsi.org>


Campbell/Karttunen and Sullivan are not very clear on the various uses
of -eh and -huah as regards quantities.
Could anyone please confirm that I'm right on the following please?

ONE who has ONE fish - michhuah
MANY who have ONE fish - michhuahque
ONE who has MANY fishes - mimichhuah
MANY who have MANY fishes - mimichhuahque

Thank you!!!

Susana

 ==============================================================================


Susana,

I've been thinking about this question. Here's what I hope is a useful answer.

If we look at Karttunen's and Campbell's _Foundation Course in Nahuatl 
Grammar_ as well as Sullivan's grammar, we find very similar and clear 
rules for forming such possessor nouns in Nahuatl:

Karttunen and Campbell say, "...-eh for noun stems that end in consonants and
-huah for noun stems that end in vowels and also a few stems that end 
in consonants."  They also aad that you can make this construction 
plural by adding -queh. Pues:

cal- + -eh = dueno de casa

cal- + -eh + -queh = duenos de casa


Sullivan says, "Cuando la raiz del sustantivo termina en consonante, se anade
-e (sic) o -hua (sic) a veces indistintamente. En muchos casos regia la 
usagen regional. El sufijo -hua (sic) prevalecia en Tlaxcala, por 
ejemplo."


Notice that in both cases, all three Nahuatl scholars are saying that a 
*noun stem*/raiz* is what receives the -eh/-huah.


Now, ambiguity is a spontaneous creation of all languages. In Nahuatl, 
ambiguity is potentially present in this kind of construction since the 
noun that is possessed comes only in the form of a *stem*, and the stem 
can imply either a singular thing or plural things, for example:


altepehuah one who has a town
oztohuah one who has a cave (generally)

but

nacaceh   one who has ears
caqueh    one who has shoes
ma:yeh    one who has hands
atemeh    one who has lice
icxeh     one who has feet


If we look at Andrews' most _Introduction to Nahuatl Grammar_, we find 
that he's saying the same as Karttunen and Campbell, and Sullivan. Oh, 
and the examples he gives are particularly interesting. If you don't 
have that book, I can send copies of those pages, or, I think you can 
find his grammar on the web. I'm pretty sure I've seen it there.

In any event, Andrews notes that the "incorporated object" (by which in 
this case he is referring to our "stem" and "raiz") can have a 
"distributive/varietal prefix". His (lone) example is

mahma:eh  'it has arms/hands'.

Which brings us to your example above: mimichhuah 'one who has fishes'.

Since we last communicated on this topic, Joe Campbell was kind enough 
to send me 35 pages of examples of the use of -eh/-huah that occur in 
the Florentine Codex. All follow the above rules. In other words you 
get:

noun stem + -eh/-huah  for 'dueno de alguna(s) cosa(s).

reduplicated noun stem + -eh/-huah  for 'dueno de algunas cosas'


In both cases, "duenos" is created by adding the plural verb suffix 
-queh (because -eh/-huah are actually verbal in nature).

So, back to your original questions:

"ONE who has ONE fish - michhuah"

No. One who has fishes (although, technically, it could refer to one fish.)

"MANY who have ONE fish - michhuahque"

No. Many who have fishes.


"ONE who has MANY fishes - mimichhuah"

Yes. One who has fishes.


"MANY who have MANY fishes - mimichhuahque"

Yes.


A su servicio,

Michael





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