mohottah

Michael McCafferty mmccaffe at indiana.edu
Wed May 12 22:59:52 UTC 2010


Hi, John,

You know, my first (gut?) feeling about this was that that -c- was 
epenthetic, not resulting from reduplication.

Yes, this is cool, and...strange.

*/ni-k-aa?si/ -> /ni-ka-k-a?si/

Michael

Quoting "John Sullivan, Ph.D." <idiez at me.com>:

> Michael,
> 	If I want to reduplicate the stem of quiahci, the first syllable
> that contains elements of the stem is ah, so the a is reduplicated.
> If I want to reduplicate the stem of nicahci, the first syllable
> containing elements of the stem is cah, right? So in this case the ca
> is reduplicated. This only happens with transitive verbs whose stem
> begins in a vowel, and when the subject is ni or ti (hence, the
> initial sequence nic or tic). Cool, huh?
> John
>
> On May 12, 2010, at 12:06 PM, Michael McCafferty wrote:
>
>> Quoting "John Sullivan, Ph.D." <idiez at me.com>:
>>
>>> Piyali Ben,
>>> 	You know that when mo- and itta come together, the o wins out over
>>> the i because although both are short, the o is stronger than the i.
>>> So we get motta, which you will see all the time in texts. Now, when
>>> it comes time to reduplicate, you reduplicate the new word, motta,
>>> which is now understood to be m-otta, and you get m-ohotta.
>>> 	This kind of re-analyzed reduplication happens in the Huasteca too. So:
>>> 1. ahci, nic. to touch s.o. or s.t.
>>> 2. aahci, nic. to touch s.t. after all
>>> 3. Carlos quiaahci. Carlos touches it after all
>>> 4. Nicacahci. I touch it after all.
>>> John
>>
>>
>> John:
>>
>> I'm wondering about number 4. I don't get the second -c-.
>>
>> Michael
>>
>>
>>>
>>> On May 12, 2010, at 9:07 AM, Leeming, Ben wrote:
>>>
>>>> Piyali listeros,
>>>>
>>>> Can anyone explain to me the process by which mo+(i)ttah (they look
>>>> at each other, see themselves) becomes mohottah?
>>>>
>>>> On p. 90 of Andrews? Workbook (1975 ed.), Ex. 38A, no. 3 he writes:
>>>> Nepanotl mohottah, and then on p. 195 gives the translation ?They
>>>> are staring at one another mutually; i.e., They are staring at one
>>>> another.?  On p. 445 of the text, in the Vocabulary under (iTTA) he
>>>> has ?MO-(iTTA) = to look at oneself, to see oneself.?  This is close
>>>> to but not identical with mohottah.
>>>>
>>>> I have this sinking feeling that it?s something really obvious, but
>>>> for whatever reason I can?t account for that first h!!
>>>>
>>>> Thank you!
>>>>
>>>> Ben
>>>>
>>>> Ben Leeming
>>>> Chair, History Department
>>>> The Rivers School
>>>> Weston, MA 02493
>>>> (781) 235-9300
>>>>
>>>> Sample disclaimer text
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>>>
>>
>>
>>
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>



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