ihcequi doing it?s applicative thing

SASAKI Mitsuya hawatari21centuries at gmail.com
Fri Nov 4 04:56:30 UTC 2011


Joe,

If his statement on hui:tequi is correct, that seems to be crucial for 
the interpretation of the noun hui:tecqui.
Although I've yet to find the intransitive attestation of hui:tequi in 
the texts and the pre-modern grammars, it might be that Andrews 
consulted some other sources I haven't checked.

The view of "valence neutrality" as merely a matter of valency is 
intuitively easier to understand as we know the pairs "te:miqui (vt/vi)" 
and "to:ca (vt/vi)" resemble English verb pairs "to dream (vt/vi)" and 
"to sow (vt/vi)".

Maybe your generalization and Andrews' statement don't contradict each 
other if we assume that his notion of "applicative/causative meaning" is 
simply semantic (i.e. whether the object of the transitive counterpart 
is semantically benefactive/malefactive or patient/theme).

In this regard, we could say, for example, that the verb "to break (vt)" 
is a lexical causative counterpart of "to break (vi)".

(But anyway, it seems still problematic to say that the object of 
te:miqui is benefactive/malefactive.)

Mitsuya SASAKI
The Department of Linguistics, the University of Tokyo
ll116003 at mail.ecc.u-tokyo.ac.jp

(2011/11/04 12:41), Campbell, R. Joe wrote:
> Mitzuya,
>
> Andrews lists one of our verbs of interest under the topic of
> "valence-neutral" verbstems -- ahci. He points out that
> "valence-neutral" verbstems
> can be either transitive or intransitive. This passage is interesting, but
> I found myself disagreeing with some specific statements, particularly
> in #24.2.1 and #24.2.2, where he claims that the verbs discussed can
> have an applicative or causative meaning.
>
> I would assume that ahci, toca, temiqui, etc., simply function as
> either intransitive or transitive verbs, so I don't see that claiming
> the applicative or causative function adds to our understanding.
>
> However, my understanding of a particular problem certainly
> benefitted from re-reading this passage. Molina lists "huitecqui" as
> 'herido' and, since I thought of "huitequi" as being only a transitive
> verb, I expected an object prefix. I discussed the problem with a
> colleague (a member of the just-dissolved Nahuatl morphology academy
> that functioned at Notre Dame until recently). We didn't arrive at a
> definite conclusion, but I would suggest that Andrews' intransitive
> "huitequi" provides the answer:
>
> nitehuitequi I whip someone
> nihuitequi I experience whipping
>
> tehuitecqui s.o. who has been whipped (by s.o. else)
> huitecqui s.o. who has experienced whipping (no implied agent)
>
> Joe
>
>
>
>>>
>>> On the issue of Nahuatl verbs that are both transitive and
>>> intransitive, we have others in the same category -- e.g., e:hua,
>>> chipa:hua, mela:hua:
>>>
>>> e:hua she arises
>>> e:huac she arose
>>> que:uh she raised it
>>>
>>> chipa:hua it becomes pure
>>> chipa:huac it became pure
>>> quichi:pauh he purified it
>>>
>>>
>
>

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