3 words from the Nican Mopohua

Michael McCafferty mmccaffe at indiana.edu
Thu Mar 8 02:53:16 UTC 2012


Quoting IDIEZ <idiez at me.com>:

> Piyali Susana,
> 1. tlamahuizol-li, ?miracle? + ti (ligature) + -ca (instrumental
> relational word, ?with, by means of?). You could also say ?ica
> tlamahuizolli.?

Susana,

These are nice explanations by John.

Let me add that this is a very productive grammatical form having to do 
with the -ca instrumental and the way it attaches to nouns: xochitica, 
tetica, quetzaltica,... ad infinitum. You don't see the ligature with 
no-, mo-, i-, to-, amo-. There you just get noca, moca, ica, toca, 
amoca. Nor do you see the ligature used with nouns beginning with the 
indefinite pronouns te- and tla-.

Note that you also get the ligature -ti- with other postpositions: 
tlaticpac, caltitech, tepetitlan, etc.

> 2. i- (third person sing. possessor) + toca-itl, ?name? + -yoh, ?s.t.
> covered with, full of or having s.t.? + -can (the short version is
> ?place of?). So ?place by (having) the name of Tepeyacac.?


Tepeyacac

tepetl 'mountain' + yacatl + -co  'place of'

yacatl means 'nose' but it also means 'ridge'.

It might be good to add that the instrumental -ca, with -ti- of course, 
is added to the word for 'day', ilhuitl, to mean 'during', for example,

cemilhuitica  during the day
yeilhuitica for three days

What's also cool is that when you reduplicate the number, say, 
yeiyeilhuitica, that means 'every three days'.


Michael



> 3. to- (first person plural possessor) + cihuapil-li (noblewoman)
> tlahtohca- (combining form of tlahtoani; and when you combine the
> final l of the root of cihuapilli with the initial tl of tlahtohca-,
> you get ll) + -tzin (singular reverential ending). The final -tli has
> been dropped because the word is possessed.
> John
>
> On Mar 7, 2012, at 3:37 PM, Susana Moraleda wrote:
>
>> Hola,
>> In analyzing the Huei Tlamahuizoltica's front page, and the first
>> paragraph of the Nican Mopohua, I remain puzzled by the construction
>> of the following three words.
>>
>> TLAMAHUIZOLTICA
>> Comes from the verb MAHUIZOA, converted into a patientive noun =
>> TLAMAHUIZOLLI
>> but.... what is the function of "TICA"? I can't conclude it being an
>> instrumental verbal noun ("with the help of a miracle") or is it?
>>
>> ITOCAYOCAN TEPEYACAC
>> I think TOCAYO(H) is a noun (with adjectival sense) derived from
>> TOCAITL, but what is "CAN" doing at the end of the word?
>>
>> TOCIHUAPILLATOCATZIN
>> Apparently meaning "our queen", but literally I conclude it is
>> "our-woman-noble(pricess)-name". Why "LA" after PIL? and why TOCA?
>>
>> Thanks for any help.
>>
>> Susana
>>
>>
>>
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