N-ti verber 'have'. morphological meaning

[Clayton, Mary L.]

Michel and listeros,
	Our main point -- for which the fine points of how to translate [-ti - 
have] (Joe’s V04) are irrelevant -- is that [-ti - be/become] expresses 
an equation, while [-ti - have] expresses a transfer (including the 
reflexive meaning to apply to oneself). Given that these two morphemes 
have nothing in common except their form, we see no reason to try to 
group them together.

	A morpheme is a combination of a FORM and a MEANING, and if a form has 
two meanings, or a meaning two forms, where these differences cannot be 
explained as some regular or predictable variant, then we have two 
separate morphemes. (e.g., /tu/ in English, which is ‘to’, ‘too’, and 
‘two’).
	Thus, we (Joe and I) would say that your “two semantic values” for -ti 
are simply the meanings of two separate morphemes. The semantic values 
that we assign to these in other languages may be open to questions. 
They won’t always be “the same” for all instances of one morpheme, and 
we may differ at times on how to express the meaning in another 
language. (You are quite right that translations raise their own 
problems, especially as the number of languages involved increases 
beyond two, as I am well aware since my main project is the Vocabulario 
trilingue, where I deal with three languages plus English.)
	As a way of expressing the unity of the [-ti - have] morpheme, we find 
‘have’ to be a good cover translation, although we agree that in 
individual instances, and in specific contexts, other translations will 
be better.
	In the preface to the first edition of his Introduction to Classical 
Nahuatl, Andrews says (p.x) “Nahuatl is an exotic language. It is not 
just foreign like Spanish, German or Russian; it is strangely foreign.” 
This characteristic of Nahuatl freqently leads us to “explain” the 
meaning of a word (that is HOW a word means, not just WHAT it means) by 
using words in ways that certainly aren’t elegant. Thus we translate 
nipahti as ‘I have medicine’, rather than ‘I am cured’, ‘I recover’, ‘I 
get well’, because it shows us what the relationship is between the 
meaning of pahtli and the meaning of -ti, and what the basic meaning of 
the combination is. It also “explains” the Nahuatl meaning of the -ti-a 
forms, ‘I cause someone to have medicine’, in a way that ‘I cure 
someone’ does not. Of course, if we were translating text rather than 
defining basic linguistic meanings, we would look for something a 
little more elegant -- and a little more English-like.

	One reason for using ‘have’ as the basic translation for -ti is that 
it neatly captures the relationship between the very common -tia, which 
can be translated ‘to cause to have’ and the (as you point out) 
uncommon intransitive form -ti, which is in any case a necessary 
jumping off point for the -tia form. -a is a common causative morpheme 
in Nahuatl , so adding that to -ti captures both the form and the 
meaning of -tia. We agree that whether you see this as a causative or a 
benefactive will depend on your translation: “cause X to have Y” sounds 
causative, while “give Y to X” sounds benefactive and “provide X with 
Y” (a translation we use frequently) can be seen either way. Once 
again, the “translation” ‘have’ is not about the fine points of 
rendering Nahuatl in English; it is simply an identification of the 
general semantic content of the verb-forming element. You want one word 
(or maybe two, as in ‘be/become’) to represent the general meaning of 
each morpheme. That doesn’t mean that that’s the translation you will 
use in all or even most cases.
	For your specific comments on the four verbs that you single out, we 
would agree with much of what you say. The BIG point is that none of 
these can be translated with “be”, “become” or any other equational 
expression.
	Some specifics:
	1) Actually, I would say “For a slave to DO work, produce work”. In 
English, we wouldn’t use “make”, and I think that we’re just talking 
about differences between French and English, not basic Nahuatl.
	2) and 3)We agree that aspect has a place in some translations, though 
in tzinti, the meaning of tzintli carries much of the meaning. For me, 
whether a tree “makes”, “has”, or “produces” resin are all about the 
same thing. I couldn’t use “gives” unless whatever it “gives” (fruit, 
syrup, resin) has a use. But again, we’re talking about English and 
French, not Nahuatl. But “The tree is/becomes resin” is out of the 
question. That -ti is a different morpheme.
	4) You make a good point about huictli mecapalli, though I’m not sure 
which exact figure of speech is being employed. I can imagine it 
meaning either “they become digging sticks and tump lines” or “they use 
digging sticks and tump lines”. The figure exists primarily in the 
juxtaposition of the two entities, regardless of their grammatical 
forms. Joe found the other example that you mention. It’s in book 4 
p.91 “injc cujtiloque in victli, mecapalli, injc victique, 
mecapaltique,” “so they had been forced into bondage and had become 
slaves.” (original transcription; Dibble and Anderson’s translation).

	One further point that I intended to take up soon after my first 
message, but I got busy with other things, is that I found that the 
relationship between the two causatives and the two -ti verbers is not 
as absolute as I had originally thought, though a look through Joe’s 
data shows that it is in fact much closer to absolute than one would 
think from reading Andrews’ exposition, which begins on p.578 of the 
second edition of his book.

	I’ll close by quoting the first couple of paragraphs of Andrews presentation.

“54.4. The Intransitive Suffx ti of Possession. The inceptive/stative 
suffix ti of 54.2.1. has a homophonous verbstem-forming suffix ti that 
creates a denominal intransitive verbstem with the meaning of “to 
have/be in possession of (what is signified by the source nounstem).” 
This ti of possession is unlike the inceptive/stative ti in that the 
verbstem it creates cannot form a deverbal verbstem with ya.
	Another difference between the two suffixes has to do with focus. A 
VNC [verbal nuclear clause] formed on the inceptive/stative ti is 
oriented toward the subject pronoun (i.e., the predicate identifies or 
clarifies the nature of the subject entity just as a subject complement 
does in English -- the ti suffix is similar to an English copular 
verbword), but a VNC formed on the ti-of-possession is oriented toward 
the nounstem source (i.e., it names what in English would be a direct 
object-- the ti suffix is similar to an English transitive verbword of 
having).”
	Following this is a list of examples from which some of ours were 
taken, though I don’t think I used any that aren’t also in Joe’s data.

     Best,
        Mary




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