<HTML><BODY style="word-wrap: break-word; -khtml-nbsp-mode: space; -khtml-line-break: after-white-space; ">Listeros,<DIV><SPAN class="Apple-tab-span" style="white-space:pre"> </SPAN>I came across an interesting word today in Chicontepec Nahuatl. "cua:te:mitoc. ni." = "I have bump (chipote) on my head", or more literally, "I am head-swollen". First let's get "cua-" from "cua:itl", "head", out of the way. </DIV><DIV><SPAN class="Apple-tab-span" style="white-space:pre"> </SPAN>OK, the interesting thing is this. We have either the intransive "te:mi", "to fill up or swell", which should reduce to "te:n-"; or the causitive "te:mia", "to fill something up" or perhaps "to make something swell up", which should reduce to "te:mih-".</DIV><DIV><SPAN class="Apple-tab-span" style="white-space:pre"> </SPAN>On these two reduced forms you could then add the auxiliary "-toc" (-ti- ligature, plus the singular preterite-as-present form of the verb "o", "to be lying down"), which in the Huasteca means "to have done something (present perfect tense), or sometimes, by extension, to be in the state resulting from that action. </DIV><DIV><SPAN class="Apple-tab-span" style="white-space:pre"> </SPAN>Anyway, you would get either "cua:te:ntoc" ("cua:-" as adverb) or "cua:te:mihtoc" ("cua:-" as object). The problem is that the native speakers here insist that it is "cua:te:mitoc". Given the fact that class 2 verb reduction is a relatively recent phenomenon in the evolution of Nahuatl, and that peripheral variants, such as the Nahuatl of the Huasteca tend to conserve older forms, and that in the Huasteca (perhaps in other areas too) many verbs can be conjugated either as class 1 or class 2 with no difference in meaning (this is not the case with "te:mi" today), could we perhaps be seeing in "cua:te:mitoc" an older unreduced form of the verb "te:mi"?</DIV><DIV>John</DIV><BR><DIV><SPAN class="Apple-style-span" style="border-collapse: separate; border-spacing: 0px 0px; color: rgb(0, 0, 0); font-family: Helvetica; font-size: 12px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; letter-spacing: normal; line-height: normal; text-align: auto; -khtml-text-decorations-in-effect: none; text-indent: 0px; -apple-text-size-adjust: auto; text-transform: none; orphans: 2; white-space: normal; widows: 2; word-spacing: 0px; "><SPAN class="Apple-style-span" style="border-collapse: separate; border-spacing: 0px 0px; color: rgb(0, 0, 0); font-family: Helvetica; font-size: 12px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; letter-spacing: normal; line-height: normal; text-align: auto; -khtml-text-decorations-in-effect: none; text-indent: 0px; -apple-text-size-adjust: auto; text-transform: none; orphans: 2; white-space: normal; widows: 2; word-spacing: 0px; "><SPAN class="Apple-style-span" style="border-collapse: separate; border-spacing: 0px 0px; color: rgb(0, 0, 0); font-family: Helvetica; font-size: 12px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; letter-spacing: normal; line-height: normal; text-align: auto; -khtml-text-decorations-in-effect: none; text-indent: 0px; -apple-text-size-adjust: auto; text-transform: none; orphans: 2; white-space: normal; widows: 2; word-spacing: 0px; "><SPAN class="Apple-style-span" style="border-collapse: separate; border-spacing: 0px 0px; color: rgb(0, 0, 0); font-family: Helvetica; font-size: 12px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; letter-spacing: normal; line-height: normal; text-align: auto; -khtml-text-decorations-in-effect: none; text-indent: 0px; -apple-text-size-adjust: auto; text-transform: none; orphans: 2; white-space: normal; widows: 2; word-spacing: 0px; "><P style="margin: 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px"><FONT face="Helvetica" size="3" style="font: 12.0px Helvetica">John Sullivan, Ph.D.</FONT></P><P style="margin: 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px"><FONT face="Helvetica" size="3" style="font: 12.0px Helvetica">Profesor de lengua y cultura nahua</FONT></P><P style="margin: 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px"><FONT face="Helvetica" size="3" style="font: 12.0px Helvetica">Universidad Autónoma de Zacatecas</FONT></P><P style="margin: 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px"><FONT face="Helvetica" size="3" style="font: 12.0px Helvetica">Instituto de Docencia e Investigación Etnológica de Zacatecas, A.C.</FONT></P><P style="margin: 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px"><FONT face="Helvetica" size="3" style="font: 12.0px Helvetica">Tacuba 152, int. 47</FONT></P><P style="margin: 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px"><FONT face="Helvetica" size="3" style="font: 12.0px Helvetica">Centro Histórico</FONT></P><P style="margin: 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px"><FONT face="Helvetica" size="3" style="font: 12.0px Helvetica">Zacatecas, Zac. 98000</FONT></P><P style="margin: 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px"><FONT face="Helvetica" size="3" style="font: 12.0px Helvetica">México</FONT></P><P style="margin: 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px"><FONT face="Helvetica" size="3" style="font: 12.0px Helvetica">Oficina: +52 (492) 925-3415</FONT></P><P style="margin: 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px"><FONT face="Helvetica" size="3" style="font: 12.0px Helvetica">Fax: +52 (492) 925-3416</FONT></P><P style="margin: 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px"><FONT face="Helvetica" size="3" style="font: 12.0px Helvetica">Domicilio: +52 (492) 768-6048</FONT></P><P style="margin: 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px"><FONT face="Helvetica" size="3" style="font: 12.0px Helvetica">Celular: +52 (492) 118-0854</FONT></P><P style="margin: 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px"><FONT face="Helvetica" size="3" style="font: 12.0px Helvetica"><A href="mailto:idiez@mac.com">idiez@mac.com</A></FONT></P><P style="margin: 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px">www.idiez.org.mx<FONT face="Helvetica" size="3" style="font: 12.0px Helvetica"><BR class="Apple-interchange-newline"><SPAN></SPAN><SPAN></SPAN></FONT></P></SPAN></SPAN></SPAN></SPAN></DIV></BODY></HTML>