Nahuatl On-Line, and a question

[R. Joe Campbell]

Galen,

   I am really glad that you said that!  --And clearly and convincingly...
I was getting worried about the way we approached words and the things
they apply to.

All the best,

Joe



On Wed, 15 Dec 1999, Galen Brokaw wrote:

> I'm working under the assumption that the "chihchil" in "chihchiltic" is
> actually a reduplicated "chilli". Concerning the origin of the word, it seems
> to me that if Nahuatl speakers were conscious enough of the way they were
> constructing words using this "-tic", then they may have changed their word
> for colors as needed to maintain a direct relationship to their environment.
> So, it doesn't seem too unlikely that they had a different word or even
> multiple words for red before settling down as an agricultural society.
> >From a grammatical point of view, it seems to me that "chilli" would have to
> come first because the "-tic" is a suffix ("ti" + past tense marker "c") added
> to nouns to form adjectives. Here are some other examples:
>
> acaltic = acalli (atl+calli=canoe) + ti + c = grooved
> amatic=amatl (paper) + ti + c = papery
> caxtic=caxitl (plate) + ti + c = concave
> neltic=nelli (truth) + ti + c = true
> nuectic=nuectli (honey) + ti + c = sweet
> paltic= p/atl (water) + ti + c = watery, runny ["atl" originally began with
> /p/. It seems that other Uto-Aztecan languages conserved the /p/ in their
> words for water.]
>
> I think that the "ti" makes the noun a verb meaning "to become", which then
> takes the past tense "c". So, literally the prase would be something like "it
> became red / like a chilli". But it functions similar to an adjective.
>
> Galen
>
>