noun endings

[Tezozomoc]

-----Original Message-----
From: Leonel Hermida [mailto:leonelhermida at netc.pt]
Sent: Wednesday, October 06, 1999 11:25 AM
To: Multiple recipients of list
Subject: noun endings


Hi,

Please forgive my ignorance but I have a few elementary questions
I would love to be responded to:

(1) One notices in Nauhatl since the very beginning that a huge amount
of nouns end in -(vowel)+tl (ehecatl, coatl, ocelotl, ticitl, cueitl,
tepetl, etc).
How much in those is noun root and how much is ending? And what is
the meaning of the ending? (definiteness?, gender?, distribution into
classes?, nominative marker?, singular ending?...)

In my opinion there is really one singular noun marker suffix that is
-tl(i), with the "i" marked optional based on consonants clustering.
That is to say that "i" will be dropped if the remainder does not create
a consonant cluster.  The acceptable syllables are: (C)V(C), paranthesis
denoting that optional.

	tepetl(i) -> tepetl
	CVCVC V	 CVCVC	note: tl is considered one consonant
	CV-CVC-V	 CV-CVC	as you can see no consonant clusters

Now consider the case of Ohtli
	ohtli		-> ohtl
	VCC V		   VCC	note: There is a consonant cluster
created between -htl-
					therefore you can not drop the
"i"

The case of -lli is just a progressive assimilation.

	pil+tli	-> pilli

	There is a rule that states that if -l is followed by tl it
becomes ll
	pil+tli -> pilli
Applying the previous we see that the final "i" can not be dropped.

	pilli
	CVC-CV as you can see there is no violation of the syllable
rules.

(2) another very common ending, I mean "-tli" , seems almost as common,
a third being "-lli" and a fourth "-in"(and "ni"??); same questions as
(1)
(3) why so common a noun as "innan" (mother?) appears to fall outside of
the 'rule'?

In the case of nouns that have possesive as in the case innan the noun
drops its singular marker.  The number is specified by in- and nantli
loses its singular marker.

(4) In Teteoinnan (a divine name) the first part must be teo-tl (god),
but
it appears reduplicated: is this a plural indicator? If so, how is
reduplication done? And is it common to make plurals that way? Is it the
rule?

There are rules for first syllable reduplication to specify different
meaning.

	1. dup-1st syll = plurality as in the case of pipiltin
	2. dup:-1st syll= to specify immenseness as in the case of
te:teo:inna:n
	3. dup-h-1st syll = I can't remember this meaning.......

I would be very grateful (for not spamming the list with trivialities),
if
someone could indicate to me where on the web I can learn some grammar
and vocabulary. It is the classical language that interests me most.

Thank you very, very much.

Leonel



Well I hope that this helps.....


Tezozomoc