possessive and qualifying relashionship in Nahuatl

Leonel Hermida leonelhermida at netc.pt
Wed Oct 27 14:34:51 UTC 1999


Hi all,

Please allow me to ask here a question I'm not yet able to decide due to
my insufficient knowledge of the Nahuatl language.
As far as I know there are two kinds of 'genitive relationship' between
nouns, namely what I shall call the 'possessive relationship' and the
'qualifying relationship': the first appearing in 'the Director's room' or
in 'the door of my house', the second in 'guest-room' or 'house-door'.
In English the first can be expressed by the preposition 'of' or by the
'possessive case', the second by making a compound word where
the elements are more or less glued together according to use and
sense.
Now, I have till now never heard in Nahuatl about any preposition (or
postposition) meaning 'of', neither have I found trace of a genitive case
in the language.  I have been finding instead an original means of
expressing the former, namely by putting in sequence the nouns
involved and using a possessive prefix to refer back to the possessing
noun, as if one said "the Director his-room"  or "my-house its-door"; and
the latter by making invariably a compound word just as in English or German
but unlike Spanish or French where one founds a preposition  for both
constructions.
My question is: how are the two constructions made in Nahuatl? Do
the aforementioned mechanisms apply always, or are there other means
(I have not been aware of, thus far) that can be made use of?
Some examples of Nahuatl usage should make these matter clear as
for example the translation of the following:

1. her skirt is stars
2. skirt of stars (= star-skirt)
3. her skirt of stars (= her star-skirt)
4. the stars of her skirt
5. Citlalicue
6. Citlalinicue
7. Citlalli Icue
8. Chalchihuitlicue
9. Chalchiuhtlicue
10. Chalchiuhcueye

Thanks in advance.

Leonel



More information about the Nahuat-l mailing list