a regular problem with Molina

[Daniel Mosquera]

The first entry for "regular" of the Diccionario de Autoridades may hold a clue.
It gives the meanings "comun, ordinario o natural" and follows this with an
example which presents the phrase "Hechas las regulares ceremonias..." It
appears that the definition Molina provides in his dictionary antecedes the
adjective in the same way, that is "regular cosa" or, in other words, cosa
regular, comun o natural. So your analysis that Molina also applies the meaning
to things may be accurate. I hope this may help.

Daniel Mosquera

John Sullivan wrote:

> Compañeros,
>     While correcting an article for a colleague, I came across a problem
> with an entry in Molina. Specifically, the entry for "Reglar o regular cosa"
> (p. 103recto in the Spanish section) gives us, "nauatile. nauatilpiani".
> First of all, after consulting the Diccionario de Autoridades, I assume that
> we are dealing with "regular" in the sense of "cloister and/or rules and
> regulations". Second, the standard grammars indicate that the agentive forms
> "-eh/-huah" and "-ni" refer to persons. Thus I assume that both "nauatile"
> and "nauatilpiani" refer to persons of "religious orders" both before and
> after the conquest. However, Molina's entry suggests that they may also
> refer to "things". Any comments on this or any part of the preceding
> analysis?
>     John Sullivan
>     Universidad Autónoma de Zacatecas

--
Daniel O. Mosquera
Assistant Professor of Spanish
Modern Languages & Literature
Union College
Schenectady, NY 12308

Tel: (518) 388-6415        Fax: (518) 388-6462
http://www1.union.edu/~mosquerd
--

"If we could see ourselves as others see us, we would vanish on the spot" -- E.
M. Cioran