Nahuatl Dominant Word Order

[Jeff MacSwan]

Davius and others,

I wrote a paper on this that might be of some interest. It discusses Nahuatl
basic word order in the modern varieties in connection with Mark Baker's recent
proposals in his book _Polysynthesis Parameter_. Baker claims that modern
Natuatl word order remains extremely flexible, due to its being a pronominal
argument language. I argue that it is not flexible, and that Nahuatl is not a
pronominal argument language.  The article, which appeared in the Southwest J
of Linguistics, is available online at

http://www.public.asu.edu/~macswan/swjl.pdf

Quoting Davius Sanctex <davius_sanctex at hotmail.com>:

> 1) Word order in classical nahuatl
> 2) Word order in ancient nahuatl
> 3) Word order in modern nahuatl
> _________________________
> 1) WORD ORDER IN CLASSICAL NAHUATL
>
> Word order in classical nahuatl is very free, althought it
> seems to exists a dominat word order in wich verb antecedes
> objetct and subject:
>
> VSO:  kwa in okichtli in michin 'the man eat the fish'
> VOS: *kwa in michin in okichtli 'the man eat the fish'
>
> (I am not sure wether these two sentences to be equivalent)
> My question is this: Is there some rule related to relative
> animacy of agent and pacient determining preference by any
> of these two forms (like in some mayan languages)?
> ___________________________________
> 2) WORD ORDER IN ANCIENT NAHUATL
>
> It seems that dominant order in ancient nahuatl had been SOV,
> mainly because nahuatl is very consistent head-adjunct language
> (pospositions, adjectives antecedes nouns also relatives do)
> and on the light of Greenberg tendencies seems natural to be
> a SOV language also. And in addition we have the evidence of
> related languages like huichol indicates:
>
> Huichol: nee uuki ne.wa.zeiyas.tia
> Nahuatl: newa ichpochtli ni.kim.itt.ati.lia
> 	 'I showed anything to the girls'
>
> Is reasonable this to argue that ancient nahuatl was SOV
> language? It is possible that change in dominant order were
> caused by totonac-tepehuan incluence or by otomang influence?
>
> _________________________
> 3) WORD ORDER IN MODERN NÁHUATL
>
> In Guerrero state dialects of modern nahuatl, and under
> influence of spanish, the main order is SVO like that of
> spanish. But is this situation general?
> I believe that this is not case in some dialects like that
> of Ameyaltepec, is it?
>
> _________________________
> _________________________
> 1) ORDEN SINTÁCTICO EN NÁHUATL CLÁSICO
>
> El orden sintáctico en náhuatl clásico es muy libre, sin embargo
> parece existir un orden dominante en el que el verbo antecede a
> objeto y sujeto:
>
> VOS:  kwa in okichtli in michin 'el hombre se come el pez'
> VOS: *kwa in michin in okichtli 'el hombre se come el pez'
>
> (no estoy seguro de la segunda de ellas, con ese significado)
> Pero existe alguna regla relacionada con el grado de animación
> respectivo de agente y paciente que determine una preferencia
> sobre una u otra tal como sucede en las lenguas mayas.
> _________________________
> 2) ORDEN SINTÁCTICO EN NÁHUATL ANTIGUO
>
> Parece que el orden sintáctico en antiguo náhuatl pudiera
> haber sido SOV, principalmente porque el náhuatl es un lengua
> modificado-modifificador bastante consistente y a la luz del
> trabajo de Greenberg parece natural que también fuera una lengua
> de tipo SOV. Además tenemos la evidencia de lenguas emparentadas,
> como el huichol:
>
> Huichol: nee uuki ne.wa.zeiyas.tia
> Nahuatl: newa ichpochtli ni.kim.itt.ati.lia
> 	 'Yo se lo mostré a las chicas'
>
> ¿Es razonalbe argumentar en base a esto que en náhuatl era
> una lengua tipo SOV? ¿Es psoible que este cambio en el orden
> sintáctico dominante se debiera al totonaco/tepehua o a
> alguna lengua otomang?
>
> _________________________
> 3) WORD ORDER IN MODERN NÁHUATL
>
> En los dialectos del estado de Guerrero, y bajo influencia
> del castellano, el orden principal es SVO como el de esta
> lengua. Pero sucede esto en todos los otros dialectos?
>
> Creo que no es el caso, en algunos dialecto como el dialecto
> de Ameyaltepec, es así?
>
> _________________________________________________________________________
> Get Your Private, Free E-mail from MSN Hotmail at
> http://www.hotmail.com.
>
>



--------------------------
Jeff MacSwan, Ph.D.
Assistant Professor
Language and Literacy
Arizona State University
PO Box 872011
Tempe, AZ 85287-2011
(480) 965-4967 (voice)
(480) 965-4942 (fax)
macswan at asu.edu (email)
coe.asu.edu/macswan (web)