tlahtoa / saltillo

[Galen Brokaw]

Fran,
Do we have to distinguish here between Classical and modern dialects?
As a fellow graduate of the "Joe Campbell school of Nahuatl," I was under the
same impression as Michael with regards to many(most?) modern dialects.
(Disclaimer: I take full responsibility for my ignorance and any stupid thing I
say should not reflect in any way upon Joe.)
It was my understanding that in Classical Nahuatl the saltillo functioned as the
plural marker in the present indicative and was written as an "h", but that in
many modern dialects it is the opposite: the saltillo marks the singular verbs
and a slight aspiration or nothing at all marks the plural. I think this is what
causes so much confusion when comparing classical orthography and modern speech
because if a modern speaker marks plurality with a slight aspiration, then the
"h" which represented a saltillo in Classical is taken for an aspiration. I
think this is what caused the confusion a while back on this list in regards to
the saltillo/glottal stop. I haven't had a lot of experience with native
speakers, but it seems to me that at least Tlaxcalan Nahuatl tends to aspirate
what was a glottal stop in Classical, and uses the glottal stop to mark the
singular indicative and other words that end in vowels without aspiration. If I
am correct, Classical orthography works very nicely with such modern dialects as
long as you reinterpret the h=saltillo as h=aspiration and you place a glottal
stop at the end of words that end in vowels. Is this an accurate assessment?
Galen

Frances Karttunen wrote:

> It's the opposite.  The saltillo functions as the plural marker in the
> present indicative.
>
> Verbs like tlahtoa: shorten the final vowel before saltillo and also when
> the a: is word-final, so you never see/hear that it is long in the present
> indicative.  But in the habitual present (that adds -ni) and the imperfect
> (that adds -ya), the a: is long.
>
> In the future, where the a: is dropped before the future suffix -z, the
> vowel goes away but casts its length back on the preceding vowel.  Then you
> do get o: as in nitlahto:z "I will speak."
>
> Fran
>
> ----------
> >From: Michael Mccafferty <mmccaffe at indiana.edu>
> >To: Multiple recipients of list <nahuat-l at server.umt.edu>
> >Subject: Re: tlahtoa
> >Date: Wed, Feb 9, 2000, 8:37 AM
> >
>
> >
> > Thanks Frances, for the correction. My understanding about the saltillo is
> > that it represents a glottal stop, and that the glottal stop is present in
> > the singular present indicative and is not present in the plural.  Please
> > fill me in.
> >
> > tlazohcamati,
> >
> > Michael
> >