Huitlacoche or Cuitlacoche

[Frances Karttunen]

>>The Karttunen Dictionary has:
>>cuitlacoch-in : an ear of maize infected with a fungus that turns the
>>kernels dark gray and deforms them, edible and considered a delicacy, from
>>cuitl(a)-tl - excrement [ and coch(i) - to sleep?]


Please note that the query in square brackets is not from the dictionary.
I am sure that cuitla-coch-in is a compound, and according to Nahuatl
morphology, the coch-in part is the head of the compound, while cuitla- is a
modifier, telling one what sort of coch-in, it is.  There is no way I know
of that the verb cochi could become a noun stem coch-in, nor is there any
obvious shared sense between the verb cochi 'to sleep' and the proposed head
noun.

Joe has a list of the -in nouns that occur in Nahuatl.  Maybe he would be
kind enough to tell us if besides cuitlacoch-in as a bird name there are
other coch-in compounds.

Fran