doublets, bifrasismos, difrasismos

[Juan Alvarez Cuauhtemoc]

Hola John,
I think Jose is absolutely correct.  Garibay defines "disfrasismos" in his
Lllave del Nahuatl and in Historia de la Literatura Nahuatl.  Miguel
Leon-Portilla also claims that Angel Maria Garibay K. is the first to use
this neologism (see his book Aztec Thought and Culture).  However, since
Garibay knew the Greek language almost as well as he knew Nahuatl, I would
suspect that he borrowed this neologism from the Greek, "hen dia dyoin" or
hendiadys which means "one through two" or "one by means of two."  In the
Greek as in the Hebrew language, a hendiadys is a figure of speech in which
an idea is expressed by two words connected by the conjunction ("and") or
sometimes even without it. The Hebrew Bible and the New Testament contain
many examples of "disfrasismos" or hendiadys.

Juan Alvarez Cuauhtemoc


----- Original Message -----
From: <jrabasa at SOCRATES.BERKELEY.EDU>
To: <NAHUAT-L at LISTS.UMN.EDU>
Sent: Wednesday, September 01, 2004 2:02 PM
Subject: Re: doublets, bifrasismos, difrasismos


John: If I remember correctly the term difrasismo was first used by
Angel Maria Garibay, K.  I don't knwo exactly where but my guess
would be as early as Llave del nahuatl (1940) or in his Historia de
la literatura nahuatl (1949). Jose

>Listeros,
>        Who can I cite as the first person to use the term,
>"bifrasismo", or "difrasismo" to refer to the doublet phrases used
>so commonly in nahuatl? I've used these two terms for at least 13
>years now in my teaching, and I don`t remember if I made them up
>myself from the word "doublet" or if I read them somewhere.
>
>John Sullivan, Ph.D.
>Profesor de lengua y cultura nahua
>Unidad Académica de Idiomas
>Universidad Autónoma de Zacatecas
>Director
>Instituto de Docencia e Investigación Etnológica de Zacatecas, A.C.
>Tacuba 152, int. 47
>Centro Histórico
>Zacatecas, Zac. 98000
>México
>Oficina: +52 (492) 925-3415
>Fax: +52 (492) 925-3416
>Domicilio: +52 (492) 768-6048
>Celular: +52 (492) 544-5985
>idiez at mac.com
>www.idiez.org.mx


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