queniuhquitic / queniuhcatic

[Michael McCafferty]

Quemetzin, Galen. Cuacualli in motlahtol. Tlaxtlahui.

Michael


Quoting Galen Brokaw <brokaw at BUFFALO.EDU>:

> John,
> This is an interesting question, precisely because it has implications
> for the way Nahuatl conceives of color.
> As you know, there are a lot of words that contain the component "iuhca"
> or "iuhqui, which, as you suggest, is a nominalized form of the verb
> ihui. This nominalized form would mean "the nature or manner of
> something." Both Molina and the Florentine have attestations of words
> like iuhcatiliztli, iuhcayotl, and iuhquiyotl, with meanings like
> condition, material form, the form or manner of s.t., and inherent
> quality. Interestingly, words like iuhcatiliztli, are nominalizations of
> verbalized nouns that are themselves nominalizations of a verb. But this
> is certainly not all that uncommon in Nahuatl. In any case, this would
> make a lot of sense with the verbalizing "ti" meaning "to become" and
> the preterite "c" making the construction mean "it became ..." So,
> "iuhcatic" would mean something like "it became thus" or "it became in a
> certain manner or of a certain nature or of a certain quality." Using
> this construction to refer to color ("it became of a certain color")
> would be consistent with the conceptualization of color as "having
> become like some prototypically colored noun." This conceptualization is
> evident in the morphology of color terms like "chichiltic" [red]
> literally meaning "it became like a red pepper" and the other ones you
> listed. In other words, there appears to be a very clear structural
> parallel between "iuhcatic / iuhquitic" and color terms such as
> chichiltic, where the prototypically colored noun would replace the
> nominalized verb "iuhca" or "iuhqui." So the "quen" would merely make it
> a question, meaning literally "How did it become?" or "What is the
> manner in which it became?" which would be translatable as "What color
> is it?"
> I think that makes sense anyway.
> Galen
>
>
>
> idiez at MAC.COM wrote:
> > Can anybody help on this one?
> >        I have two Huastecan nahuatl versions of the question, What color
> > is it?
> > "queniuhquitic", "queniuhcatic"
> >        The first two elements seem to be "quen" , "how", and "iuhqui" /
> > "iuhca", "in this or that manner". The "-qui", "-ca", seem to be the
> > traditional preterite ending which in this case seems to be working,
> > also traditionally, as a ligature for the final "-tic". This "-tic"
> > looks a lot like the verbalizing "-ti" and the nominalizing (or
> > adjectivizing) "-c", which together form many nahuatl noun-adjectives,
> > including many names for colors: xoxoctic (green), coztic (yellow),
> > tzictic (blue), etc.  However, this adjectivizing of the Huastecan
> > expression "queniuhqui", "How....?", would be a type of construction
> > I've never seen before. Any ideas?
> > John
> >
> > John Sullivan, Ph.D.
> > Profesor de lengua y cultura nahua
> > Unidad Académica de Idiomas
> > Universidad Autónoma de Zacatecas
> > Director
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> >
>