tepi

[Galen Brokaw]

Fritz,
When I said "Amapichtli" seemed strange, I was not referring to the
pictographic morphology but rather to the meaning of the verbal
morphology of the word itself. The meaning of the hypothesized name
"Amapichtli" would be somethig like "water-fist" or "fist of water."
That meaning is what seems kind of strange, not the pictographic image
of water in a fist. One can easily see what the motivation would have
been behind the construction of the word "Acamapichtli": a hand grasping
a reed. It is more difficult, although perhaps not impossible, to come
up with a basis for constructing a word like "Amapichtli." But this is
only a comment on the meaning of the verbal morphology of the word
hypothesized from a glyph. And since "Amapichtli" was a hypothesized
word based on a pictographic glyph, the strangeness of the meaning of
the hypothesized verbal morphology seems to suggest, as you imply in
your question, that either 1) the word indicated by the glyph is
"Amapichtli" but the first "a" is not from "atl" but rather serves as a
pun on an identical morpheme; or 2) that the word isn't "Amapichtli" at
all and that the pictographic morpheme of water is used to signal a more
complex verbal morpheme that probably begins with [a]. The first option
doesn't seem very likely. So, if there is no such name as "Amapichtli"
with the first [a] being from [atl] (and that is what I was suggesting
when I said that it sounds strange), then the verbal morpheme signaled
by the glyph is probably not merely [a]. So, the second option is more
probably, which is why I think Fran suggested "Acamapichtli." In other
words, just based on the glyph, we can never assume that the intended
verbal segment of a pictographic water-glyph is simply "a-". It could
very well be something more complex like "aca-" from "acatl", or perhaps
some other morpheme that begins with the phoneme [a]. It is hard to say
just based on the glyph. In other words, the pictographic puns do not
always establish relationships between perfectly homophonous words; they
don't have to be exact. In the case of "tzin" which appears attached to
some reeds [tolin] to produce Tollantzinco or Tulantzinco, there is a
perfect homophonic correspondence between the honorific "tzin" of the
toponym and the "tzin" meaning buttocks depicted in the glyph (although
in some cases, maybe some variation in vowel length?). So anyway, to get
back to my point, in most cases, a rebus pun is inherently going to
appear strange if you read it mimetically. But the mimetic "strangeness"
of pictographic morphology has nothing to do with strangeness of verbal
morphology.
Galen





The example of "tzin" is not parallel because it i


"tzin" is not parallel because

John F. Schwaller wrote:
> At 10:53 AM 5/23/2005, you wrote:
>
>> In
>> any case, the name "Amapichtli" would also seem kind of strange in the
>> sense that you can't really grasp water because it isn't solid. But
>> there might be some interesting philosophical implications there.
>
>
>
> We also do not see naked bottoms growing out of trees [Huexotzinco], but
> the glyph is not uncommon.  Obviously the point I am making is that the
> "tzinco" of naked bottom is just a glyph for "tzinco" frequently glossed as
> new Tollan --> Tollantzinco
>
> Similarly, if the glyph described does exist [hand grasping water], and it
> is not one I recall, could the "water" part be standing in for something
> else?  I am drawing a blank, but others might be able to see it.
>
>
>
>
>
> John F. Schwaller
> Vice Chancellor for Academic Affairs and Dean
> 315 Behmler Hall
> University of Minnesota, Morris
> 600 E 4th Street
> Morris, MN  56267
> 320-589-6015
> FAX 320-589-6399
> schwallr at morris.umn.edu
>
>