Chimalpahin

[José Rabasa]

Galen,

Thanks for this most thorough explanation of the 
morphology of the terms.  I appreciate your 
indication about the limits of such gramatical 
catgeories as adjetives, nouns and adverbs, and 
your underscoring that oral speech has a more 
flexible and nebulous ontology that is not 
subject to grammaticalization. But I wonder to 
what extent we speak of Chimalpahin as someone 
who is not at least in this particular passage 
merely reporting oral speech but developing a 
self-conscious written Nahuatl.

As you point out the otlatoca is attested by 
Molina, and figures earlier in the passage. I 
cannot answer the question you pose as to the 
passage from -tli in otli to -tla- in otlatoca. 
But perhaps someone else can say something about 
it. Your silence regarding the possible pun 
suggests that morphologically it makes no sense 
to derive cecen.teotl.tlatoa.ca, "each one by god 
talk."  Is this correct or does it not make sense 
because of the context, but couldn't it be a 
parenthetical remark? I know this is not the 
simplest of explanations; given the insistence on 
the repetition of movement in 
"momamallacachotihui" (como se van girando), 
mpopapanahuitihui (como se van sobrepasando), it 
would make more sense to speak of cecenteotlatoca 
(como siguen unos a otros), but note that the 
reflexive has been dropped and that a coma 
separates this sequence from Ynic yzqui 
tlanepanoltitimani yluicame (como todos estan 
juntos en el cielo). In short, if the the 
alternate morphological analysis is correct, 
there could be a pun ¿no? If not what 
phonological reason could be given to exclude the 
possibility.

Jose

>Jose,
>Rikke Marie beat me to the answer, and I think the translation is
>certainly correct, but I would add a couple of things and a question for
>Rikke Marie or anybody else.
>First, it is just interesting to note that Nahuat texts often make our
>job a lot easier, because as in the case you cite Nahuatl discoruse has
>a tendency to express the same idea repeatedly using a variety of
>different words. Such synonymous expressions are not always exactly the
>same, which helps give you a more complete picture of what is being
>conveyed. Nevertheless, when they provide a series of more or less
>synonymous expressions, it makes it easier to figure out any given one
>of them that may not be as morphologically transparent as the rest.
>With regard to the specific phrase you mention, it would seem to be
>clear that the "o" is from "ohtli" or "otli" meaning "road" or "path",
>and that otlatoca means to follow a path or a road. This is well
>attested. But I'm curious about the "tla" in this construction. Is it
>merely a transformation of the absolutive suffix "tli" in order to avoid
>a short word? Are there a lot of examples of this kind of thing? Or is
>there another explanation? Of course, the first thing that comes to mind
>is a kind of fossilized non-specific object pronoun (which is evident in
>some other verbs), but I really don't know, especially given the fact
>that it is clear that "toca" does not always appear with this object
>pronoun. So it certainly isn't always fossilized. I know this doesn't
>really pose a problem for translation, because "otlatoca" is well
>attested in other contexts, including the instance just a few words
>earlier in this same text. So this is just a question to satisfy the
>morphological rigor that Joe instilled me :-).
>With regard to "cecente[tl]", part of the problem is that to classify
>Nahuatl words as nouns, ajectives, and verbs is sometimes misleading.
>The point is that self-conscious grammar enters into a dialogic
>relationship with linguistic practice in ways that tend to codify
>language in clear cut ways that do not necessarily reflect the more
>flexible and nebulous linguistic ontology of unfettered oral speech that
>has not been subject to a process of self-conscious grammaticalization.
>So, although in some cases "cecente-" may seem to function as what we
>call an ajective, as Rikki Marie points out technically it is a noun
>because it has that noun root 'te' from 'tetl', and nouns (normally
>defined in Nahuatl as words that take absolutive suffixes) can be
>imbedded in verbs to function as either objects or adverbs as defined by
>modern grammatical categories. With the duplication of the "ce", the
>"cecente" might be rendered as "each one." The plural "ilhuicame" at the
>end seems to suggest that it is talking about celestial planes. (Is he
>talking here perhaps about the European model of concentric heavens?) So
>it seems to me that the phrase "cecenteotlatoca" could be understood as
>saying literally "They path-followed in an each-one like way" which
>would translate more eloquently in English as "Each one followed its
>path" or maybe even better "They followed their respective paths."
>Galen
>
>
>
>
>
>
>Rikke Marie Olsen wrote:
>>Dear Jose
>>
>>About cecenteotlatoca. I would analyze it cè-cen-te-ò-tla-toca. I think the
>>first cè is distributive. Centetl means simply one. ò is the root for road.
>>Tla is the absolutive suffix, which is still attached because nahauspeakers
>>dislike short words. Toca is the verb and means follow. All in all You have
>>an incorporated noun (or two if You count centetl, which is actually a
>>numeral, but acts like a noun here because of tetl).
>>I would translate it: they follow different paths or routes. I haven't
>>looked at the rest of the sentence, so should probably be ajusted a bit.
>>
>>Best regards,
>>Rikke Marie Olsen,
>>Student at the Departement of Native American Language and Culture,
>>University of Copenhagen.
>>
>>
>>-----Original Message-----
>>From: Nahua language and culture discussion [mailto:NAHUAT-L at LISTS.UMN.EDU]
>>On Behalf Of José Rabasa
>>Sent: 26. maj 2005 04:11
>>To: NAHUAT-L at LISTS.UMN.EDU
>>Subject: Chimalpahin
>>
>>Dear Listeros:
>>
>>A group of us in the Bay Area have a Nahuatl workshop in which we
>>have been reading Chimalpahin's Diario.  We found the following
>>passage a bit difficult to sort out. It comes from that section in
>>which Chimalpahin compares Nahuatl and European language on eclipses.
>>The passage reads:
>>
>>"ynic otlatoca ynic momamallacachotihui ynic mopapanahuitihui ynic
>>cecenteotlatoca, ynic yzqui tlanepanoltitimani ylhuicame" (Rafael
>>Tena's edition p. 228).
>>
>>We are particularly undecided on how to read cecenteotlatoca.
>>Because of the earlier otlatoca (avanzar, andar) we thought that it
>>could be a combination of cecentetl and otlatoca but cecentl as an
>>adjetive could not modify a verb.  The other option would be to read
>>cecen and teotlatoca (teotl.tlatoa.ca), which would translate as
>>"each one is god talk." This gets particularly heady given that the
>>European talk on the planets would amount to theology rather than
>>science, etc. etc., etc. Is this a pun? Any suggestions?
>>
>>Thanks,
>>
>>Jose Rabasa