Chimalpahin

[Galen Brokaw]

[Note: I apologize for the length of this response to Jose, but I figure
anybody not interested in the discussion can always just delete it.
Also, I want to include the caveat that I am not dogmatic and lay no
claim to any special authority in these matters, and welcome anybody to
jump into the discussion. As I have told Fritz, for me one of the values
of Nahuat-l is that these kinds of discussion help keep me thinking
about Nahuatl.]

Jose,
I think I may have given you the wrong impression about what I was
trying to say. I was not claiming that what we call adjectives can
modify verbs in Nahuatl. It seems to me that not only is it not common
for adjectives to modify verbs in Nahuatl, but it is impossible for two
reasons. First, if we use such terms as “adjective” and “verb” that come
from our traditional grammar, then by definition and logical necessity
an adjective cannot modify a verb. Leaving aside the philosophical
question about whether thought is based upon a priori or a posteriori
concepts, “adjective” and “verb” are logical linguistic concepts or
categories rather than empirical ones. In other words, although there
certainly are prototypical empirical linguistic forms associated with
certain grammatical categories, the category itself is not determined by
that empirical form but rather by its logical opposition to other
linguistic categories. So, by definition, anything that functionally
modifies a verb is an adverb and cannot be an adjective no matter what
empirical form it takes. The point I was trying to make is that words in
any language can often serve different grammatical functions (and this
is true of both Nahuatl and English). So, for example, although we
identify Nahuatl words that take absolutive suffixes as nouns, those
words can also function as adverbs. In the case of “cecente” you said
that it was an adjective, and I was just taking your word for it that
maybe you had come across some other context (i.e., not imbedded in a
verb) in which it might function as what we identify as an adjective. I
can’t think of any such case off-hand, but I haven’t really looked. It
does happen in English. In phrases like “dinner plate,” for example, the
noun “dinner” functions like an adjective. I think the point Rikke made
and that I was trying to reiterate was not that centetl is functioning
here as a noun, but rather that “tetl” is a noun. And I was just adding
that it is embedded in the verb along with its accompanying quantifier
and functioning in a way similar to the logical category that
corresponds to an adverb in our logical grammar. In other words, I was
trying to avoid the issue of whether or not “cecente” might function in
some other grammatical context (not imbedded in a verb) as an adjective,
and merely emphasized the fact that technically it is a noun which
appears to function in this context as an adverb. None of this, though,
implies that adjectives can modify verbs; at least I hope it doesn’t.
The second reason it would be impossible is that most regular Nahuatl
"adjectives" are actually verbs or verb phrases. There are exceptions,
but one of the interesting things about Nahuatl is that many of the
ideas we express using adjectives, Nahuatl expresses using verbalized
nouns or merely the past tense of a verb. So to say “red” or “pointed,”
for example, you use words that literally mean “it became a red pepper”
[chichiltic] and “it became a thorn” [huitztic] respectively. And to
express adjectives like “fat”, for example, you say “it got fat”
[tomahuac]. So in such cases, these verbs and verb phrases are the
closest equivalent to what we call adjectives. The English example of
“pointed” belongs to an interesting class of adjectives in that they too
are verbal forms that are used as adjectives, and we also have forms
like “pointy,” which appear to be formed from nouns. In any case, this
illustrates the kind of difficulty in applying the metalanguage of
European grammar to Nahuatl as if it there were an isomorphic
relationship between the languages.
I started to write up some comments on the other issues that you raise
in relation to what I was saying about grammaticality, but I could see
that it would have gotten really long and it basically duplicates part
of a much larger argument that I have been writing up dealing with the
relation between language and secondary media such as Mesoamerican
pictography and the Andean khipu. So, I will desist for the moment and
hope to continue this dialogue later. And I am sure we will have plenty
of opportunities to do so, since we seem to always end up on the same
conference and symposium panels.
But with regard to Chimalpahin, I just want to clarify that I did not
say that Chimalpahin was “oral.” I said that Nahuatl was an oral
language. I was trying to make the argument that regardless of the
possibility of other types of grammaticalization at different levels
(about which I agree with you), Nahuatl had not (and still has not) been
organically grammaticalized on the linguistic level that phonographic
writing highlights and emphasizes as was the case with Latin and
Spanish. And if we accept that such linguistic differences as those
noted above indicate different linguistic ontologies, then even if
Nahuatl had been organically grammaticalized at that level, it would
have looked very different from Spanish grammar. Furthermore, the fact
that Nahuatl had not gone through a process of grammaticalization at
this level or in this dimension has certain implications, which again is
part of my larger argument. But it is in this sense that I say that
Nahuatl was an oral language: it had not been organically
grammaticalized in relation to a secondary alphabetic medium. I should
also add that this is very different from saying that the Nahuas
belonged to an oral culture.
Going back to Chimalpahin, if I understand you correctly, you are saying
that the language in Chimalpahin’s Nahuatl text exhibits some kind of
shift as a result of his participation in, or adherence to, an
alphabetic ideology and the grammaticalization project of the Spaniards.
I think at one level, there is no question that this is true, and I
would be very be interested in your thoughts on the specific nature of
this transformation. I have thought a lot about this kind of thing in
the context of the Andes, and I have found it rather difficult to pin
down analytically, the biggest reason being that I only really have
access to the written register. But I’m not sure how this bears on the
level of linguistic analysis involved in differentiating, for example,
between adjectives, adverbs, verbs, etc. If we agree that Nahuatl and
Spanish have separate linguistic ontologies whose organic
grammaticalization would be different, then the adaptation of alphabetic
writing and Latin/Spanish grammatical concepts to Nahuatl would not
resolve this problem. Furthermore, although I agree with you that
certainly Chimalpahin was writing as a Nahuatl letrado linked to the
projects of colonial grammarians, I would resist the tendency to view
his text in some kind of strict opposition to the grammar and
conventions of Nahuatl oral linguistic practices. I don’t think
phonographic writing is ever completely in opposition to oral discourse.
In alphabetic cultures with firmly established institutions of literacy,
I don’t think the written and the oral registers become more and more
differentiated but rather they become more and more proximate, at least
in the way they are conceived ideally. There are several reasons,
however, why the nature of the respective media (oral versus written)
will always insure that they are very different, but by the same token
they are also always linked in one way or another. So, I would argue
that Chimalpahin’s text should be viewed as engaged in a dialogic
relation with (1) oral practices, (2) the conventions of Spanish
discourse some of which are grammatical while others may be rhetorical
or discursive, and (3) the written medium itself whose specific nature
is conducive to certain kinds of linguistic phenomena such as
normalization, standardization, syntactic transformations, etc.

Galen

José Rabasa wrote:

> Dear Galen and Henry,
>
> First, I want to thank Henry for pointing out that god-talk would not
> have the verb-form tlatoa but the nominal-form teotlatolli. This leads
> me to the question of the terms we use for speaking about Nahautl, the
> issue that Galen raised with respect to my observation that adjectives
> cannot modify verbs, an observation that missed what Rikke said about
> the function of centetl as a noun. Henry points out that the terms we
> used derive from Latin grammar, to which I would add that Latin
> provided throughout the Middle Ages the "scientific" metalanguage for
> speaking about language. Grammar had a closer meaning to logic than to
> a mere arte de la lengua. The traces of this metalinguistic practice
> can be found in modern semiotics--take the concept of sign for
> starters. What guarantees that the terms we use today to describe
> non-European languages does not miss "unexpected phenomena" and might
> very well produce a conceptual formulation that transforms the
> original language through it linguistic reduction (in
> sixteenth-century understanding as ordering) just as Carochi did in
> his Arte? If I recall correctly, this would be an instance of what
> Sapir called the "anthropological mill." Galen hits the mark when he
> asks " but don't you often feel that in some cases it just isn't
> always quite adequate?" And Galen is absolutely correct when he says
> that a Nahuatl "linguistic science would have looked very different
> from ours." Does a metalanguage require a phonographic form? Couldn't
> we imagine a community of speakers using their everyday language to
> speak about language? Or, is it necessary that a given society possess
> a "scientific" metalanguage, as was the case of Latin in Europe, to
> develop an awareness of its speaking forms? Now, Galen speaks of
> grammaticality as bound by a written grammar. I wonder, however, if it
> doesn't make sense to speak of a language possessing a grammar
> regardless of it systematic reduction to a written grammar. We could
> then speak of different degrees of refinement and complexity of speech
> in which a certain grammaticality and elegance might be considered
> exemplary. This was clearly the objective of Olmos, Sahagun, Juan
> Bautista, and Carochi, to just mention the most prominent. Now, it
> might be the case that in Nahuatl it is common for what we call
> adjectives to modify verbs, but as far as I know this has not been
> extensively documented. In studying Chimalpahin we should consider
> that he was knowledgeable of the grammars, vocabularios, and other
> tools that the Franciscans had devised in the course of the sixteenth
> century. I don't see why his style is not building on the Nahuatl
> literature that the missionaires had written. I am reading Chimlaphain
> not only as someone who used the Latin alphabet, hence wrote letters,
> but as someone who was producing a written Nahuatl--not a mere
> transcription or reproduction of speech--that is, someone who was
> writing as a Nahuatl letrado. In this regard to speak of him as "oral"
> would miss the objective of producing a written language with its own
> rules, styles, and forms, which I believe is what Chimalpahin was
> self-consciously aiming at.
>
> Jose
>
>> Hola,
>>
>> if |cecenteotlatoca| is derived from /tla'toa/ it would rather
>> translate as "had talked in reference to their respective gods" (or?)
>> "god talk" would be /teotlatolli/ with root-final /l/ =
>> *|cecenteotlatolca| "each by god talk", I guess.
>>
>> Regarding short incorporated nominal roots:
>> compare the following forms:
>> /o'tlatoka/ = "follow a path" < /o' -tli/
>> /âtlakwi/ = "fetch water" < /â -tl/
>>
>> To me this looks like the indefinite object prefix /tla-/ is
>> inserted, rather than /tla/ derived from /-tl(i)/. We also find a
>> reduplicated form /âtlatlakwi/ (cf. Seler's glossary) "fetch lots of
>> water" ("fetch repeatedly"?) which seems to support this. *If* this
>> is the same /tla/, I'm not sure.
>>
>> I think Galen touched upon an important issue: by what processes of
>> analysis do we establish our categories (say, "word classes")?
>> Lacking alternatives, we do use "traditional" terms rooted in Latin
>> grammar writing and established through a long genealogy of Nahuatl
>> scholars. While doing so, we should be aware that these terms *may
>> be* crutches rather than devices of analysis. As useful as our
>> terminology is, it might blur our sight for unexpected phenomena. I
>> wonder in what terms we would talk about Nahuatl if it were among the
>> Papuan languages "discovered" 30-40 years ago...
>>
>> Mâ niwîya
>> Henry Kammler
>> Univ. of Frankfurt
>
>
>