altepetl

[ANTHONY APPLEYARD]

--- zorrah at ATT.NET wrote:
> Maybe I didn’t understand the lesson in the “Chimalpahin” thread, but
> can someone please clarify why "altepetl" does not follow the general
> assimilation patterns as these other examples do:
> General Assimilation Examples:
> 1)  na:huatl + tlahto:lli (word, language) = na:huallahto:lli
> 'Nahuatl language'
> 2)  a:tl + tla:lli (earth) = a:tla:lli 'irrigated land'
> 3)  a:tl + tlapechtli (bed) = a:tlape:chtli 'slope, side of a gully'
> Also, in examples 2 and 3, is it the presence of the long vowel “a:”
> stem that is left after the -tl is dropped, only to be confronted
> with a twin “absolutive suffix-looking tl-” (of course the tl- of
> tla:lli or tlape:chtli is NOT absolutive)
>
> Looking at altepetl, is it the strong “a:” stem again, who this time
> will accept a half-image or mirror-image of its former self?
>
> 4)  a:tl (water) + tepe:tl (hill) = a:ltepe:tl (town, pueblo)
> What is going on here?
> citlalin xochime

(4) A town needs water for irrigation and a hill to keep out of floods.
Thus the components have equal status and the compound is a dvandva.
The basic meaning is "it is water (and) it is a hill", "it is water and
a hill", originally two words, and people gradually started letting
them run together into one; and the sequence -tlt- became -lt-.

(1) na:huatl + tlahto:lli is also a dvandva: "it is something
clear-sounding (and) it is a language", became na:huallahto:lli ; the
sequence -tltl- became -ll-.

2)  a:tl + tla:lli (earth) = a:tla:lli 'irrigated land', as it is (a
sort of) land, but it is not (a sort of) water: it is an ordinary
compound, not a dvandva.
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
Citltlyani

Some languages have next to no assimilation of adjacent sounds;
some langages have enough assimilation to keep a shipload of Borg busy.