Chimalpahin

[Swanton, M.]

Galen,
In a descriptive grammar of some language L, all posited lexical categories (verbs, nouns, positionals, etc) should be defined based on their linguistic behavior in language L. In other words, lexical categories are language-specific and should be empirically, not "logically", defined. 

When speaking of "verbs" in Nahuatl, we should not be applying a "metalanguage of European grammar to Nahuatl as if it there were an isomorphic relationship between the languages". Rather we should be referring to a category of lexical item that demonstrates certain linguistic behavior (in Nahuatl) distinguishing it from other lexical items (in Nahuatl).

The fact that we use the term "verb" to describe lexical classes in English, Nahuatl, French, Mandarin etc does not mean that we take "verbs" in these languages to be in some sort of "isomorphic relationship". Nor does it mean that there's some sort of well developed cross-linguistic definition of this term outside of particular theories of grammar. It's just a convenient label. At best, the label "verb" captures something about the category being grammatically sensitive to time (whether manifested through tense, aspect, temporal adverbials, mood distinctions). 

On another subject, I find your use of the word "grammaticalization" somewhat confusing. In linguistics grammaticalization refers to a diachronic process by which a lexical morpheme becomes a grammatical one. I don't think this is what you're referring to.

On a more personal level, no Nahuatl speaker I've ever met has translated chichiltic as "it became a red pepper". In our efforts to segment morphemes we should be careful not to confuse diachronic and synchronic analyses.

Mike Swanton
 

-----Original Message-----
From: Nahua language and culture discussion [mailto:NAHUAT-L at LISTS.UMN.EDU] On Behalf Of Galen Brokaw
Sent: zaterdag 28 mei 2005 8:22
To: NAHUAT-L at LISTS.UMN.EDU
Subject: Re: Chimalpahin

[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
>
>
>