Chimalpahin

[sfargo@earthlink.net]

Going back to the puzzling word, it's interesting that it seems 
as though the glyph for going along a road or caminando, 
the line of footprints, is easy to read for anyone. But it doesn't 
say who went along the road or when.

European art can say "who" (as demonstrated by Apelles)
but it doesn't say "when" very well except by including 
things like events and times of year.  (This turns into a 
1560s detective story with a set of paintings by Bruegel, 
since usually "how many paintings does it take to represent 
a year" is not a puzzle.)  A Nahuatl document is somewhat 
like a European picture except that it can include dates,
and show exactly when somebody was caminando.

In the United States the topic of roads is still a little 
odd, with people saying now and then that Route 66
or whatever was an Indian trail, or with the Lewis and 
Clark trail representing something in the history of 
Lewis and Clark, or with the picture signs in southern 
California warning drivers that people from Mexico 
might try to run across the freeway with small children.

The footprints look like a verb but they don't seem to be 
"grammatically sensitive to time." Maybe the examples 
of translations should include translations of mapas?
Susan Gilchrist

Original Message:
-----------------
From: Swanton, M. M.Swanton at LET.LEIDENUNIV.NL
Date: Sun, 29 May 2005 21:25:48 +0200
To: NAHUAT-L at LISTS.UMN.EDU
Subject: Re: Chimalpahin


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
>
>
>

--------------------------------------------------------------------
mail2web - Check your email from the web at
http://mail2web.com/ .