two fun things

[John Sullivan, Ph.D.]

Listeros,
We came across two fun things in today's morning session.
1. the first construction is controversial, because two girls from  
one town said its good, but right now, another is saying that it  
isn't. Normally the preterite agentive suffix "-yoh" (covered with  
something) is used with its imbed as a noun, although we know that it  
is actually an ancient verb in the preterite. Well, today we came  
across an instance where the verbal quality of the construction is  
put to use. "chilloh" means "adobado" or "covered with chilli". Its  
parts are "chil-li" + "-yoh". But in the Huasteca you can also say  
(here is the controversial part): "chillohtoc", "ha sido adobado" or  
"está adobado". The breakdown is "chilloh" + "-ti" + "o" + "c 
(preterite)". We know that "ti ligature" auxiliary verb formations  
can only be stuck on a preterite stem. So it seems that at least for  
some native speakers, the "-yoh" still has some its verbal qualities  
(in addition to the fact that its plural is "-yohqueh"). I may have  
to recant later...
2. For me at least, it's always been a problem trying to explain why  
on the one hand,  the "-can" locative suffix is stuck on preterite  
verb formations (with the "-ca" actually being the older preterite  
ending), and on the other hand, it can be stuck on a regular noun (in  
which case, the "-ca-" isn't part of a verbal formation). Well, I'm  
not any closer to being able to expain this, but I do have some new  
data to add to the mess. In older Nahuatl you would say, "oncan" or  
"occan" for "in two places", and "excan" for "in three places". In  
the Huasteca they say "oncac" and "excac". So here we have the  
locative "-c" added to a number by means of a "ligature" which  
usually takes the locative "-n".
John

John Sullivan, Ph.D.
Profesor de lengua y cultura nahua
Universidad Autónoma de Zacatecas
Instituto de Docencia e Investigación Etnológica de Zacatecas, A.C.
Tacuba 152, int. 47
Centro Histórico
Zacatecas, Zac. 98000
México
Oficina: +52 (492) 925-3415
Fax: +52 (492) 925-3416
Domicilio: +52 (492) 768-6048
Celular: +52 (492) 118-0854
idiez at mac.com
www.idiez.org.mx
www.macehualli.org




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