Contraction?

[John Sullivan, Ph.D.]

Doug,
	The first thing you would think about this phase is that it is in  
the admonitive mode, because of the "-tin" ending and the initial  
"tla" particle. But this can't be, because the verb, "caqui", "to  
hear s.t." only takes one object, and your phrase has two, "qui", and  
"mo". What we assume now is that the final "-n" of the verb was just  
stuck on there (perhaps the phonologists can comment on that).  
Anyway, we end up with "tla quimocaquiti tlacatl", "may the lord hear  
it", a common phrase in Nahuatl petitions. You have the verb "caqui",  
"to hear something" in the reverential form: reflexive prefix "mo" +  
verb + causative suffix. This leaves us with one specific object,  
"qui", which is what the verb would take anyway. The class 3 verb is  
conjugated in the optative mode, loosing its final vowel: "caquitia"  
 > "caquiti". In optative sentences like this one that don't have a  
second person subject, two initial particles can be used, "ma" and  
"tla", which signals a higher degree of politeness.
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
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www.idiez.org.mx




On Dec 15, 2006, at 1:24 AM, Doug Barr wrote:

> I've been going through *Rules of the Aztec Language* and referring
> to the wonderful website http://sites.estvideo.net/malinal/ - since
> the book doesn't translate any of its words, just gives the forms -
> and I found this example sentence "Tla: quimocaquitin tla:catl,"
> translated as "Que le seigneur daigne nous entendre," "May the lord
> deign to hear us."
>
> My main question is, does this represent "Tla: quimocaquiti in
> tla:catl," with the optative, and the determinative "in" shorn of its
> vowel and added to "quimocaquiti"? I'm also curious about the
> translation given as "hear *us*," vs. the Na:huatl singular object
> prefix and singular noun "tla:catl." Is this a Na:huatl stylistic  
> thing?
>
> Tlazohcamati...
> _______________________________________________
> Nahuatl mailing list
> Nahuatl at lists.famsi.org
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