Pronouns

[Jonathan Amith]

Listeros,

The situation in some Balsas villages is similar to that reported by Carochi.
Some, but not all, villages have long and short forms:

Ameyaltepec (younger speakers tend more toward -owa, older ones to -ewa
endings). There are no short forms here (or, if they are, they are very rare).
Ameyaltepec loses {h} word internally:
newa (or nowa)
tewa (or towa)
yewa (or yowa)
tewameh (or towameh)
nanwameh
yewameh (or yowameh)

San Miguel Tecuiciapan (no short forms documented to date, though research is
incomplete)
nehwa
tehwa
yehwa
tehwameh
nenwameh
yehwameh


Oapan (here there are short forms, as indicated; {h} word internally creates a
high pitch-accent, leading to two high pitches on words such as náwá and
tó:méh)
náwá (short form no)
táwá (short form to)
yáwá (short form yo)
tó:méh (no short form)
nó:méh (no short form)
yó:méh (no short form)

In all variants the long form is used to introduce new information in response
to a question. It is not used with old information. Thus:

¿A:kino:n kitekis? Who will cut it?

Can have the following responses:
Náwá!
Náwa nihtekis.
Also possible
No nihtekis.

However, in response to ¿Tli:no:n tihchi:was? What will you do?
Nihtekis. I will cut it.
Where the verbal action is the new information, but not,
? Náwa nihtekis.
? No nihtekis.

This is because the emphatic pronoun is used with new information and in the
previous the subject is known whereas the predicate is not.

Re: the short forms. These must always be followed by a predicate (verbal or
otherwise)

Thus
no no: niá:s I will also go.
to no: tiá:s You will also go.
etc.

Note the following:
No nisíwawah, niman táwá. I am married, and you?

The second pronoun cannot be a short form.

jda
Quoting Arnd Sölling <arnibionic at YAHOO.DE>:

> Listeros,
>  I want to thank everybody that helped me out on the nahuatl 
> pronouns. It is very nice to be able to see different 
> accesses/explanations of one phenomena, lexical ones, morphological 
> ones...I have checked Carochi for the pronouns and came to see that 
> he mentiones that forms of ne´ cannot stand alone as an answer for a 
> question...so i thought that maybe ne´ became something like a second 
> position clitic with less semantic qualities like the full form with 
> -hua(tl) (that would fit into the typological linguistic theories 
> tought at my university)...just an idea...
>  Greetings,
>  Arnd Sölling
>
>
> ---------------------------------
> Telefonieren Sie ohne weitere Kosten mit Ihren Freunden von PC zu PC!
> Jetzt Yahoo! Messenger installieren!



-- 
Jonathan D. Amith
Director: Mexico-North Program on Indigenous Languages
Research Affiliate: Gettysburg College; Yale University; University of Chicago
(O) 717-337-6795
(H) 717-338-1255
Mail to:
Dept. of Sociology and Anthropology
Gettysburg College
Campus Box 412
300 N. Washington Street
Gettysburg, PA  17325