Tlacaelel

[Frances Karttunen]

On Mar 15, 2006, at 11:17 AM, Joanna Sanchez wrote:

> Might not the reduplication of "liver" then serve as intensifier of 
> some human being quality associated with that organ; emotional feeling 
> > passionate / high spirited?
>


 From the attestations Joe provided, it's clear that e:lel does exist as 
a free-standing noun and refers to strong negative emotion.

But we can't take it for granted that e:lel is a reduplication of e:l 
'liver,' because, as has been stated earlier in this discussion, that's 
not how reduplication in Nahuatl works.

All productive types of reduplication in Nahuatl involve the initial 
consonant (if there is one) and vowel of the stem.  That is: CVC > 
CV.CVC

There is no productive process that reduplicates the stem itself: VC > 
VC.VC
-------------- next part --------------
A non-text attachment was scrubbed...
Name: not available
Type: text/enriched
Size: 852 bytes
Desc: not available
URL: <http://listserv.linguistlist.org/pipermail/nahuat-l/attachments/20060316/356cd76d/attachment.bin>