(no subject)

[Doug Barr]

Warning! Incoming barrage of questions! :-D

On Nov 24, 2006, at 6:27 AM, Michael McCafferty wrote:


>> 2. Verbs with third-person subject and object that are of the same
>> number, i.e. both singular or both plural - if there's only one noun
>> argument, is there a default reading for subject or object? E.g. does
>>  "O:quitta in cihua:tl" mean "The woman saw him/her," "He/she saw the
>>  woman," or both/either?
>>
>
> Fundamentally, it means both. It also can mean "the woman saw  
> them" (inanimate object plural).

Interesting. In the other indigenous language I know something of -  
Halkomelem Salish - plurality is also not necessarily distinguished  
in third person, however a single noun argument is obligatorily read  
as subject, so a sentence like the following -

Ni kwolextos kwtho smoyoth.
Ni kwolex-t-os kwtho smoyoth.
Be.there shoot-[transitive]-[3rd.person.agent]  
the.definite.but.not.currently.visible deer.

- would HAVE to mean, "The deer shot him/her/them," not "He/she/they  
shot the deer" as the sense would indicate.

Another question on that topic - and I do apologize if this has been  
answered previously, I don't have any texts as yet and haven't so far  
had a lot of luck searching the archives - I understand that  
canonical word order in Classical Nahuatl was (probably) VSO, but in  
a sentence like "O:quitta in cihua:tl in oquichtli" is the woman  
seeing the man, or the man seeing the woman, or both? (Halkomelem is  
generally VSO but can be VOS, and distinguishes by sense, context or  
use of subject-oriented demonstratives before what is to be read as  
subject).

Pronunciation - how aspirated are the stop consonants in Nahuatl? My  
impression from the one recording of a modern dialect I've found is,  
not or not very. And, if you have what is orthographically a double  
consonant like the -tt- in "o:quitta," is it treated as a geminate  
consonant and just held for a beat, like Italian "letto" or Japanese  
"katta," or are the two consonants rearticulated? The latter is what  
Halkomelem does, -tt- would be articulated as two 't' sounds in a  
row, no different that -kt- or anything else - Salish phonotactics  
and morphology are just generally terrifying. :-D

Thanks again to all who answered, I do appreciate it. This language  
is fascinating!

Doug

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