nepatia Re: [Nahuat-l]

Sun Oct 29 10:59:40 UTC 2006

On Fri, 27 Oct 2006, R. Joe Campbell wrote:
|     To add to John's suggestions for alternatives to what she may have
| said, there is a morphological reason for not believing that she said
| "nepahtia", 'it cures itself'.  The reflexive prefix for finite verbs is
| not "ne-", but "mo-", so 'it is cured' is "mopahtia".

Can you describe the difference between finite verbs, and, um,
infinite verbs?  Is it the same thing as transitive and intransitive
forms of verbs?  Or personal and impersonal?  The books I have seen
so far are not very consistent with their descriptions of the
grammatical forms.

| "ne-" is a non-specific reflexive prefix and appears only on
| *derived* forms of verbs (or impersonal forms).

Okay, I'll try to memorize that.  I've got the Analytic Compendium
of Nahuatl Grammar, and the author didn't mention that.  When a
situation "cures itself," I took for something as reasonably
impersonal.  For instance, having the sniffles tends to call
for time, and little else.  (Although I'm inclined to say that
chronic suffering of allergies calls for something else.)

Sheer numbers, I was supposing.  Of course, you are right, it could
be just about anything, but I was hoping (in vain) that "nepatia"
might have been Nawatl (or a language descended from it).  Of
course, it could have been some obscure Indian language from much
farther south, too.

| Could it have been one of the other approximately 55 indigenous
| languages of Mexico?

Sure, there's no telling.

| Or a language from Central America or someplace else in the
| world?

Well, South America even.  You have a good point.  It could be from
just about anywhere.  Even the 'ethnic' appearance of a Latin
American woman doesn't prove anything, either.  The expression could
even have been Spanish, but "Nepa Tia" doesn't make much sense to
me.  The Spanish word 'tia' is a relative, I think.  And 'nepa'
might be onions or mustard seed, or some kind of a condiment or
other, but I'm just guessing.  What tipped the whole thing in favor
of Nawatl was its involving a kid picking up some Ludens Lemon Drops
and the mother saying "Nepatia" and putting it back on the shelf.
(At least the kid had good taste, and knew what tasted good.)

|     Further, bearing witness to a language event can be
| dangerous, more so in a language not our own, and certainly
| outside of a situation where we can say, "mande?", "come again?",
| "I'm sorry?" (as some people now say), etc.
|
|     One of my own iconic language listening experiences happened about
| forty years ago when I had no doubts about the accuracy of my hearing.
| I came out of my house on a winter morning carrying a heavy
| university-owned tape recorder.  When I took my third step down an icy
| sidewalk, I fell flat on my back, probably cushioning my fall by pushing
| the tape recorder down, so that it received the first impact.
|     Later that day, I was walking down a hallway filled with the burble of
| students walking by and I narrated the event to an older colleague with
| whom I had a polite relationship.  He replied, "Well, that says something
| about your ability with the taperecorder!"   ...I was stunned that he
| would speak to me with that kind of irony, even rising to sarcasm...
| No, he wouldn't say that to me...  If not, what did he say?  I played it
| back in my head over and over.  By the time we had walked about three
| classrooms down the hall, I heard it differently and realized that now I
| had it right...  He had said, "Well, that says something about the
| durability of the tape recorder."

hehe  Well, I'm sure to have many more mistakes before I get a grip
on this language.

Thanks for the corrections....  I don't give up this easy.  I always
go to sleep with the Analytic Compendium of Nahuatl Grammar in my
bed before dozing off every night...

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