Modern Nahuatl vowel length (was: Tecuaque)
Henry Kammler
h.kammler at em.uni-frankfurt.de
Sat Sep 2 12:00:00 UTC 2006
Hola,
I found Joe's example interesting:
> I said 'nimitztoca'
> and after clarifying that I didn't intend to *bury* him, he said,
> "you mean 'nimitzicanhuia'" [i.e., I apply behindness to you].
Would that mean that either the lexeme /toka/ "to follow" is obsolete
in that particular dialect *or* that vowel length destinction has
gotten lost so that /toka/ and /to:ka/ "to bury/plant" conflated into
one homonymous wordform (ambiguity would then be avoided by using the
mentioned metaphorical expression)?
I would like to go on asking the listeros whether we find modern
dialects where vowel length distinction has diappeared (maybe under the
influence of Spanish). With some native speakers it is really hard to
perceive phonemic differences in vowel quantity but that might just be
a problem of idiosyncrasies, mumblers vs. clear speakers in a way.
Ma nya,
Henry
--
Henry Kammler, M.A.
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Institut für Historische Ethnologie
FB08 / J.W.Goethe-Universität Frankfurt
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60323 Frankfurt a.M.
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Fax: ++49-69-798 33065
http://web.uni-frankfurt.de/fb08/IHE/
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