Teuctli

[Michael McCafferty]

Sorry, not a contraction in Nahuatl, a "rounding".

Michael

Quoting Michael McCafferty <mmccaffe at indiana.edu>:

> Quoting "John Sullivan, Ph.D." <idiez at mac.com>:
>
>> Sorry for the late comment on this topic. In Northern Veracruz
>> Nahuatl, we also have "tecohtli", "dueño", and "itecoh", "su dueño".
>> But I can't see how this could be a spelling pronunciation. The
>> Huasteca is peripheral to the Central Mexican writing tradition, and
>> I just can't see literacy as having had any significant impact on
>> speech in this area. Also, in this region a syllable final "w" sounds
>>  very much like an "h", perhaps a bit more prolonged. In
>> Tamazunchale,  only a few hours away, the sound is still pretty much
>> like the "h",  but the rounding is perceptible.
>> John
>
>
> It's hard to say, John, what is going on, but it could be in "tecohtli"
> a simple case of contraction, that is, a contraction of the original
> /-kw-/ of the stem /te:kw-/ 'lord' to [-ko(h-)] at the spoken level. We
> see such a thing, for example, in Miami-Illinois, an Algonquian
> language, where, say, phonemic /ceenkwihtanki/ 'it thunder-flows'
> (i.e., 'it is a waterfall') can go to phonetic [ceenkohtangi]. ( c "ch")
>
> Michael
>
>
>>
>> On Oct 9, 2007, at 1:19 PM, Frances Karttunen wrote:
>>
>>>
>>> On Oct 9, 2007, at 12:29 PM, David Wright wrote:
>>>
>>>> Regarding Fran's statement "In Milpa Alta the word has bifurcated,
>>>> with the original form retaining its meaning of 'lord' and a
>>>> spelling pronunciation based on tecuhtli having taken on the
>>>> meaning of 'boss'": In the cassettes prepared by José Concepción
>>>> Flores Arce ("El Maestro Xochime") for teaching Nahuatl, I hear
>>>> [te:ku?tli].
>>>
>>> In my experience with M.A. Nahuatl, the labialized [kw] has
>>> simplified to [w], so te:uctli is pronounced [te:wtli] (the name of
>>> the local sacred mountain).  The 'boss, bureaucrat' word derived
>>> from the spelling pronunciation is pronounced [te:kohtli] with the
>>> [h] here representing the local pronunciation of the glottal stop.
>>> But the o/u distinction being nonsignificant in most varieties of
>>> spoken Nahuatl, including M.A. as I know it, it might be pronounced
>>> more like [te:kuhtli].
>>>
>>>
>>>> In the accompanying book, in the vocabulary list, I find
>>>> "tecu'tli, (sust.) dirigente, gobernante." I also see the root
>>>> with the kw > k shift in the word "tecpampa, (sust.) palacio,
>>>> oficina." El Maestro Xochime is from Milpa Alta (in southeastern
>>>> Mexico City). I assume that the unusual (for a native speaker)
>>>> pronunciation [te:ku?tli] is the result of influence from Mexico
>>>> City academics of the Garibay school. Fran (or others): do you
>>>> have any information or comments on this?
>>>
>>> It might well be.  I just think of it as spelling pronunciation.
>>> The spelling "tecuhtli" managed to mislead Thelma Sullivan, who
>>> used the word in her Compendio as an example of how the -tli form
>>> of the absolutive suffix is used after saltillo (glottal stop).
>>> Perhaps this was inherited from her teacher, who was none other
>>> than Garibay.
>>>
>>>
>>> Fran
>>> _______________________________________________
>>> Nahuatl mailing list
>>> Nahuatl at lists.famsi.org
>>> http://www.famsi.org/mailman/listinfo/nahuatl
>>
>>
>
>
>
>
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