Understanding of a folk etymology
Campbell, R. Joe
campbel at indiana.edu
Fri Apr 24 19:24:25 UTC 2009
I forgot to mention one important point about "ne:m" -- the
phonological identity of its final segment. It occurs most often as
[n], but, as we know,
nasal consonants in many languages assimilate to the point of
articulation of the following consonant and, further, in word final
position, show no contrast in point of articulation (e.g., only [m] or
[n] may occur). So since its pronunciation as [n] is *determined*, it
is not relevant in revealing whether it is really /m/ or /n/.
But a few examples of "ne:m" before vowels reveal that the final
consonant is /m/:
quinemia qui-nem-i-[y]a he drank it in vain
nemihquitqui nem-ihquit[i]-qui poorly woven
...............
I referred to Ayer 1478 mistakenly as "Vocabulario anonimo"; it
*is* anonimo, but it is referred to as: Vocabulario trilingue.
Joe
_______________________________________________
Nahuatl mailing list
Nahuatl at lists.famsi.org
http://www.famsi.org/mailman/listinfo/nahuatl
More information about the Nahuat-l
mailing list