On a:l- as in a:ltepe:tl: sources; Cuauhtinchan

[Gordon Whittaker]

Dear David,

Oops! You caught me with my pants down! I'm travelling in Italy right now,
so my access to sources is rather limited for the next couple of weeks. I
think Xihuiltemoc is in Ixtlilxochitl, not that that helps much, given the
garbled form of the surviving manuscripts. But I'm pretty sure it occurs
in bona fide Nahuatl texts of the 16th century. Since the name is a
prominent elite name, it is found in a variety of sources.

There are actually a number of additional examples of <tl+t> becoming <lt>
in the literature, always spanning word boundaries, so it is indeed, as
you say, a sandhi phenomenon. Perhaps someone hovering in cyberspace can
help us out here with further examples.

The place names Alpoyeccan and Almoloyan seem to be construed as A:tl
Poyecca:n 'Where is Water Is Salty' and A:tl Molo:yya:n 'Where the Water
Swirls'. These contrast with the more common construction noun +
i:-possessive+verbstem+locative (e.g. Atlicalaquiyan, which is properly
speaking two words).

As you rightly point out, Coatlichan is a juxtaposition of two words, not
a compound. Cuauhtinchan is a another nice example of partial assimilation
of freestanding words -- standing for Cua:uh-tin I:n-ch:an 'Home of the
Eagles'.

Best,
Gordon

> Date: Fri, 21 Aug 2009 11:41:40 -0500
> From: "David Wright" <dcwright at prodigy.net.mx>
> Subject: [Nahuat-l] On a:l- as in a:ltepe:tl
>
> The same thought crossed my mind, Gordon, intertwined with the memory of
> Coatlichan, (Coatl Ichan), "the snake his house" ("house of the snake"),
> often written as one word but evidently two, because of the first element
> conserving its absolutive prefix.
>
> As for altepetl, together with the two examples you provide of /tl/ + /t/
> >
> /lt/, it looks like we can add this to our list of regular (albeit scarce)
> morphophonological changes. Andrews lists most of these changes, but I
> think
> he missed this one. I would be most grateful if you could provide
> documental
> references for Xihuiltemoc and Ihuiltemoc, to nail this down. One word
> doesn't make a rule, but with three I think it's worth going for. I'd like
> to add this to the section on morphophonology in the second edition of my
> book Lectura del N?huatl. I promise to cite your post. (The first edition
> has a few citations of Nahuat-l posts too). Listeros: what do you think?
>
> Saludos,
>
> David

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
Gordon Whittaker
Professor
Linguistische Anthropologie und Altamerikanistik
Seminar fuer Romanische Philologie
Universitaet Goettingen
Humboldtallee 19
37073 Goettingen
Germany
tel./fax (priv.): ++49-5594-89333
tel. (office): ++49-551-394188
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~


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