teotihuacan etymology

[John Sullivan, Ph.D.]

Magnus,
	The reason why the -ca- of -can is split off is that with few  
exceptions (caxcan, for example), , -can is only sufixed to agentive  
nouns in the formation of place names. You propose that the root of  
teotihuacan is -teotihua- and that the -hua- is a passive/impersonal  
suffix (in this case, impersonal, because teoti is intransitive). Can  
you give any other examples of place names formed on impersonal verbs?
John

On Jul 24, 2009, at 8:44 AM, Magnus Pharao Hansen wrote:

> Dear. Dr. Sullivan
>
> The proposed analysis of Teotihuacan seems pretty far stretched.  
> Firstly why assume that it is from a t dialect - teotihuacan is well  
> within the central dialect area where tl would be expected,  
> (although of course it might not always have been) - and use of the  
> name itself is attested only in a -tl dialect, classical Nahuatl.  
> Secondly the etymology requires i not just a t-dialect but also an i- 
> dialect since central dialects tend to have /tle/ as the root for  
> fire.   Thirdly splitting up the locative suffix /ka:n/ into an  
> agentive and a -n locative suffix seems completely unwarranted - to  
> my knowledge no grammarian has made this analysis before, all seeing  
> -/ka:n/ and /ya:n/ as single morphemes. I would propose that a much  
> better analysis would be:
>
> teo - divine, god, holy, mystic
> ti - causative suffix (the one used on nouns to form a denominal  
> verb meaning to become as in /tla:kati/ "be born")
> hua- passive/non-specific agent suffix
> can - locative suffix
>
> "place where someone becomes (a) god"
>
> Magnus Pharao Hansen
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