El Saltillo

[John Sullivan, Ph.D.]

Baert,
	All of your examples except "palehuia" are class 2 verbs ending in hu- /w/ + vowel. These verbs lose the final vowel in the preterite. When the hu- becomes word-final (and even when it is syllable-final inside the word) it becomes voiceless and is written -uh. So we are not talking about a saltillo, rather the change from a voiced /w/ to a voiceless /w/. 
	"palehuia" is a class 3 verb, and when it goes to the preterite, the final vowel is lost and a saltillo (h) appears.
	In modern Huastecan Nahuatl the "h" and the "-uh" sound similar, but there is a difference. And while an "h" causes a preceding long vowel to shorten, the "-uh" does not.
John

On Jan 18, 2010, at 1:59 PM, lahunik.62 at skynet.be wrote:

> Dear one's,
> I fully understand the argumentation of Lady Frances Karttunen contrasting open and closed syllables and the use of the –h as the saltillo and as consonant, thanks anyway.
> Like you said the saltillo is more than a morphogram, a sign to close a syllable,it is a phonogram too with a special sound.
> But what about the following verbs and their Base 2 (verbal stem of the preteritum, el pretirito):
> Ìcihui, ìcihui > iciuh.
> Cōhua, cōhua > cōuh.
> Palēhuia, palēhuia > palēhuih.
> Pōhua, pōhua > pōuh.
> Chīhua, chīhua >chiuh.
> Ēhua, ēhua > ēuh.
> Cāhua, cāhua > cāuh.
> These are all verbs by which the end letters change of place in Base 2.
> The ending –h, is that a saltillo, or is it just the letter –h?
> And if it is just a letter –h, what is than the difference between the two?
> Or is there no difference?
> Lahun Ik 62
> Baert Georges
> Flanders Fields.
> PS. My excuses to the moderator.
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