tlacoyoctli, tlacotoctli

[IDIEZ]

Piyali notequixpoyohuan,
	You know, this problem might be more extensive than I thought. With a verb like coyoni>coyonia, the preterite roots, coyon/coyonih, are very easy to distinguish. But what about all those verbs like cotoni/cotona,  "for s.t. to snap or bust" / "to bust or snap s.t.", whose preterite roots, coton/coton, are indistinguishable. So how can we know if  tlacotontli or tlacotoctli, "s.t. snapped or busted," is based on the transitive cotona, or the intransitive cotoni. The fact that the "n" of the root verb can go to "c" suggests that the transformation from transitive verb to noun might take place using the instransitive form as the base. That "c" appears in the reduplicated form cotoni>cocotoca, etc. 
	This possibility, that the transformation of a transitive verb to something else might be based on the intransitive form, has a parallel. We used to say, for example, that when cahua becomes the applicative cahuilia, the final "a" of cahua changes to "i". Now we know, or at least I think, that the applicative transformation of a transitive verb is base on the intransitive form, even if that form is not attested. The good thing about working simultaneously with different variants (across space and time) is that forms that are only implicitly present in some variants are explicitly present in others. Or sometimes you just have to look for them in combined forms. Cahui, for example, is used in Modern Huastecan Nahuatl in the following form:
1. Attested transitive verb: mahcahua, to release or throw s.t.
2. Unattested intransitive form: mahcahui, to be released or thrown (unattested in the sense that it does not appear in a stand-alone form)
3. -mahcauhyan (with a possessor) is the slit between things that are tied or stacked together, like bamboo that is tied together to make a wall or fence. Literally, the fence's place of release, from maitl>mah-, cahui>cauh-, -yan (time of place of an action).
	But I would think that just the fact that cahui is the base for the formation of cahuilia, is evidence enough of its existence.
John

John Sullivan, Ph.D.
Professor of Nahua Language and Culture
Zacatecas Institute for Teaching and Research in Ethnology
Universidad Autónoma de Zacatecas
+52 (492) 925-3425 (office)
+52 1 (492) 103-0195 (mobile)
idiez at me.com
www.macehualli.org

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