tlacoyoctli, tlacotoctli

[David Wright]

Muy estimado John:

I was just looking at your first post in this thread, and had come up with
what for me is the most likely hypothesis, its major problem being the n > c
change, which I tentatively explained as an unattested variant of the root
verb (coyoqui instead of coyoni), because that way the analysis works within
the established rules. I don't know enough about diachronic changes in
Nahuatl to evaluate if coyoqui could be an older form related to coyoni (or
coyo:ni). If you have any more information on (or examples of) the n > c
shift I would be interested.

The analysis of tlacoyoctli, based on the hypothetical transitive verb
coyoqui, would work like this:

tla + (coyoqui -i) + (lo: - l) - o: + tli

The passive suffix lo: disappears like this in other cases, for example
tlatectli, "something cut" (from tequi, "cortar", by way of passive
tlateco:, "something is cut"):

tla + (tequi - i) + (lo: - l) - o: + tli

(see Campbell/Karttunen, 1989a: 238, 239; Carochi, 2001: 182-185 [book 3,
chapter 3]; Karttunen, 1983: 216, 232, 295; Molina, 1571b: 105r, 134v.)

CAMPBELL, R. Joe; KARTTUNEN, Frances
1989a Foundation course in Nahuatl grammar, volume 1: text and exercises,
ed. xerográfica, Missoula, The University of Montana.
1989b  Foundation course in Nahuatl grammar, volume 2: vocabulary and key,
ed. xerográfica, Missoula, The University of Montana.

CAROCHI, Horacio
2001 Grammar of the Mexican language with an explanation of its adverbs
(1645), James Lockhart, traductor y editor, Stanford/Los Ángeles, Stanford
University Press/UCLA Latin American Center Publications.

KARTTUNEN, Frances
1983 An analytical dictionary of Nahuatl, Austin, University of Texas Press.

MOLINA, Alonso de
1571a Vocabulario en lengua castellana y mexicana, México, Casa de Antonio
de Espinosa.
1571b Vocabulario en lengua mexicana y castellana, México, Casa de Antonio
de Espinosa.

Saludos desde Guanajuato,

David

*******************************************************

-----Mensaje original-----
De: nahuatl-bounces at lists.famsi.org [mailto:nahuatl-bounces at lists.famsi.org]
En nombre de IDIEZ
Enviado el: miércoles, 29 de febrero de 2012 12:42
Para: nahuatl at lists.famsi.org
Asunto: [Nahuat-l] tlacoyoctli, tlacotoctli

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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