tlacoyoctli, tlacotoctli /and/ /coyoctli/

Thu Mar 1 17:51:51 UTC 2012

On the same page, he also adds:

"Nouns meaning "a thing of such-and-such a color" are created by this 
means from incorporated-noun-as-adverb compounds formed on the matric 
e:hua, 'to arise':

(ti:c-e-c)-tli = a chalk-colored thing [ < (ti:c-e:-hua) < (ti:za)tl + 
e:hua)]"

(Note occepa that la voyelle shortens.)

Michael

Quoting Michael McCafferty <mmccaffe at indiana.edu>:

> Nahuatlatos estimados,
>
> "Old Andrews," (_Introduction to Classical Nahuatl_, University of
> Texas Press, Austin, 1975, page 245) seems to have something to say
> about all this:
>
> 1. "Intransitive thematic verbs of the -ni kind...[our coyoni]...may
> have root-based patientive nouns formed on a special stem consisting
> of the root plus -c, -x, -z, or -ch, the choice depending on certain
> factors no longer evident in the surface grammar. The long vowel of
> the root is made short."
>
> An example that appears to relate to this case is tlapactli 'a thing
> that has become broken' from tlapani.
>
> (Note bien que que esta palabra no es tlapa:ctli 'cosa lavada')
>
>
> 2. "Intransitive thematic verbsd of the -hua kind may have root-based
> patientive nouns formed on a special stem created by adding -c to the
> root. The long vowel of the root is made short before the -c."
>
> The example is pitzactli 'a thing that has become narrowed or thin'
> from 'pitza:hua
>
>
> Michael
>
>
>
>
> Quoting David Wright <dcwright at prodigy.net.mx>:
>
>> Muy apreciado John:
>>
>>
>>
>> It’s good to be critical and look hard at these things. There is, in fact, a
>> simpler explanation for both tlacoyoctli and tlatectli, deriving the nouns
>> from the preterite stems of the verbs. This is what Campbell and Karttunen
>> (1989a: 240) call “patientive state nouns”, as opposed to what they call
>> “resultant state nouns”,which are based on the passive stem (which they
>> prefer to call “nonactive”), as described in my last post. The results of
>> both processes have similar or identical meanings, so it’s difficult to
>> choose between the two forms.
>>
>>
>>
>> The “resultant state” explanations would go like this:
>>
>>
>>
>> Tlacoyoctli: tla + (coyoqui -i) + tli
>>
>> tlatectli: tla + (tequi - i) + tli
>>
>>
>>
>> (Although I’m still not sure about this unattested verb coyoqui, where the
>> expected form would be coyo:ni.)
>>
>>
>>
>> If you (with friar William of Ockham) prefer the simpler explanations of
>> these words, these analyses would also work.
>>
>>
>>
>> Andrews (2003: 364, 365) prefers to think of a “nonactive suffix o:”, which
>> would simplify the “(lo: - o:) part of my previous analysis to just “o:.” I
>> prefer to write out the long form, based on the assumtion that o: is derived
>> from lo:, just to make things a bit more explicit.
>>
>>
>>
>> The more complicated analysis (“patientive state nouns”) given by Campbell
>> and Karttunen seem to be inspired by Carochi’s explanation of what he calls
>> “los verbales en tli, y li” (2001: 182-187 [lbook 3,chapter 3]). (Both Joe
>> and Fran are listeros; perhaps they can shed some light on this.) Carochi
>> includes tlatectli in his examples, then explains:
>>
>>
>>
>> “Formanse de la voz passiua del presente de indicatiuo desta manera que si
>> el passiuo es regular, idest, si acaba in lo, se muda la o, vltima en li,
>> verbi gracia. chi:hua hazer, forma el passiuo chihualo, buelta la o, en li,
>> y antepuesto el tla, haze tlachi:hualli, cosa hecha, obra, criatura. Pero si
>> el verbo no formare regularmente el passiuo, no acabarà en lo, aunque si, en
>> o, de ordinario, y en tal caso la o, se mudarà en tli; como tequi cortar,
>> tiene el passiuo, teco, boluiendo su o, en tli, con el tla, haze el verbal
>> tlatectli, cosa cortada. [
]”
>>
>>
>>
>> Carochi says tlatectli is formed on the passive stem, which makes the
>> analysis I gave in my last post my favorite hypothesis, although the
>> alternative mentioned above can’t be ruled out, as far as I can see at this
>> point. Campbell and Karttunen give both derivations for tlatectli:
>> “resultant state” (based on the passive) and “patientive state” (based on
>> the preterite) (1989a: 239, 240).
>>
>>
>>
>> As for evidence of the intervening steps between tequi and tlatectli, there
>> are attestations of teco: in the Carochi quote given above, in Sahagún (see
>> Wimmer, undated) and at the core of tlateco:ni, “cutting instrument”
>> (Karttunen, 1985: 295; Molina, 1571b: 134v; Wimmer, undated). Molina’s
>> (1571b: 24r) listing of coyoctic, “agujero, o cosa agujerada” is also
>> relevant to the discussion, as has been pointed out in this thread.
>>
>>
>>
>> I hope this makes things a bit more clear. These sorts of changes are what
>> makes Nahuatl morphological analysis a challenge; without a clear
>> understanding of the underlying morphophonological processes it can be
>> really hard to see what’s going on.
>>
>>
>>
>> Saludos cordiales,
>>
>>
>>
>> David
>>
>>
>>
>> ********************************
>>
>> Sources not cited in my last post:
>>
>>
>>
>> ANDREWS, J. Richard
>>
>> 2003a Introduction to Classical Nahuatl, revised edition, Norman, University
>> of Oklahoma Press.
>>
>> 2003b Workbook for introduction to Classical Nahuatl, revised edition,
>> Norman, University of Oklahoma Press.
>>
>>
>>
>> WIMMER, Alexis
>>
>> undated Dictionnaire de la langue nahuatl classique
>> (http://sites.estvideo.net/malinal/; access: 29 February 2012).
>>
>>
>>
>> De: IDIEZ [mailto:idiez at me.com]
>> Enviado el: miércoles, 29 de febrero de 2012 15:35
>> Para: David Wright
>> CC: nahuatl at lists.famsi.org
>> Asunto: Re: [Nahuat-l] tlacoyoctli, tlacotoctli
>>
>>
>>
>> David,
>>
>>            I've never been really happy with the way people explain things
>> having to do with the passive and impersonal constructions in Nahuatl. I
>> think it's the only part of Andrews that I haven't even tried to get
>> through. I've seen the explanation you cite for tequi>teco>tlatectli before.
>> And perhaps it really does make sense, but it just seems to me that there
>> are too many shady things going on. First, the "i" of the verb drops off,
>> then the passive "-lo" is added, but wait.... then the "l" drops out. And
>> when we finally get the passive teco, "it is cut," the specific object has
>> also disappeared. Then we continue down the road toward the noun. Next the
>> final "o" of teco drops off and the object "tla-" miraculously reappears at
>> the same time that the absolutive suffix "-tli" is added. And in between the
>> source verb tequi and the resulting tlatectli, there's no hard evidence that
>> any of these intervening processes ever really took place. Since I'm not a
>> linguist I fear I may be like the lay person standing in front a piece of
>> Modern art and saying they can't see anything. I understand that Nahuatl
>> adds and drops affixes to create and refine meaning, many times passing
>> repeatedly through noun, verb and relational forms. But most of the time,
>> the processes are pretty transparent. This stuff, though, is really hard for
>> me to understand.
>>
>> John
>>
>>
>>
>> On Feb 29, 2012, at 1:23 PM, David Wright wrote:
>>
>>
>>
>> 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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>>
>
>
>

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