Malacachtli/malacachoa

[Magnus Pharao Hansen]

Listeros,

I was too quick to dismiss the possibility of the *malacachoa *being
derived from *malacachtli*. I had forgotten that -*oa *was used to derive
denominal verbs in classical Nahuatl (Launey 1986 pp. 958-959*). It does
seem to be the simplest explanation. However, that does not explain the
relation between *malacachtli *and *malacatl,* which is another interesting
question.

It seems to me that here the most logical solution is to look for a way
that *malacachtli *and *malacatl *derives historically from a single root -
probably /**malaka*/.The question then becomes what is the root of the -*ch*-
between the root and the absolutive suffix in the form *malaca-ch-tli*.

We know that Proto-Nahuan only had CV syllables, so the -ch- must be the
remnant of a CV syllable that was reduced by the general accent shift rule
that reduced the penultimate syllable of words with more than two syllables
(described in Canger 1980).

Dakin (1982:96) derives a number of verbs in -*choa *from forms with a
previous suffix -*čo/ča*- which she reconstructs as meaning
"frecuentative". An example /kwekwečoa/ "to make tremble" and *chachacuachoa
*"to make rough (splattered?).  Interestingly both of these have an
intransitive counterpart with -tz- /kwekwetzoa/ "to tremble" and *
chachacuatza *"to splatter mud", and so does *ma:pi:choa */ *ma:pi:tza *"to
whistle with ones hand". There are other examples of pairs with tz/ch for
example *cinhuechtli *"volunteer maize" from *cin *"maize" and *huetzi *"to
fall", and *cacalachtli *"rattle" that seems related to *cacalatza "*to
rattle". There are also odd pairs like *patla:wa/patlachtik* that are not
readily analyzable as derivations of each other - they must also share
derivational histories from a single root somehow (do we have any
attestations of a verb *patlatza*?).

We also know that frequently Nahuatl / č / comes from
proto-Uto-Aztecan  *¢ before the high central vowel *ʉ. This makes it
probable that the syllable from which the -ch- is derived was /*¢ʉ/.  This
could explain the Intransitive -*tza/tzoa* - transitive -*choa *pairs, if
the intransitive form was  /*¢i/ (which would lead to -tziwa and eventually
-tzoa (following the path laid out by Canger 1980)) and the
transitive /*¢ʉ/ which would lead to -*choa *through **čiwa*.

If, following this reasoning, we were to posit that *malachoa *was derived
from a previous /*malaka-¢ʉ-wa/ then *malakachtli *would come from the
nominal form /*malaka-¢ʉ-ta/ and *malacachihui *from /*malaka-¢ʉ-wi/. This
suggests that while it is possible to derive *malacachtli *directly
from *malacachoa
*- it is equally possible that both historically derived from the same
etymon and not directly synchronically from each other. By positing a
historical derivation we solve the issue of the *malacachtli/malacatl*pair.


*http://celia.cnrs.fr/FichExt/Etudes/Launey/tm.htm

-- 
Magnus Pharao Hansen
PhD. student
Department of Anthropology

Brown University
128 Hope St.
Providence, RI 02906

*magnus_pharao_hansen at brown.edu*
US: 001 401 651 8413
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