Malacachtli/malacachoa

[IDIEZ]

Piyali Magnus,
	But malacatl has no long vowels, and malacachtli has a long initial a (ma:lacachtli).
John

On Mar 26, 2012, at 12:11 PM, Magnus Pharao Hansen wrote:

> 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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