3rd mail on nouns, adj and adverbs

[John Sullivan]

Piyali notequixpoyohuan,
	I see that my first two mails haven‘t been posted, so I‘m assuming this is due to the effects of the hurricane, and I hope everyone is ok.
	I am thinking that in Nahuatl, all nouns, regardless of the process of their formation (cihuatl, tetic, cuahuitl ihuehueyaca, tecuani, tlaxcalli, topileh, tizayoh, etc.) refer to an entity, but by extension, they can refer to the characteristics of that entity. 
1. So for example if I juxtapose noun2 to noun1 or tack noun2 on to noun 1, noun 2 can lend noun1 its (noun2‘s) characteristics: in other words, noun2 takes on an adjectival function. 
	Huehueyac huapalli, “It is a long board.“ Cihuatequitl, “It is woman‘s work.“ Chipahuacatl, “It is pure water.“
2. On the other hand, if I juxtapose a noun to a verb or incorporate a noun into verb that already has all of its object spaces filled up, the noun can lend the verb its characteristics. In other words, the verb is performed with the characteristics of that entity.
	Chipahuacanemi, “He/she lives chastly.“ Or Chipahuaca nemi, “He/she lives chastly.“ Huehuexcatlahtoa, “He/she curses.” Moquichihtoa, “He boasts of his manly deeds (Se cree muy hombre).“
	I think perhaps that a noun is a noun in Nahuatl, whether it points directly to an entity, or loans its characteristics to another noun or an action.
John
_______________________________________________
Nahuatl mailing list
Nahuatl at lists.famsi.org
http://www.famsi.org/mailman/listinfo/nahuatl