noun as adverb

[Jesse Lovegren]

Thanks for raising this interesting question. It seems that Nahuatl is very
flexible in allowing nouns which are not indexed on the verbal word to be
interpreted as adjuncts in some suitable context. A favorite example from
the Florentine codex is as follows.

xi-tech-[hu]al-mo-lnamiqui-li-li                 in   to-cno-yo
opt-1pl-vent-2sg.refl-remember-appl-appl art 1pl.poss-orphan-yo
"remember us in our misery"

What is interesting about ixtlahua is that it seems to refer to an event
type which inherently involves more arguments than can be encoded by the
morphology. I wonder if other such verbs can be found.

Here is an example from the Florentine codex where the thing paid is
encoded as an incorporated noun:

mo-cuitlaxcoli-xtlahua-ya
"...they paid with their entrails..."


On Fri, Nov 2, 2012 at 1:35 PM, John Sullivan <idiez at me.com> wrote:

> Piyali notequixpoyohuan,
>         I have never quite understood some structures in Modern Huastecan
> Nahuatl such as the following, “Nitlaxtlahuaz ome pesoh.” “I‘m going to pay
> two pesos.” The verb “ixtlahua” can only take the “tla-” object, which
> won‘t allow us to specify the object. I can add the applicative,
> “Nimitztlaxtlahuiliz.” “I‘m going to pay you.” Or “Nimitztlaxtlahuiliz ome
> pesoh.” “I‘m going to pay you two pesos.” But again, the specific amount of
> money can‘t be an object of the verb.
>         So after going back to Andrews (2003, p. 512), I see at the
> beginning of Lesson 49, “Xochitl ancueponqueh.” “You(pl.) have budded like
> flowers.” So a stand alone noun can function as an adverb. So perhaps the
> two pesos in the modern example is an adverb talking about HOW I paid you.
> John
>
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-- 
Jesse Lovegren
University at Buffalo
Department of Linguistics
625 Baldy Hall
office +1 716 645 0114
cell +1 716 352 3643
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