noun as adverb

[Michael McCafferty]

Quoting Jesse Lovegren <lovegren at buffalo.edu>:

> 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"
>

Nice. Thanks.

Your example, Jesse, relates to my original question for John when he 
first mentioned this type of construction--I asked if modern Nahuatl 
puts an "in" before what you're referring to as an "adjunct".

Got no response on that question, but your example here goes toward 
answering it. My sense is that this is less an adjunct than a complete 
statement that describes the idea being referenced by the verb.

Michael



> 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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