Nouns as adverbs

[Magnus Pharao Hansen]

In response to the recent post by Jesse Lovegren:

Your first example:

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"

Is also a case of possessor raising, where the congruence between the
object and the possessor of the noun licenses the noun - to show this it
could be translated as "remember our misery (for us)"


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

Here you hit the nail on the head - incorporation of nouns is exactly the
only way in which a second definite object can be overtly marked on bi, tri
or tetravalent verbs.

But yes, the supporession of the second object happens with all
ditransitives. Launey describes the rules according to which this is done
very lucidly in his grammar. Nahuatl gramarians generally agree that
Nahuatl is anything but "very flexible" in the way in which handles
transitivity - this rigidity is the basic grammatical glue of Nahuatl
syntax. Exceptions happen but they are never general, and always occur only
in specific contexts and constructions where syntactica cohesion can be
maintained without the explicit marking of agreement.

best,
M

-- 
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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