tla- huan tla- (huan te-)

[John Sullivan]

Hi Michael,
A. First, examples of the -tla impersonal derivative prefix, taking a verb from 1 to 0 valence (if i understand the concept right)
	1. huaqui, “for s.t. to become dry” > tlahuaqui, “for there to be a drought”
	2. petlani, “for s.t. to glisten” > tlapetlani, “for there to be lightning”
	3. nicochmiqui, “I am sleepy” > tlacochmiqui, “there are lots of sleepy people (in a certain place)"
B. Second, examples of the -tla non-specific non-human object inflectional prefix, taking a verb from 2 to 1 valence (from transitive to intransitive)
	1. niccua nacatl, “I’m eating meat” > nitlacua, “I’m eating”
	2. niccaqui tlatzotzontli, “I’m listening to the music” > nitlacaqui, “I am obeying”
Now Andrews talks about tla- fusion on p. 71, which takes place supposedly, when it’s addition doesn’t just signify a non-specific object, i.e., “things”, but creates a new meaning. This would be the case in example 2, with tlacaqui. I don’t agree with this. I think all of the above tla-’s are the same. They are all derivational and are all fused to the root. The fact that new meanings, semantically distant from the verb of origin, are created is normal for Nahuatl. Being an agglutinating language, it always needs to exploit optional processes of derivation to find new vehicles for carrying meaning. 
C. Third, an example of 3 to 2 valence reduction, with its preparatory stages 
	- niquichtequi tomin, “I’m stealing money” 
	- nimitzichtequilia tomin, “I’m stealing money from you”
	- nimitztlachtequilia, “I’m stealing from you”. I think this is more correct than to say, “I’m stealing things from you”. And I would say the verb is tlachtequilia, and it takes one object. Later I will be arguing that verbs in Nahuatl structurally can never take more than one object.
D. One more example: 3 to 1 valence.
	Xinechmaca tlaxcalli, “Give me tortillas” > Xitetlamaca, “Give”. This is what you would hear from a person soliciting donations, for example. “Please give [things to people] generously this year”
John

On Nov 21, 2013, at 19:17, Michael McCafferty <mmccaffe at indiana.edu> wrote:

> John,
> 
> Interesting. Thank you.
> 
> Could you give us examples of the items you're referring to?
> 
> Michael
> 
> 
> Quoting John Sullivan <idiez at me.com>:
> 
>> Okeedokee listeros,
>> 	I would like to propose that the tla- impersonal verbal prefix and
>> the tla- non-specific, non-human object prefix are, in fact, the same
>> thing. They occupy the same position with respect to the root and
>> they share a function. Both reduce the valence of the verb. The
>> impersonal prefix reduces an intransitive verb to an impersonal verb
>> and the non-specific, non-human object prefix reduces a bitransitive
>> verb to a transitive verb, or a transitive to an intransitive one.
>> So, if this is right, we should no longer consider the te- and the
>> tla- nonspecific object prefixes as inflectional morphemes: they
>> would be derivational. And as such, when used they are always fused
>> to the root, creating a new word.
>> John
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> 
> 
> 

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