tla- huan tla- (huan te-)

[Guillaume Jacques]

Dear John,

A Uto-Aztecan perspective could be useful here. Langacker (1977:46)
reconstructs the prefixes*ta-- ‘unspecified subject’ and *tI- --
‘unspecified object’, and it could be interesting to have a look in the
rest of the family to see what the syntactic functions of the cognates of
tla- < *ta- are (I understand that there is room for improvement in these
reconstructions).
I have an article on the grammaticalization of antipassive which was just
published, where I briefly mention Nahuatl tla- as an example of non-human
antipassive (p20):

https://www.academia.edu/4483958/Denominal_affixes_as_sources_of_antipassive_markers_in_Japhug_Rgyalrong

Best regards,

Guillaume

Langacker, R.W.,1977. An overview of Uto-Aztecan grammar:Studies in
Uto-Aztecan grammar. Summer Institute of Linguistics and the University of
Texas at Arlington,Dallas.




2013/11/22 John Sullivan <idiez at me.com>

> 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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-- 
Guillaume Jacques
CNRS (CRLAO) - INALCO
http://cnrs.academia.edu/GuillaumeJacques
http://himalco.hypotheses.org/
http://panchr.hypotheses.org/
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