subject prefix

[Michael McCafferty]

John,

I understand what you're talking about in terms of the "alien" 
structure of Nahuatl, in terms of its being a language composed of 
"nuclear clauses," as Andrews calls them, which is not what 
Indo-European languages are about.

For me "niquitta in chichi" is more like "I see him, which is a dog", 
and that "inner" translation helps me in seeing the nuclear clause 
nature of Nahuatl. But I agree that there is a zero prefix before 
"chichi".

 From this perspective these "yolcameh" you're talking about are indeed 
subject prefixes.

I think there might be a challenge is see these subject prefixes as 
indeed subject prefixes because of the nature of Indo-European 
languages.

I hope I have somewhat understood your question.

Best,

Michael



Quoting John Sullivan <idiez at me.com>:

> We are having a grammatical discussion here in Warsaw concerning the
> nature of the Nahuatl subject prefix.  I guess you could say that ti-
> functions as a subject in:
> 	a) titlacah, We are people
> 	b) tinehnemih, We are walking
> But what about in:
> 	c) Xitechpalehui in timomacehualhuan, Help us, your vassals
> 	d) topampa in timomacehualhuan, because of us, your vassals
> I?m using these examples because the ?subject prefix? is explicit.
> But the question actually arose after looking at an example like:
> 	e) niquitta in chichi, I?m looking at the dog. (which I would
> literally translate as ?I´m looking at it, the dog"
> In this case, some people say that there is not even a meaningful Ø-
> at the beginning of chichi. Now I know that there is. But I want to
> know exactly what it is doing. It seems that what we have called a
> ?subject prefix? can serve:
> 1. as the subject of a noun, i.e. titlacah, We are people
> 2. as the subject of a verb, i.e. tinehnemih, We are walking
> 3. as something that links the noun referent of a verbal object
> prefix to that very verbal object prefix via the category of
> person/number (in conjunction with the noun´s number suffix), i.e.,
> Xitechpalehui in timomacehualhuan, Help us, your vassals
> 4. as something that links the noun referent of relational prefix to
> that very relational prefix via the category of person/number (in
> conjunction with the noun´s number suffix), i.e., topampa in
> timomacehualhuan, because of us, your vassals
> 	So the question is, Is there a better term that ?subject? to refer
> to the ?subject prefixes?? Or are the Poles just unnecessarily
> complicating things?
> John
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