=?utf-8?Q?=C2=A0-ti_?=verber (again-4)

[M Launey]

Dear listeros

In a preceding message, I challenged the idea of N-ti meaning « have N », as I had found no occurrence of such forms in the corpus. Mary Clayton managed to find a few ones which deserve consideration, and I thank her for that, but in my opinion they are not convincing.

First of all, for N-tia verbs. Since they mean « give N to s.o. », « provide s.o. with N » (and I agree with these translations), Mary and Joe analyze « make s.o. have N », and this could be a hint for a « have N » meaning of N-ti. But if as I believe N-ti means « make N », then N-tia is not « make s.o. have N », but rather « make N for s.o. » (occasionally « … for/to/into sth. »), i.e., has an applicative meaning. The semantic result is the same, but the morphological path is different. This holds for ninocactia « I make shoes for myself », « I get shoes », nitēnāntia « I give a mother to s.o. », ninochimaltia « I make a shield for myself », nitlaāyōtia « I put liquid in sth. » etc.

Now for the N-ti examples which possibly could mean « have N ». Mary’s examples are :

(1) tequiti « for a slave to have work, duty » This is the easiest to rule out, since the « make » gloss is clearly more appropriate

(2) tzinti « for something to have a beginning ». But remember that N-ti has a dynamic meaning (and so has « begin »), so « realize its beginning » works better. From there we have tzintia « make the beginning for sth. », i.e. « begin (transitive) »

(3) ohxiti « have resin » FC 11. « Have resin », « be full of resin » would be ohxiyoh. Again, « produce resin » is better. I’m not a native speaker of English, so I do not know how you feel with « make resin », but as a French speaker I admit « faire de la résine », speaking of a tree (though "donner/produire de la résine" would be better). In the same way, I find in the Florentine Codex (XI,13) nanahuati « he grows pustules » (better in my opinion than « he has pustules », because it marks a process rather than a state).

(4) huictih « they wield a hoe » FC 7 (p.24 in Dibble & Anderson). Actually, this translation is wrong. Book 7 chapter 8 speaks of the people who must pay for their fathers’ or grandfathers’ faults, and sell themselves as slaves. The context says « Ye huictih, ye mecapaltih, ye tēitzcuinhuān, ye tētotōlhuān ». Huictli metlapalli « hoe, tump line » is a difrasismo, synecdoche for « slave ». There is in the FC at least another occurrence of this, correctly translated (but I can’t find the exact reference right now) : Tēhuic tēmecapal mochīhuaya « he became someone's digging stick and tump line ». So the right meaning is « They become hoes and tump lines (= slaves), they are someone else’s dogs and turkeys » (= they have the status of animals).

There remain two trickier cases, hueliti and pahti. I’ll deal with them in a following message.

I hope I'm not bothering you.


Best


Michel L.

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