=?iso-8859-1?Q?=A0-ti_?=verber (again-4)

[Michael McCafferty]

The verber explained by Andrews and identified in Campbell's work as 
"-ti04" and meaning 'have' is a common animal in Nahuatl. There aren't 
simply a couple handfuls of these verbs lying around like unusual stray 
dogs in classical Nahuatl; there are *several thousand* of them, and 
their meanings are clear: "have". Someone who has the time and interest 
to write this matter up may lay it to rest.

Nahuatl, like every language, has intrinsic ambiguity. There are 
homophonous verb endings in Nahuatl, and what we have been looking at 
over the past week are two of them, and these two have clear meanings. 
One means "become, be", and the other means "have".

Best,

Michael


Quoting M Launey <mlauney at wanadoo.fr>:

>
>
>
>
> 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 », nit?n?ntia « I give a mother to
> s.o. », ninochimaltia « I make a shield for myself », nitla?y?tia « 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 t?itzcuinhu?n, ye t?tot?lhu?n ». 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) : T?huic
> t?mecapal moch?huaya « 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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