ti

[Magnus Pharao Hansen]

Dear Listeros,

Thanks for a long and informative discussion about the -ti verber. I get a
bit of a feeling that people are talking across each other.

>From my perspective it is the translators dilemma that we are facing. It
seems clear to me that Dr. Launey is correct when he points out that it is
not possible to identify the suffix -ti directly with the meaning have. It
has more meanings than that, and a sometimes it seems to produce more
general verbs - sometimes being more active in their sense than merely "to
have". On the other hand it also seems clear that it is frequently the best
translation to use "have" to translate it into English and "tener" in
Spanish. But on the other hand we know  that there was no verb in
precolonial Nahuatl that corresponded exactly to have. The different senses
of the word have (to possess, to own, to be characterized by, to keep, to
be composed of etc.) were expressed by different morphemes and
constructions. So if we claim that its meaning is clearly "have" then we
posit that Nahuas did have a concept of "to have" and that this was encoded
with this suffix. This is clearly not the case because most of the time
when "have" would be expected in English, Nahuatl does not use the -ti
verber. So probably we just have to accept that the semantic structures of
the two languages do not map directly onto each other, and that
consequently we have to accept that translations are merely approximations
- and that whether to settle for a specific approximation or look for a
more nuanced one is a matter of choice.

Now, I think there is  also a difference in perspective between those who
are most interested in translating Nahuatl texts into Spanish or English
and the linguistic perspective that is more interested in analyzing the
finer details of structure and meaning, that often fall in between the
cracks of translation - and hence often are inconsequential to translators,
but important to linguists trying to capture minute typological
distinctions between languages. For an example of how a detailed functional
analysis can challenge the received ways of classifying and translating
morphemes I recommend the following article by Una Canger. 2007. Some
languages do not respect the designs of linguists.
https://www.academia.edu/1430077/Some_languages_do_not_respect_the_designs_of_linguists_2007_




-- 
Magnus Pharao Hansen
PhD. candidate
Department of Anthropology

Brown University
128 Hope St.
Providence, RI 02906

*magnus_pharao_hansen at brown.edu <magnus_pharao_hansen at brown.edu>*
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