N-ti verber 'have'. morphological meaning

[M Launey]

Dear Mary and listeros
Mary's message deserves an answer, since at least she gives arguments (even if they still do not convince me) and brings the discussion a step forward by pointing out the abstract nature of what is expressed by "be" and "have" (a position which I fully support, although I'd put it in a slightly different way) .

I'm in the final step of my move, so please allow me a few days.

Thanks for your comprehension

Michel Launey

 

> Message du 08/10/14 06:03
> De : "Clayton,  Mary L." 
> A : "M Launey" 
> Copie à : nahuatl at lists.famsi.org
> Objet : N-ti verber 'have'. morphological meaning
> 
> Michel and listeros,
> Our main point -- for which the fine points of how to translate [-ti -
> have] (Joe’s V04) are irrelevant -- is that [-ti - be/become] expresses
> an equation, while [-ti - have] expresses a transfer (including the
> reflexive meaning to apply to oneself). Given that these two morphemes
> have nothing in common except their form, we see no reason to try to
> group them together.
> 
> A morpheme is a combination of a FORM and a MEANING, and if a form has
> two meanings, or a meaning two forms, where these differences cannot be
> explained as some regular or predictable variant, then we have two
> separate morphemes. (e.g., /tu/ in English, which is ‘to’, ‘too’, and
> ‘two’).
> Thus, we (Joe and I) would say that your “two semantic values” for -ti
> are simply the meanings of two separate morphemes. The semantic values
> that we assign to these in other languages may be open to questions.
> They won’t always be “the same” for all instances of one morpheme, and
> we may differ at times on how to express the meaning in another
> language. (You are quite right that translations raise their own
> problems, especially as the number of languages involved increases
> beyond two, as I am well aware since my main project is the Vocabulario
> trilingue, where I deal with three languages plus English.)
> As a way of expressing the unity of the [-ti - have] morpheme, we find
> ‘have’ to be a good cover translation, although we agree that in
> individual instances, and in specific contexts, other translations will
> be better.
> In the preface to the first edition of his Introduction to Classical
> Nahuatl, Andrews says (p.x) “Nahuatl is an exotic language. It is not
> just foreign like Spanish, German or Russian; it is strangely foreign.”
> This characteristic of Nahuatl freqently leads us to “explain” the
> meaning of a word (that is HOW a word means, not just WHAT it means) by
> using words in ways that certainly aren’t elegant. Thus we translate
> nipahti as ‘I have medicine’, rather than ‘I am cured’, ‘I recover’, ‘I
> get well’, because it shows us what the relationship is between the
> meaning of pahtli and the meaning of -ti, and what the basic meaning of
> the combination is. It also “explains” the Nahuatl meaning of the -ti-a
> forms, ‘I cause someone to have medicine’, in a way that ‘I cure
> someone’ does not. Of course, if we were translating text rather than
> defining basic linguistic meanings, we would look for something a
> little more elegant -- and a little more English-like.
> 
> One reason for using ‘have’ as the basic translation for -ti is that
> it neatly captures the relationship between the very common -tia, which
> can be translated ‘to cause to have’ and the (as you point out)
> uncommon intransitive form -ti, which is in any case a necessary
> jumping off point for the -tia form. -a is a common causative morpheme
> in Nahuatl , so adding that to -ti captures both the form and the
> meaning of -tia. We agree that whether you see this as a causative or a
> benefactive will depend on your translation: “cause X to have Y” sounds
> causative, while “give Y to X” sounds benefactive and “provide X with
> Y” (a translation we use frequently) can be seen either way. Once
> again, the “translation” ‘have’ is not about the fine points of
> rendering Nahuatl in English; it is simply an identification of the
> general semantic content of the verb-forming element. You want one word
> (or maybe two, as in ‘be/become’) to represent the general meaning of
> each morpheme. That doesn’t mean that that’s the translation you will
> use in all or even most cases.
> For your specific comments on the four verbs that you single out, we
> would agree with much of what you say. The BIG point is that none of
> these can be translated with “be”, “become” or any other equational
> expression.
> Some specifics:
> 1) Actually, I would say “For a slave to DO work, produce work”. In
> English, we wouldn’t use “make”, and I think that we’re just talking
> about differences between French and English, not basic Nahuatl.
> 2) and 3)We agree that aspect has a place in some translations, though
> in tzinti, the meaning of tzintli carries much of the meaning. For me,
> whether a tree “makes”, “has”, or “produces” resin are all about the
> same thing. I couldn’t use “gives” unless whatever it “gives” (fruit,
> syrup, resin) has a use. But again, we’re talking about English and
> French, not Nahuatl. But “The tree is/becomes resin” is out of the
> question. That -ti is a different morpheme.
> 4) You make a good point about huictli mecapalli, though I’m not sure
> which exact figure of speech is being employed. I can imagine it
> meaning either “they become digging sticks and tump lines” or “they use
> digging sticks and tump lines”. The figure exists primarily in the
> juxtaposition of the two entities, regardless of their grammatical
> forms. Joe found the other example that you mention. It’s in book 4
> p.91 “injc cujtiloque in victli, mecapalli, injc victique,
> mecapaltique,” “so they had been forced into bondage and had become
> slaves.” (original transcription; Dibble and Anderson’s translation).
> 
> One further point that I intended to take up soon after my first
> message, but I got busy with other things, is that I found that the
> relationship between the two causatives and the two -ti verbers is not
> as absolute as I had originally thought, though a look through Joe’s
> data shows that it is in fact much closer to absolute than one would
> think from reading Andrews’ exposition, which begins on p.578 of the
> second edition of his book.
> 
> I’ll close by quoting the first couple of paragraphs of Andrews presentation.
> 
> “54.4. The Intransitive Suffx ti of Possession. The inceptive/stative
> suffix ti of 54.2.1. has a homophonous verbstem-forming suffix ti that
> creates a denominal intransitive verbstem with the meaning of “to
> have/be in possession of (what is signified by the source nounstem).”
> This ti of possession is unlike the inceptive/stative ti in that the
> verbstem it creates cannot form a deverbal verbstem with ya.
> Another difference between the two suffixes has to do with focus. A
> VNC [verbal nuclear clause] formed on the inceptive/stative ti is
> oriented toward the subject pronoun (i.e., the predicate identifies or
> clarifies the nature of the subject entity just as a subject complement
> does in English -- the ti suffix is similar to an English copular
> verbword), but a VNC formed on the ti-of-possession is oriented toward
> the nounstem source (i.e., it names what in English would be a direct
> object-- the ti suffix is similar to an English transitive verbword of
> having).”
> Following this is a list of examples from which some of ours were
> taken, though I don’t think I used any that aren’t also in Joe’s data.
> 
> Best,
> Mary
> 
> 
> 
> 
>
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