Tetelcingo Nahuatl (Uto‑Aztecan, Aztecan)

The second person honorific verbs have the form of reflexives, combined with causative or applicative marking. The latter combination especially appears to involve a mismatch.

1 Background

Nahuatl has regular marking of reflexive. For second and third person it is expressed by the prefix mo- following the subject marking prefix, while for first person there is a distinct form of the subject marker:

(In the 2nd person singular, the vowel of the person prefix may be assimilated to that of the reflexive prefix, thus: to-mo-.)

The second person honorific form of the verb involves the use of the reflexive prefix mo-. With some verbs, this entails the use of the causative suffix. In such constructions, it is still possible to see a transparent motivation:

The honorific form might also be read as ‘you cause yourself to know', whereby honorificity is expressed by attributing greater control on the part of the addressee over their own actions.

This construction is usual with intransitive verbs, and is also found with some transitive verbs (as above). But the usual construction used with transitives involves the applicative suffix. The underlying logic would appear to be as follows. In a normal applicative construction there are two objects: a beneficiary (or affected object), expressed by an object prefix, and a third person direct object, implied by the applicative suffix:¹

The reflexive prefix mo- has the status of an object prefix. Therefore, if we compare the non-honorific sentence below with its honorific counterpart, the original object can be construed as having been shunted to the applicative suffix, while the reflexive prefix can be seen to express that the subject is doing the thing for his own benefit:

The examples shown so far are compatible with the syntax and semantics of ordinary reflexives, and so would not be enough to call this phenomenon a mismatch. However, this honorific construction goes beyond these bounds.

Where the object is 1st or 2nd person, or 3rd person honorific (which has object prefixes distinct from non-honorific 3rd person), these are marked by additional object prefixes:

This has no parallel in non-honorific sentences, where reflexive mo- and the object prefixes are mutually exclusive; that is, only in honorific sentences do we find verbs which are formally reflexive applicatives that contain an object prefix. A literal interpretation of such verbs in terms of these categories hard to imagine.

Further, mo- + the applicative is used for second person honorific ^objects as well:

In its function as a true reflexive, mo- can only refer to the subject.

Honorific verbs can also be formed from reflexives and applicatives. An honorific reflexive uses the distinct suffix -cinow (note that in the following example, 'be sick' is an inherently reflexive verb):

(The suffix -ci(n) is normally a nominal honorific/diminutive suffix, while -ow is a denominal verb suffix. The vowel assimilation visible in the prefix in the second )

An honorific applicative simply involves the additon of the mo- + applicative complex to the existing applicative structure:

Interestingly, third person honorifics have a completely different structure: they are marked by a distinct suffix (with allomorphoy determined by the verbal lexeme), e.g. kɪ-matɪ 'he knows it' → kɪ-mati-wa 'he (HON) knows it'; kɪ-čiwa 'he does it' → kɪ-čiwa-lo ‘he (HON) does it' (p. 99).³

Notes

¹ In Classical Nahuatl, the 3rd person non-honorific object prefix was retained in this construction:

On the use of third person subject here, see the following note.

² The second sentence shows assimilation of the vowel of the 2nd person prefix to the following reflexive marker. Tuggy (1979: 97) notes that this is not obligatory, and may vary from speaker to speaker.

³ In Classical Nahuatl, 3rd person honorific subjects (and objects) are treated in the same way as the 2nd person honorific arguments described here.

References

Andrews, James Richard. 1975. Introduction to classical Nahuatl. Austin: University of Texas Press.

Tuggy, David. 1979. Tetelcingo Nahuatl. In: Ronald W. Langacker (ed.) Modern Aztec grammatical sketches (Studies in Uto-Aztecan grammar, vol. 2). Arlington: Summer Institute of Linguistics and University of Texas at Arlington. 1-140.