Interclausal relations in Orizaba Nawatl

1. Interclausal relations in Orizaba Nawatl (towards a preliminary initial beginning of a first stab at)A usage-based accountDavid TuggySIL-Mexico

2. Orizaba Nawatl (ON) • Orizaba Nawatl (ON) is spoken in the moun-tains south of the city of Ori-zaba, Veracruz, Mexico.

3. Orizaba Nawatl (ON) • As many as 150,000 people speak a variety of closely-related dialects of the language. • The data used in this study, along with Spanish translations for them, were composed as illustrations for lexical entries in a dictionary • by Victor Hernández de Jesús, who is from San Juan del Río (officially Rafael Delgado), about 8 km. SE of Orizaba.

4. Usage-based grammar • As a “usage-based” theory, Cognitive Grammar claims that linguistic structures derive their specifications from the ways they are used. • The meaning of a structure, in particular, is a distillation of what is common to the cognitive structures shared by speakers and hearers in particular usages where the structure has occurred.

5. Usage-based grammar • Meanings consist in expectations, of varying degrees of strength, that the common structure of previous usages will occur again. • They are also usefully thought of as instructions from the speaker to the hearer, to modify the current shared cognitive structure in accordance with those expectations.

6. Usage-based grammar • A common misunderstanding arises from uncritical acceptance of the “container metaphor”which views words and other structures as “boxes” that “contain” their meanings. • This implies • that a meaning has a clear “inside” and an “outside”, and • that the meanings of neighboring structures are separate from it and will adjoin but not overlap it. • Both of these implications are basically wrong.

7. Usage-based grammar • It is more helpful to think of meanings as windows on a vast network of inter-related ideas that the speaker and hearer have come to share. • Neighboring windows typically afford overlapping views; overlap of meanings is normal. • From a given window some specifications will be “in your face”, almost impossible to ignore. • Others will be far off, inconspicuous, and unlikely to be focused on. • But it is only a matter of degree of prominence (salience) which are central to the meaning and which are peripheral to what degrees.

8. Usage-based grammar • In lexical, phrasal and clausal structures the meaning usually consists in an in-your-face “profile” (designated structure) which stands out as figure against a cognitive background (“base”). • Features intrinsic to the profiled element (“inside-the-box”) tend to be prominent or central to the meaning, while extrinsic (outside-the-box) features tend to be less so. • But these are only tendencies.

9. Usage-based grammar • Sometimes extrinsic specifications are central. • For the word hat, the shape, color, and material are intrinsic. Yet they can vary widely. • The extrinsic relationship of being worn on a head is arguably a more salient (central), general and strongly-expected part of the meaning.

10. Usage-based grammar • If it is fulfilled, almost anything can be called a “hat”.

11. Usage-based grammar • For relational terms especially, the entities which are related, though in a sense extrinsic, are very prominent. • It is (probably) impossible to conceive of the relation without conceiving of them.

12. Usage-based grammar • You cannot conceive of (temporal) “AFTER” without thinking of two events occurring sequentially. • The second of these events is given more prominence and is thus the “trajector” or subject; the preceding event is the “landmark” or object.

13. Usage-based grammar • It is no accident that you do not (almost, you cannot) use the word after without syntactic neighbors which specify the nature of the trajector and landmark.

14. Usage-based grammar • That is, after automatically brings with it the expectation of occurrence in a syntactic construction with a subject and an object.

15. Usage-based grammar • This extrinsic relationship of after to its syntagmatic partners is highly central to it.

16. Usage-based grammar • It is not, in principle, different in kind from other extrinsic specifications that, through usage, come to be associated with a form.

17. Usage-based grammar • Hats go on heads, and after goes with an object and a subject, for much the same reason: • They constantly show up together. • Consistent usage entrenches the expectation of further such usage.

18. Inter-clausal relations • After can be construed with a nominal (Thing) subject and object, or clausal ones (grounded Processes), in any combination. • E.g. one might say a nap after breakfast, or he slept after he ate. • (Or a nap after he ate, or he slept after breakfast.) • In any case, the subject is mentally located in time subsequent to the time of the object.

19. Inter-clausal relations • after is, accordingly, a unified “lexical item” • notwithstanding the fact that it is called a “preposition” when it has a nominal object, and a “subordinating conjunction” when it has a clausal object. • Clausal relators very often are useful relators of other kinds of structures as well.

20. Inter-clausal relations • After’s various usages are describable as nodes in the same kind of coherent schematic network that helps define other lexical items. • (This is far from an exhaustive account, of course. Non-temporal usages of after must fit in, also, for instance, or the after CLAUSE, CLAUSE constructions.)

21. Inter-clausal relations • The “subordination” imposed by after consists (largely if not entirely) in the lesser prominence accorded the object (landmark) as compared with the subject (trajector). • The hearer’s attention is directed to the subject clause in preference to the object clause. • This is not an absolute thing, however. • Like many other semantic specifications, it is an expectation that can be overridden.

22. Inter-clausal relations • This seems to happen especially easily at inter-clausal and higher discourse levels, • to the point that it becomes less than clear that “subjecthood” and “objecthood” are the right ways to talk about what’s happening.

23. Inter-clausal relations • At best they are instructions for default prominences, but both speaker and hearer know they may be overridden. • Usage that overrides them will become entrenched as the expectation (weighted largely according to frequency of the usage) that they may be overridden on other occasions.

24. Inter-clausal relations • It is a complex matter, and difficult to pin down, but it seems clear that • In clausal and smaller structures, you want to build a single coherent picture, with a single unambiguous profile. • Clear signalling of main vs. subordinate status is important to that end. • Langacker suggests, following Chafe (1994) and others, that a single clause prototypically (but far from inevitably) correlates with an “intonational group” (on the phonological side) and a “single attentional gesture” (on the semantic side).

25. Inter-clausal relations • As the complexity of multi-clausal structures increases, however • The “single coherent picture” prototype gradually gives way to a series of coherent pictures. • This is doubtless related to issues of processing time and cognitive processing capacity. • As it becomes less intrinsically important to achieve a single unambiguous profile, • a clear distinction between main and subordinate status becomes less normative. • Coordination, and other prominence arrangements such alternation or cession of control, become more common.

26. Inter-clausal relations in Orizaba Nawatl • As in any language, the system of interclausal relations in ON is very complex. • We will briefly examine the next-most-common relational mechanism, and then, even more briefly, the most common one. • First, some relevant facts about ON clauses:

27. Clauses in Orizaba Nawatl • In Nahuatl generally, and in ON in particular: • Verbs obligatorily carry pronominal prefixes for subject and (if transitive) primary object. • Any verb can function alone as a full clause. • Clausal subjects, objects, secondary objects, time expressions, etc., are in this sense “optional”. • NP’s with those functions are not marked morphologically or by position. One figures out their relation to the verb by what makes sense in the context.

28. Clauses in Orizaba Nawatl • There are no infinitives or participles. • (Though there are some participle-like nominalized forms, they are not used like verbs or to form verbs.) • Full finite verbs are used where in Indo-European languages we might expect infinitives or participles. • This naturally increases the number of clausal combinations one is dealing with in comparable stretches of text.

29. Clauses in Orizaba Nawatl • A number of clausal types have no verb. E.g. yi kaxtolli [already 15] means “it’s been two weeks”. • Adjectives and nouns can be used as clausal heads, meaning “be Adj/N”. • When used as clausal heads, they take the same subject prefixes as do verbs.

30. Verbless clauses in Orizaba Nawatl • Since the 3rd person subject prefix is a zero, however, you cannot really tell if the prefix is there. • (Some analysts —Michel Launey, J. Richard Andrews—claim it always is. This is not easy to refute, of course! Launey uses the term “omnipredicativity”.) • So amehw̯an an-siw̯ameh(you.pl you.pl-women)can mean “you women” or “you are women”. • siw̯ameh(women) by itself can mean “women” or “they are women”. • weyi can mean “big”, “(a) big one”, or “s/he/it is big”.

31. n • Orizaba Nawatl has an odd little morpheme: n. • It seems to behave, and is written at least by some, as a separate word. (It does not enter into neighboring word phonotactics, for instance). • It is the only word consisting of a single consonant. • (It was in in Classical Nahuatl and still is in some dialects. It is gone in others, including some ON variants.) • It is never stressed, though it is marginally syllabic. • Its most common usage is as a (sort of) definite article, modifying a following noun or NP. • You will see many cases of this usage in the examples. • Unlike the, it is commonly used with proper names, pronouns, and possessed nouns.

32. n • It also functions as a rather versatile subordinating conjunction. • It may help to compare it with that in English, which is definite, and also a versatile subordinator. • Here are some of the kinds of subordinations it marks. • (Alternative suggested translations are given in square brackets at the end of the sentences’ translations.)

33. Relative n-Clauses • Like that, n is sometimes used for relative (adjectival) clauses (1)Nēw̯itzeh n tlakah n okichiw̯atoh n mikkatekochtli. there.they.come N men N they.went.to.make.it N dead.man’s.hole“There come the men who went and dug the grave.” [back from digging the grave] (2) Opeh kualani n konetl n okinapalohtoyabegan he.is.angry N child N she.was.hugging.himn Isabel okimatetexoh asta okimaeskixtih.N Isabel he.arm.bit.her until he.arm.bled.her“The kid that Isabel was holding in her arms threw a tantrum, and bit her hand/arm so hard that he made it bleed.”

34. Relative n-Clauses • Sometimes it is a “headless” relative clause (in which case the n itself may be analyzed as head): (3) Seamechonnotza n ankimaw̯iw̯itlatoyah n Ignasyo we.talk.to.you.pl N you.pl.were.weeding N Ignacioinardohyoh.his.lily.field“We are talking to you who were weeding Ignacio’s Easter lily field.” • (One could also take the object pronoun amech- as head in this example)

35. Relative n-Clauses • A particularly interesting case is that in which the relativized clause (if that is what it is) consists in a single adjective: (4)Xikillikan piltontli makamo kahkokui tell.him boy not.subjnct he.raise.itn etik n kuaw̯itl, welitis ahkolpatilawis.N heavy N woodhe.can.fut he.will.be.shoulder.twisted“Tell the boy not to lift the heavy log/firewood; he might strain/twist/dislocate his shoulder.” [the log that is heavy]

36. Subject n-Clauses • Again like that, n is often used on complement clauses, including subject clauses, object clauses, or others. (5) N teh iw̯an Lidio mach amechkokoh n antlahw̯ilitoyaN you and Lydio not it.hurt.you N you.went.to.irrigatesewa; ¿nelli?it.is.cold true?”It didn’t hurt you and Lydio that you went and irrigated the field in the cold, did it?” [to go and irrigate] (6) Asta nikan omokak n opitzin kamyón iyanta. until here it.was.heard N it.perforated truck its.tire“When the truck’s tire popped, it was audible clear over here.”

37. Subject n-Clauses • Subject n-clauses are particularly frequent when the main clause is a non-verbal type. (7) Asta yisemi n okikuatekihkeh n Minerva until a.few.days N they.baptized.her N Minervaimichpokatzin.their.daughter”It’s been several days ago now that they baptized Minerva [and her husband]’s daughter.” [since they baptized] (8) Tlen tlakualnextia sakeh mach owih n okichihchihkeh. what beautifies.stuff just.like not difficult N they.did/built.it “The way they’ve fixed the place up, you’d think what they did was easy .”

38. Object n-Clauses (9)Niktlalia n anpixkakeh amotlallah, I.place.it N you.harvested your.fieldtlakah itech okse tlalli, Jaime. but.it.was in.it another land James “I thought that you all had harvested in your own field, James, but as it turns out it was the other field.” (10) Mariana mach okikak n okillihkeh makamoMarian not she.heard.it N they.told.her may.it.not.bekichachalachili n kokochi n ikni.she.rattle.it.at.him N toy.car N her.sibling”Marian didn’t hear that they told her not to make noise to her brother with the toy car.” [them tell her, when they told her]

39. Complement n-Clauses (11) ¿Kox yen poyohtenan amo kualli kahki whether it’s.she hen not good she.isn ayemo tlakixtia?N not.yet she.hatches?”Is it the sick hen that hasn’t hatched her chicks yet?” [Is the síck hen the one…] (12)¿Keskintih okipalew̯ihkeh n Raúl n opixkak?How.many they.helped.him N Raul N he.harvested? ”How many helped Raul harvest?” [when he harvested]

40. Causal n-Clauses • A n-clause commonly expresses a cause. (13) Amikah mokuapitzinia n anmotlatlamuitlah, pipiltih.nobody he.bursts.his.head N you.pl.throw.yourselves, boys ”None of you boys better bust his head open because you are shoving each other around.” [the way you are shoving …] (14) Motla koxamo ilw̯ichiw̯as n kikitzkis treinta.your.uncle whether he.will.make.fiesta N he.will.take.it thirty. “Your uncle will probably throw a fiesta because he’s turning 30.” [for his 30th birthday] (15)Piltontli asta muitlalohtih n okittak ehekamalakotl. boy even he.went.running N he.saw.it whirlwind. “The boy took off running because he saw the whirlwind.” [when he saw, upon seeing]

41. Causal n-Clauses • Causes come in a number of different flavors, including: • Negative causes / anticipated causes which are overcome. (16)Chikawak n pinyatahkomitl, mach pitzini n kimah. tough N piñata.pot, not it.bursts N they.hit.it“The pot inside that piñata is strong: it isn’t bursting even though they’re hitting it.” [from their hitting it, for all their hitting it] • Partial causes / contributing factors (17) Kihtow̯a n Alfonso kimasotlawa n imoruna he.says.it N Alphonse it.tires.his.hand N his.machete n kitehteki n kuaw̯itl.San nimantenmiki.N he.cuts.it N wood. just right.away it.edge.dies “Alphonse says his machete tires his arm out (especially) when / becausehe cuts firewood (with it). It goes dull very quickly.”

42. Causal n-Clauses • Causes come in a number of different flavors, including: • Evidence (a result which causes you to conclude/comment) (18)¿Tleka yotimapatziw̯ik, Mikaela, n yititlapaka? why your.hand.deflated Michaela N already.you’re.washing“So, has the swelling gone down in your hand, that you’re washing clothes, Michelle?” [enough that you can wash] • Result (which may be grounds for conclusion) (19) Mach kualli ankitlalihkeh n libreta n opostek ipasta. not good you.pl.placed.it N notebook N it.broke it’s.cover “You put that notebook in crooked, so its cover got bent .”

43. Setting n-Clauses • Partial causes or contributing factors grade into setting descriptions. These also come in several flavors, including: • General situation (20)N mawiltiah n pipiltih, owehwetzki se, nes N they.are.playing N kids he.fell one, appearsome imahpilw̯an opatilawikeh.two his.fingers they.twisted“The kids were playing, and one fell and twisted a couple of fingers.” [as they were playing] (21)Yekin otipahtik n Isaak, n timawiltia futbol, just.now you.healed N Isaac N you.play football amo oksappa tikxipatilawis. not again you.will.foot.twist“You just got better, Isaac, and now you’re out playing soccer: (let’s hope you) don’t sprain your foot/ankle again.”

44. Setting n-Clauses • More specifically, time (22)Elvia mach okinekia kamachalos n okipahmakakeh. Elvia not she.wanted.it she’ll.open.her.mouth N they.gave.her.medicine“Elvia wouldn’t open her mouth when they gave her her medicine.”[even though they were trying to give, so they could give] (23)Xikw̯ikakan moruna, antlixwitektiaskeh you.pl.take.it machete you’ll.go.chopping.weeds n antlakuilpachoskeh. N you’ll.bend.corn.over“Take your machetes; you should go along clearing the weeds away as you bend the cornstalks over.” (so the ears hang downwards and dry properly).

45. Setting n-Clauses • Location (24)Ika se ma w̯ia, machkeh wehka n tlakow̯atin Luis; with one may he.go, not.like far N he.goes.to.buy Louis¿para tlen mow̯ikaskeh? for what they.will.take.each.other“It’s enough if one person goes; it’s not far to where Louis is going shopping; why should several go together?” [It’s not as if Louis is going a long way away to shop]

46. Mixed-type n-Clauses • Very often several types may be discerned in the same instance. • (Remember all the alternative translations of previous sentences.) (25)Ipah otitlaksaya n pipilolli, Samuel, on.it you.were.stepping N dangler Samuel mach otikittak n pepetlakatok. not you.saw.it N it.is.sparkling“You were standing/about to step on the earring, Sam; you didn’t see it sparkling (there)”

47. Mixed-type n-Clauses (25)Ipah otitlaksaya n pipilolli, Samuel, on.it you.were.stepping N dangler Samuel mach otikittak n pepetlakatok. not you.saw.it N it.is.sparkling“You were standing/about to step on the earring, Sam; you didn’t see it sparkling (there)” • The clause n pepetlakatok could be taken as • a relative (“which was sparkling”), • a negated cause (“even though it was sparkling”), • an object (“you didn’t see that it was sparkling”), • and perhaps others (“you didn’t see it sparkling there” … ). • This sort of indeterminacy is more common than not.

48. Mixed-type n-Clauses • Similarly: (26)Weyi n okikxioperarohkah n Martín, big N they.leg.operated.him N Martinsanken neskayohtok.still it.is.marked “(Since) they’d done (such) a big operation on Martin’s leg, it’s still scarred.” [it is big where they’d operated] • The n-clause can be thought of as subject of weyi “it is big”. • It can also be thought of as the location of something (the incision) being big.

49. Mixed-type n-Clauses • There is nothing to be surprised at in this. • Although the translations of these notions differ, and they doubtless differ somewhat in Nawatl speakers’ minds, they are in fact all marked simply by n. • There is something right about saying that n simply means “fit this clause into the other one”. • But there are some constraints about how the n-clause is fitted in. • Many kinds of adverbial clause meanings are not marked with n, for instance.

50. Nominal-like n-Clauses • Many of the functions of n-clauses which we’ve described are typically fulfilled by nouns or NP’s. Particularly • Subjects, objects and other complements • Time • Location are often expressed by nouns. • In fact, they are often expressed by n-N NP’s.