Nahuatl
Uto-Aztecan - Mexico

ROCKERCOATL - Song unnamed

Administrative Notes

• Recitation is cancelled on 11/21

• (Let’s face it, you weren’t coming anyways.)

• HW6 is beefy.

• We’ll have a review session during the last week of class

  • The final recitation is cancelled too.

A few notes from Monday’s talk

• Any questions or comments? Surprises?

• Note how many theoretical points were up to debate

• “Well, we’re not entirely sure what this marks”

• This is what languages look like when you zoom in!

  • Certainty can only come with distance

Languages of Mexico and Meso-America

LING 1020 - Will Styler

Today’s Agenda

• Uto-Aztecan Languages

• Mayan Languages

• Agreement vs. Case

Uto-Azetcan

Uto-Aztecan Languages

• Spoken in the US and in Mexico

• 30 languages

• One of the larger families in North America

Nahuatl!

Want to incur Will’s wrath?

Nahuatl is not pronounced “Na-waddle”!

/ˈnaːwatɬ/

• ɬ is a voiceless lateral fricative

Nahuatl was the language of the Aztec People

Today’s Messed-up Colorado History Lesson

Montezuma was a great Aztec Leader

He was killed by Spaniards led by Hernan Cortez

### Montezuma has a county in Colorado

The county is administered by the city of Cortez

Seriously, Colorado?

English has a lotl of borrowings from Nahuatl

• Coyote (from coyōtl)

• Mesquite (from mizquitl)

• Peyote (from peyōtl)

• Tomato (from tomatl)

• Chocolate (from xocolātl ‘bitter water’)

And I mean a lotl!

• Chili (from chīlli)

• Avocado (from āhuacatl)

• Guacamole (āhuacamōlli ‘Avocado Sauce’)

• Tamale (from tamalli)

• Chipotle (from chilpoctli ‘smoked chili’)

Axolotl

(Image Source)

Nahuatl
Uto-Aztecan - Mexico

Here’s a picture of a gerbil in a sweater, because I can’t think of a transition.

Mayan Languages

• Spoken in Central America

• Really well documented

• Around 6 million speakers

  • K’iche has the most (2 million)

Mayan Languages were the language of the Mayan Civilization

The Maya had an awesome ideographic writing system

Nova did a whole special on this.

• You can watch it online for free

(Modern Mayan languages use the Latin alphabet, though)

Features of Mayan Languages

• Agglutinating and Polysynthetic

• VOS ordering

• Numerical Classifiers

• Relational Nouns!

Relational Nouns

Relational Noun

A noun used to express prepositional meaning

• These are an areal feature for Central America!

Zapotec
Oto-Manguean - Mexico

Mnnààa’ zuu zh:ààa’n bzêiny.

woman NEU.stand the.buttocks.of deer

‘The woman is standing at the buttocks of the deer’

Zapotec
Oto-Manguean - Mexico

loh gyizhi’iilly

face chair

‘on the chair’

Which of the following direct translations uses a relational noun to express ‘the squirrel is in the bus’?

1. ‘Squirrel in bus’

2. ’Squirrel bus.LOCATIVE-CASE

3. ‘squirrel stomach bus’

4. ‘squirrel entered bus’

Which of the following direct translations uses a relational noun to express ‘the squirrel is in the bus’?

1. ‘Squirrel in bus’

2. ’Squirrel bus.LOCATIVE-CASE

C) ‘squirrel stomach bus’

D) ‘squirrel entered bus’

K’iche
Mayan - Mexico

(Sorry, I needed a segue!)

Agreement!

“What’s the difference between case and agreement?”

Case marks roles on arguments!

Russian Case Marking

• Will videt kochku
• Will-NOM see-3sg CAT-ACC
• “Will saw the cat”

With case, you make the arguments wear nametags

• So you know what role the arguments are playing

### Will-NOM see-3sg CAT-ACC

Will-NOM see-3sg CAT-ACC

Agreement marks identity on verbs!

• “Rather than marking the arguments, let’s just make sure the verb points to who did it!”

Spanish Agreement Marking

• Yo veo el gato

• 1sg see.1sgsubj el cat

• I see the cat

• The arguments aren’t marked

• … but the verb lets us know who did it!

Spanish Agreement Marking

• Michael Bay hizo peliculas malas

• Michael Bay make.3sgsubj.past movie-pl bad-pl

• “Michael Bay made bad movies”

• We know that the plural argument did it!

Agreement can use many ways of showing identity

• Person marking (1sg, 2sg, etc)

  • 2sg did it!

• Number marking (singular, plural, etc)

  • The group with more than one item did it!

• Gender marking (masc, fem, neuter)

  • It was the masculine thing!

More ways of showing identity!

• Noun class

  • It was the large, flat object!

• New vs. old information markers

  • The thing I mentioned first did it!

• Any others?

Let’s test your skills!

squirrele eta acornu

squirrel.NOM eat acorn.ACC

“The Squirrel ate the Acorn”

1. “This is case”

2. “This is agreement”

kula-knas Michael Bay Will

judge-object.is.evil Michael Bay Will

“Will judges Michael Bay”

1. “This is case”

2. “This is agreement”

So, are we all in…

Agreement!?

Three methods of marking grammatical relations!

• Word Order

• Case

• Agreement

Some languages use more than one.

• Spanish uses word order and agreement

• Russian uses agreement and case

• English uses agreement, word order, and case.

  • “I go” vs. “She goes”, word order, and “he/him”

(When more than one is used, it’s usually because the first system isn’t quite robust enough)

• Why can’t Spanish use just agreement?

Wrapping up

• Uto-Aztecan languages are awesome

  • We’ll learn more Monday

• Mayan languages are awesome

  • Know their features

• Agreement and case are different

  • … but both awesome

… and don’t forget to order lots of ahuacamolli next time you go to Chilpoctli

In Recitation: Something awesome.

Next time: Tarahumara with Jesús Villalpando

No reading.

Thank you!