Pipil grammar
Encyclopedia
This article provides a grammar sketch of the Nawat or Pipil language
, an endangered language
spoken by the Pipils of western El Salvador
, belonging to the Nahua
group within the Uto-Aztecan language family. There also exists a brief typological overview
of the language that summarizes the language's most salient features of general typological interest in more technical terms.
The voiced
allophone
s of /k/, [ɡ] and [ɣ], are common but their distribution is subject to both dialect
variation and phonological rule
s (and their exceptions).
The /n/ phoneme has various allophones, as follows:
Most words are stressed
on the second to last syllable
. Some are stressed on the last syllable: these include a few lexical compounds
such as tenkal 'door, patio' (from ten 'mouth' and kal 'house'), certain prefix
ed or reduplicated
monosyllables such as (optionally) kajkal 'houses', and many diminutive
s in -tzin or -chin. There are also words in these categories with regular penultimate stress.
is a morphological
process employed in several parts of the grammatical system, which is characterized in phonological terms. Nawat reduplication takes the form of repetition of a word's first syllable (actually only the (C)V part thereof). So for example, a reduplication of kunet 'child' is ku-kunet 'children', and a derivative of the root petz- 'smooth' is pe-petz-ka 'a kind of small, silvery fish', local Spanish pepesca.
Another more productive variety of reduplication involves adding a j after the reduplication, e.g., ku-j-kunet 'children', pe-j-petz-naj plural of petz-naj 'smooth, naked'. Generalizing, plain reduplication (without j) is governed by lexical criteria. J-reduplication, on the contrary, is used by grammatical rules that:
The determiners (except for ne) and quantifiers may be used pronominally, i.e., without a noun head, or preceding the noun they determine or quantify, e.g., ne takat 'the man', ini techan 'this village', miak kal 'many houses', ume siwat 'two women'.
es shown below are attached to nouns to express who they 'belong' to, e.g., nu-yak 'my nose', i-eltiw 'his/her sister', tu-mistun 'our cat', mu-techan 'your village'.
Some nouns are always 'possessed', so that it is bad Nawat just to say *se yak 'a nose' or *ne eltiw 'the sister': instead one has to say se iyak 'one her-nose', ne nueltiw 'the my-sister', or whatever possessive form fits the context best. These include most nouns expressing either a part of the body or a member of one's family.
Other nouns can occur either with or without a possessor. Some of these have two different forms, one (the absolute form) for use without a possessive prefix and the other (the possessed form) for use with a possessive prefix. These 'states' may be indicated by different suffix
es, e.g., ne kune-t 'the child' → ne nu-kune-w 'my child; ne sin-ti 'the maize' → ne nu-sin 'my maize'; ne es-ti 'the blood' → ne nu-es-yu 'my blood'. When both states of the noun are zero-marked (like mistun and techan), the noun is 'invariable'.
The possessive
indices tell us the person
and number
of the possessor, which may be specified by a noun phrase
following the possessed noun. When that happens, the possessed normally has the third-person index, e.g., ne i-mistun ne piltzin 'the boy's cat' (literally: 'his-cat the boy').
There is an alternative way to express this, if the noun is alienable
, using the preposition pal or the relational ipal: ne mistun pal ne piltzin ('the cat of the boy'). Even with an inalienable possession
, it is possible to say ne inan pal ne piltzin ('the his-mother of the boy').
by two different procedures:
For possessed forms:
Some word that may accompany a noun in the noun phrase, such as the determiners ne, ini, uni, are invariable for number
, e.g., uni mistun 'that cat', uni mijmistun 'those cats'. On the other hand, nouns accompanied by a quantifier that is plural in meaning need not themselves be pluralized morphologically
, e.g., ume mistun 'two cats'.
s used attributively can precede or follow the noun, e.g., se selek iswat or se iswat selek 'a tender leaf' (selek 'tender, fresh, green', iswat 'leaf').
There is considerable variation regarding how to mark plural number in noun phrase
s containing an adjective. As long as some element or other in the noun phrase marks the phrase as plural, it seems not to matter which one, or even how many elements are (redundantly) pluralized, though there some speakers seem to indicate a preference for (1) marking plurality in the first possible component, and (2) avoiding redundancy, thus chijchiltik tzaput or tzajtzaput chiltik, but ume chiltik tzaput or ume tzaput chiltik.
is marked for case
, and this is just as true of the pronoun
s, which have each a single form that can perform any function in the sentence.
s in core grammatical functions are not marked for case
. To specify other roles, a preposition or a relational may precede a noun phrase. The main prepositions are:
All the above prepositions derive diachronic
ally from relationals. In some cases the preposition merely represents an abbreviation of the relational by omitting the i- prefix.
Relationals are quasi-nouns expressing some relationship (sometimes spatial, but not always) to their possessive complement. For example, nu-jpak, meaning 'on or over me', consists of the relational (i)jpak conveying 'position above' with a first person singular possessor. Some relationals are shown in third-person-singular forms in the following table:
es that serve to index the subject
and object
, respectively. (Note that in the subjunctive mood the second-person subject prefix takes the special form shi-.)
Verbs with a plural subject take a plural suffix: basically -t except in the subjunctive when -kan is used:
Transitive
verbs take, in addition, an object prefix after the subject prefix. The third-singular object prefix ki- is shortened to -k- when preceded by any of the subject prefixes ni-, ti- or shi-. This is illustrated here by the present (indicative) and subjunctive of an intransitive verb (panu 'pass') and a transitive verb with a third-person-singular object (-pia 'have'):
A few examples follow:
or mood
categories) are characterized by distinct suffixes. The plural suffix -t combines with each tense suffix to give us plural tense endings, also shown here.
The verbs classified as Class I in this table end in a or i in the present and subjunctive, but that vowel is lost in the past (which ends in -ki in this class) and in the perfect (all perfects are in -tuk). Class II verbs, which end in a, i or u, retain this in all forms, and form their past in -k. Class III differs from Class I only in that there is no past suffix at all, only the bare stem. Class IV verbs end in -ia or -ua in the present, but lose their final a in all the other tenses (including the subjunctive), and add a j in the past and perfect.
Class I includes a sub-class of mutating stems that end in the present and subjunctive in -wa, -ua, -ya or -ia. These change to -j-, -uj-, -sh- and -ish-, respectively, in the past and perfect.
There are very few truly irregular verbs. The present and subjunctive of yawi 'go' and witz 'come' are given in full here:
wal- 'towards the speaker' follows subject indices but precedes object indices (in transitive verbs) except for ki-. It has the morphological
peculiarity that when preceded by ni-, ti-, shi- or ki- both i and w are omitted, leaving nal-, tal-, shal- and kal-. When ni-/ti-/shi-, ki- and wal- would all come together, the ki- component disappears altogether, so that nal-, tal- and shal- do double duty as transitive (= ni- + ki- + wal-, etc.) markers as well as intransitive (= ni- + wal-, etc.) ones. The plural object marker kin- is split in two when combined with wal-. The following examples illustrate.
Here, intransitive verbs are those that cannot have an object
and corresponding object prefixes—while transitive
verbs are those that must have an object and object prefix. Neither subject
nor object noun phrases need be present in the sentence, but whether explicit or implicit, the corresponding subject and object indices must. (This statement rests on the convention of considering the index for a third-person subject to take the form of 'zero'.)
Some of the most common intransitive and transitive Nawat verbs are given below:
(the number of arguments it takes) and thereby effectively 'converting' it to a different transitivity type. A considerable number of lexical pairs exist consisting of two related verbs, one intransitive and the other transitive:
Apart from such purely lexical alternations, there are two prefixes with specific grammatical functions which, attached to transitive verbs, reduce their surface valency (when they are used, there is no object prefix):
that does not correspond to any index in the verb. These include the following:
, aspect
and modality
, e.g.
But there are also constructions, or variant expressions, that depart from this pattern somewhat.
The invariable word katka, which means 'was' or 'before, in the past', may occur following a verb form to establish past or habitual reference, e.g., inte kimati katka 'he didn't know'.
immediately precede either a verb or a non-verbal predicate. Basically there are three of them:
They also combine with pronouns and adverbs to yield other negative expressions, e.g., (in)te (t)atka 'nothing', (in)te aka 'no one', (in)te keman 'never', nian aka 'no one at all, and no one', maka keman 'never ever!', etc.: Inte nikmati tatka (datka) 'I know nothing', Maka shikilwi aka! 'Do not tell anyone!'
In negative sentences, the phasal suffixes are added to the negative particle, for example:
s are not differentiated grammatically from the corresponding statements. They may be affirmative, e.g., Taja tikmati? 'Do you know?', or negative, e.g., Inte tikitak kanka witz? 'Didn't you see where he was coming from?'
For replying affirmatively to yes-no questions, one may use E / Ej / Eje 'Yes', and sometimes Kia 'That's right' (literally 'So'). But it is equally common to respond using the appropriately inflected form of the main verb of the question, e.g.. (offering a cookie, for example) Tikneki se? - Nikneki 'Would you like one? - I would', Weli titaketza Nawat? - Weli 'Can you speak Nawat? - I can'. The standard negative answer is Inte / Te / Tesu 'No', or again, the verb of the question negated: Tikitak uni takat ka ne? - Te nikitak 'Did you see that man over there? - I did not'. Other idiomatic responses include Nusan 'Also', Teika inte! or Taika te! 'Why not!' and Inte / Te / Tesu nikmati 'I don't know'.
Wh-questions are formed with a wh-word, which usually immediately precedes the predicate (verbal or non-verbal.
Indirect questions are introduced by either (a)su 'if, whether' or a wh-expression, depending on the kind of question.
. There seem not to be any specialised native words for 'but' and 'or' (unless ush 'or' is one), and the Spanish words pero and o are sometimes used. N(i)an 'nor' may be used to coordinate negative statements. Mal or melka 'although, even though' can form adversative clauses, e.g., Niyaw niyaw, mal-te/melka te nikneki 'I will go, although I don't want to'. Nusan 'also' is common, e.g., Yaja nusan walaj 'She also came'; its negative counterpart is simply nusan te... 'not...either', e.g., Naja nusan te nikneki nitakwa 'I don't want to eat either'.
Relative clauses, which always follow (rather than precede) their head, may be simply juxtaposed clauses, or introduced by the article ne, the general complementizer ka or the interrogative pronoun ká (the last two being distinguished phonologically in various ways in the dialects). Headless relative clauses are introduced by interrogative pronouns.
consists of the following components:
There exist mechanisms of native origin for the creation of derived and compound words. No doubt these were more actively used in the language's past, since some such mechanisms are only attested in fossilized form. In more recent periods of the language, use of such procedures appears to have decreased, and with them the productivity of the procedures themselves.
affixes follows:
s are a distinct set of lexical item
s, often denoting some process that is directly perceived by the senses (such as a kind of sound or visual experience), which enter into a special range of language-specific grammatical patterns. Nawat is one of many languages possessing such items and the associated patterns, which in this case are 'expressive' verb formations. The root form of a typical Nawat ideophone is a CVCV sequence, e.g., -chala-, -china-, -kelu-, -kina-, -kumu-, -kwala-, -tapa-, -tikwi-, -tzaya-, -tzili-, -tzutzu-. These roots are not words and only acquire full meaning when they enter into one or another of the derivational patterns for Nawat ideophones. Some at least are probably onomatopoeic in origin.
The four most common morphological patterns for such Nawat verb formations are the following (R represents the ideophone root, rR a reduplicated root without j):
is characterized by widespread use of the device of incorporation
. This is a grammatical and lexical phenomenon found in different guises in many languages. The Nahuatl system is quite well known to linguists because it is often cited as an example in linguistic literature.
Briefly, in incorporation a lexeme
potentially representing one of a verb's semantic arguments
or adjuncts
, rather than forming a separate grammatical constituent
is allowed to be attached directly to the verb itself thereby forming a compound
verb. In Nahuatl this incorporated lexeme is prefixed to the verb.
In Pipil, examples of this kind of structure also occur. However, their use is far less widespread than in Classical Nahuatl, and the process is barely (if at all) productive. Therefore existing examples rather resemble ordinary lexicalized compounds. Furthermore, most of those used involve one of a specific, limited range of incorporating elements that show considerable grammaticalization, and are therefore perhaps best viewed, in the Pipil context at least, simply as derivational
prefixes.
The grammaticalization of these elements manifests itself in form, meaning and function. The Pipil forms of some of these incorporating stems are somewhat specialized phonologically; moreover, some of the forms used for incorporation no longer have corresponding full-word counterparts.
Most of the narrow set of widely-used incorporating elements belong to a single semantic set, that of body parts. While in some compounds the literal meanings of such elements subsists, in many others they only retain a broadly metaphorical sense, while in some it is quite difficult to perceive any particular meaning at all.
A selection of Pipil 'incorporation prefixes' with illustrations of some of their uses follows:
Examples of sentences containing incorporation compounds:
. Compounding mechanisms may still exist in the spontaneous language use of some speakers (to the extent that they still have spontaneous language use) but there is limited evidence for their natural, productive application.
Where traditional compounds are concerned, much of what has beensaid about incorporation is equally applicable. In fact, the same lexical combining forms that predominate in incorporation verbs often reappear in other compounds. Since these tend to be monosyllables with a low level of semantic specificity, we may call them 'light elements' and the compounds they form 'light compounds'.
Compounds containing more than one 'heavy' lexeme are rather rarer, and when new ones are proposed it is perhaps most often in response to the pressure of Spanish, i.e., in attempts to find a 'native' equivalent to a Spanish word in order to avoid a loanword. In the following table, '%' preceding a word indicates a neologism (proposed by at least one native speaker).
(for example, they could call the kitchen kan titamanat '(the place) where we cook'), (2) borrow
a Spanish word or expression (e.g., ne cosinaj 'the cocina' (kitchen)), or (3) simply code-switch
. However, when we speak of loanwords we have in mind items of foreign origin that have become habitual elements of Nawat usage and may also have undergone adaptation as a result.
With one possible exception (pashalua 'go for a walk, take time off work' < *pasyarua < Spanish pasear + the non-productive verb suffix -ua), verbs can only be borrowed into Nawat from other languages in an invariable form based on the Spanish infinitive
. Such forms cannot be conjugated directly. Instead, they must be preceded by the Nawat verb -chiwa 'make, do' to form compound expressions, e.g., from Spanish escribir 'write' we have Nawat nikchiwa escribir (contracted to nikcha escribir) 'I write' (literally 'I do escribir' ), tikchiwket or tikchijket escribir 'we wrote' (lit. 'we did escribir' ), etc.
variation is incompletely documented at present. While recognising the existence of important gaps in our knowledge (which may or may not ever be filled, as the last native speakers pass on), we do know of two well-defined dialect areas, at least as far as the department of Sonsonate is concerned, which may tentatively be called Upland and Lowland. The Upland dialect area includes the towns of Izalco
and Nahuizalco
, the Lowland area those of Santo Domingo de Guzmán and Cuisnahuat
. Present knowledge also includes some points of differentiation between Santo Domingo and Cuisnahuat. Thus for practical purposes we are chiefly able to speak of three known varieties: Izalco, Cuisnahuat and Santo Domingo.
Pipil language
Pipil is a Uto-Aztecan language descended from Nahuatl which was spoken in several parts of present day Central America before the Spanish conquest. It is on the verge of extinction in western El Salvador and has already gone extinct elsewhere in Central America...
, an endangered language
Endangered language
An endangered language is a language that is at risk of falling out of use. If it loses all its native speakers, it becomes a dead language. If eventually no one speaks the language at all it becomes an "extinct language"....
spoken by the Pipils of western El Salvador
El Salvador
El Salvador or simply Salvador is the smallest and the most densely populated country in Central America. The country's capital city and largest city is San Salvador; Santa Ana and San Miguel are also important cultural and commercial centers in the country and in all of Central America...
, belonging to the Nahua
Nahuatl
Nahuatl is thought to mean "a good, clear sound" This language name has several spellings, among them náhuatl , Naoatl, Nauatl, Nahuatl, Nawatl. In a back formation from the name of the language, the ethnic group of Nahuatl speakers are called Nahua...
group within the Uto-Aztecan language family. There also exists a brief typological overview
Pipil language (typological overview)
This rather technical article provides a typological sketch of the Pipil language . Another related article outlines Pipil grammar in fuller detail...
of the language that summarizes the language's most salient features of general typological interest in more technical terms.
Basic phonemes and word stress
| Front Front vowel A front vowel is a type of vowel sound used in some spoken languages. The defining characteristic of a front vowel is that the tongue is positioned as far in front as possible in the mouth without creating a constriction that would be classified as a consonant. Front vowels are sometimes also... |
Back Back vowel A back vowel is a type of vowel sound used in spoken languages. The defining characteristic of a back vowel is that the tongue is positioned as far back as possible in the mouth without creating a constriction that would be classified as a consonant. Back vowels are sometimes also called dark... |
|
|---|---|---|
| High | i | u |
| Mid Mid vowel A mid vowel is a vowel sound used in some spoken languages. The defining characteristic of a mid vowel is that the tongue is positioned mid-way between an open vowel and a close vowel... |
e | |
| Low | a | |
- Realizations of the back vowelBack vowelA back vowel is a type of vowel sound used in spoken languages. The defining characteristic of a back vowel is that the tongue is positioned as far back as possible in the mouth without creating a constriction that would be classified as a consonant. Back vowels are sometimes also called dark...
range between [o] and [u], but the higher vowel allophoneAllophoneIn phonology, an allophone is one of a set of multiple possible spoken sounds used to pronounce a single phoneme. For example, and are allophones for the phoneme in the English language...
s predominate. - Historically there was phonemic vowel lengthVowel lengthIn linguistics, vowel length is the perceived duration of a vowel sound. Often the chroneme, or the "longness", acts like a consonant, and may etymologically be one, such as in Australian English. While not distinctive in most dialects of English, vowel length is an important phonemic factor in...
in Nawat, that is, words could have different meanings depending on whether each vowel in them was long or short. This distinction may be extinct for present-day speakers.
| Bilabial | Alveolar Alveolar consonant Alveolar consonants are articulated with the tongue against or close to the superior alveolar ridge, which is called that because it contains the alveoli of the superior teeth... |
Palatal | Velar Velar consonant Velars are consonants articulated with the back part of the tongue against the soft palate, the back part of the roof of the mouth, known also as the velum).... |
Labiovelar | Glottal Glottal consonant Glottal consonants, also called laryngeal consonants, are consonants articulated with the glottis. Many phoneticians consider them, or at least the so-called fricative, to be transitional states of the glottis without a point of articulation as other consonants have; in fact, some do not consider... |
|
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Plosives | p | t | k [k], [ɡ], [ɣ] | kw | ||
| Affricates Affricate consonant Affricates are consonants that begin as stops but release as a fricative rather than directly into the following vowel.- Samples :... |
tz [ts] | ch [tʃ] | ||||
| Fricatives | s | sh [ʃ] | j [h] | |||
| Nasals Nasal consonant A nasal consonant is a type of consonant produced with a lowered velum in the mouth, allowing air to escape freely through the nose. Examples of nasal consonants in English are and , in words such as nose and mouth.- Definition :... |
m | n [n], [ŋ], [m], [ɲ] | ||||
| Liquids | l | |||||
| Semivowel Semivowel In phonetics and phonology, a semivowel is a sound, such as English or , that is phonetically similar to a vowel sound but functions as the syllable boundary rather than as the nucleus of a syllable.-Classification:... s |
y | w [(ɣ)w] | ||||
The voiced
VOICED
Virtual Organization for Innovative Conceptual Engineering Design is a virtual organization that promotes innovation in engineering design. This project is the collaborative work of researchers at five universities across the United States, and is funded by the National Science Foundation...
allophone
Allophone
In phonology, an allophone is one of a set of multiple possible spoken sounds used to pronounce a single phoneme. For example, and are allophones for the phoneme in the English language...
s of /k/, [ɡ] and [ɣ], are common but their distribution is subject to both dialect
Dialect
The term dialect is used in two distinct ways, even by linguists. One usage refers to a variety of a language that is a characteristic of a particular group of the language's speakers. The term is applied most often to regional speech patterns, but a dialect may also be defined by other factors,...
variation and phonological rule
Phonological rule
A phonological rule is a formal way of expressing a systematic phonological or morphophonological process or diachronic sound change in language. Phonological rules are commonly used in generative phonology as a notation to capture sound-related operations and computations the human brain performs...
s (and their exceptions).
The /n/ phoneme has various allophones, as follows:
|
naja 'I, me', ini 'this', nunan 'my mother' [n] |
|
senpa [m] 'once, again', Ken tinemi? 'How are you?' [n], inchan [ɲ] 'at their house', tenkal 'door, patio' [ŋ] |
|
Kan nemi? 'Where is (he/she/it)?', anyawit 'you (pl.) are going'; Ini ne apan 'This is the river', Shimutalikan! 'Sit down!' [ŋ] |
|
Ken ajsik? 'How did he/she arrive?', wan ini 'and this' [ŋ] |
|
nemanha 'later, straight away', kinhita 'sees them', tenhat 'river bank' [ŋ] |
Most words are stressed
Stress (linguistics)
In linguistics, stress is the relative emphasis that may be given to certain syllables in a word, or to certain words in a phrase or sentence. The term is also used for similar patterns of phonetic prominence inside syllables. The word accent is sometimes also used with this sense.The stress placed...
on the second to last syllable
Syllable
A syllable is a unit of organization for a sequence of speech sounds. For example, the word water is composed of two syllables: wa and ter. A syllable is typically made up of a syllable nucleus with optional initial and final margins .Syllables are often considered the phonological "building...
. Some are stressed on the last syllable: these include a few lexical compounds
Compound (linguistics)
In linguistics, a compound is a lexeme that consists of more than one stem. Compounding or composition is the word formation that creates compound lexemes...
such as tenkal 'door, patio' (from ten 'mouth' and kal 'house'), certain prefix
Prefix
A prefix is an affix which is placed before the root of a word. Particularly in the study of languages,a prefix is also called a preformative, because it alters the form of the words to which it is affixed.Examples of prefixes:...
ed or reduplicated
Reduplication
Reduplication in linguistics is a morphological process in which the root or stem of a word is repeated exactly or with a slight change....
monosyllables such as (optionally) kajkal 'houses', and many diminutive
Diminutive
In language structure, a diminutive, or diminutive form , is a formation of a word used to convey a slight degree of the root meaning, smallness of the object or quality named, encapsulation, intimacy, or endearment...
s in -tzin or -chin. There are also words in these categories with regular penultimate stress.
Phonotactics
|
kal 'house', at 'water', ne 'there', nu-ish 'my eye', a-pan 'river', mis-tun 'cat', kat-ka 'was', uj-ti 'path', kwa-wit 'tree, wood, stick', nu-kwaj-kwach 'my clothes', metz-ti 'moon', nech-kwa 'he/she/it is eating me', tzak-tuk 'closed', shik-tzuj-tzun-ta-mej-ti-kan 'sharpen the ends! (pl.)' |
|
tekuma-t 'gourd' but nu-tekun 'my gourd', ki-tzakwa 'he closes it' but tzak-tuk 'closed' |
|
naja 'I, me', ujti 'path', nikwaj 'I ate it', shushukna(j) 'green' |
Secondary semivowels
When one vowel Vowel In phonetics, a vowel is a sound in spoken language, such as English ah! or oh! , pronounced with an open vocal tract so that there is no build-up of air pressure at any point above the glottis. This contrasts with consonants, such as English sh! , where there is a constriction or closure at some... phoneme Phoneme In a language or dialect, a phoneme is the smallest segmental unit of sound employed to form meaningful contrasts between utterances.... immediately follows another within a word a [j] (the y sound) is often inserted between them ([w] if the first vowel is u). This is common when the first of the two vowels is stressed Stress (linguistics) In linguistics, stress is the relative emphasis that may be given to certain syllables in a word, or to certain words in a phrase or sentence. The term is also used for similar patterns of phonetic prominence inside syllables. The word accent is sometimes also used with this sense.The stress placed... . |
|
|
In other cases, /i/ or /e/ preceding another vowel is often replaced by [j]. |
|
|
But this [j] is commonly dropped following sh or ch. |
|
|
Following alveolar n or /k/ = [ɡ], [j] often combines to yield [ɲ] (like Spanish ñ) or /y/ [j] respectively. |
|
Reduplication
ReduplicationReduplication
Reduplication in linguistics is a morphological process in which the root or stem of a word is repeated exactly or with a slight change....
is a morphological
Morphology (linguistics)
In linguistics, morphology is the identification, analysis and description, in a language, of the structure of morphemes and other linguistic units, such as words, affixes, parts of speech, intonation/stress, or implied context...
process employed in several parts of the grammatical system, which is characterized in phonological terms. Nawat reduplication takes the form of repetition of a word's first syllable (actually only the (C)V part thereof). So for example, a reduplication of kunet 'child' is ku-kunet 'children', and a derivative of the root petz- 'smooth' is pe-petz-ka 'a kind of small, silvery fish', local Spanish pepesca.
Another more productive variety of reduplication involves adding a j after the reduplication, e.g., ku-j-kunet 'children', pe-j-petz-naj plural of petz-naj 'smooth, naked'. Generalizing, plain reduplication (without j) is governed by lexical criteria. J-reduplication, on the contrary, is used by grammatical rules that:
|
tamal 'tortilla' → taj-tamal 'tortillas' mistun 'cat' → mij-mistun 'cats' kal 'house' → kaj-kal 'houses' apan 'river' → aj-apan 'rivers' |
|
taketza 'he talks' → taj-taketza 'he converses' nemi 'he is (somewhere)' → nej-nemi 'he walks about' paki 'he is laughing' → paj-paki 'he is happy' ki-ajwa 'he scolds him' → ki-aj-ajwa 'he tells him off' |
Determiners and quantifiers
| Some determiners | Some quantifiers | |
|---|---|---|
|
|
|
The determiners (except for ne) and quantifiers may be used pronominally, i.e., without a noun head, or preceding the noun they determine or quantify, e.g., ne takat 'the man', ini techan 'this village', miak kal 'many houses', ume siwat 'two women'.
Possession
The prefixPrefix
A prefix is an affix which is placed before the root of a word. Particularly in the study of languages,a prefix is also called a preformative, because it alters the form of the words to which it is affixed.Examples of prefixes:...
es shown below are attached to nouns to express who they 'belong' to, e.g., nu-yak 'my nose', i-eltiw 'his/her sister', tu-mistun 'our cat', mu-techan 'your village'.
| Singular possessor | Plural possessor |
|---|---|
nu- 'my' mu- 'your' i- 'his/her/its' |
tu- 'our' anmu- 'your' in- 'their' |
Some nouns are always 'possessed', so that it is bad Nawat just to say *se yak 'a nose' or *ne eltiw 'the sister': instead one has to say se iyak 'one her-nose', ne nueltiw 'the my-sister', or whatever possessive form fits the context best. These include most nouns expressing either a part of the body or a member of one's family.
Other nouns can occur either with or without a possessor. Some of these have two different forms, one (the absolute form) for use without a possessive prefix and the other (the possessed form) for use with a possessive prefix. These 'states' may be indicated by different suffix
Suffix
In linguistics, a suffix is an affix which is placed after the stem of a word. Common examples are case endings, which indicate the grammatical case of nouns or adjectives, and verb endings, which form the conjugation of verbs...
es, e.g., ne kune-t 'the child' → ne nu-kune-w 'my child; ne sin-ti 'the maize' → ne nu-sin 'my maize'; ne es-ti 'the blood' → ne nu-es-yu 'my blood'. When both states of the noun are zero-marked (like mistun and techan), the noun is 'invariable'.
| Absolute | Possessed | |
|---|---|---|
| Singular |
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| Plural |
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The possessive
Possession (linguistics)
Possession, in the context of linguistics, is an asymmetric relationship between two constituents, the referent of one of which possesses the referent of the other ....
indices tell us the person
Grammatical person
Grammatical person, in linguistics, is deictic reference to a participant in an event; such as the speaker, the addressee, or others. Grammatical person typically defines a language's set of personal pronouns...
and number
Grammatical number
In linguistics, grammatical number is a grammatical category of nouns, pronouns, and adjective and verb agreement that expresses count distinctions ....
of the possessor, which may be specified by a noun phrase
Noun phrase
In grammar, a noun phrase, nominal phrase, or nominal group is a phrase based on a noun, pronoun, or other noun-like word optionally accompanied by modifiers such as adjectives....
following the possessed noun. When that happens, the possessed normally has the third-person index, e.g., ne i-mistun ne piltzin 'the boy's cat' (literally: 'his-cat the boy').
There is an alternative way to express this, if the noun is alienable
Alienability (linguistics)
Alienability as a grammatical concept in some languages, such as Tlingit, Rama, or Paama, related to the concept of possession.A noun is called inalienable noun, if it must always have a possessed relationship with another noun...
, using the preposition pal or the relational ipal: ne mistun pal ne piltzin ('the cat of the boy'). Even with an inalienable possession
Inalienable possession
In linguistics, inalienable possession refers to the linguistic properties of certain nouns or nominal morphemes based on the fact that they are always possessed. The semantic underpinning is that entities like body parts and relatives do not exist apart from a possessor. For example, a hand...
, it is possible to say ne inan pal ne piltzin ('the his-mother of the boy').
The plural
Nouns may be made pluralPlural
In linguistics, plurality or [a] plural is a concept of quantity representing a value of more-than-one. Typically applied to nouns, a plural word or marker is used to distinguish a value other than the default quantity of a noun, which is typically one...
by two different procedures:
through reduplication Reduplication Reduplication in linguistics is a morphological process in which the root or stem of a word is repeated exactly or with a slight change.... (see above) |
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using a plural suffix Suffix In linguistics, a suffix is an affix which is placed after the stem of a word. Common examples are case endings, which indicate the grammatical case of nouns or adjectives, and verb endings, which form the conjugation of verbs... (-met, -ket) |
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For possessed forms:
There is a special possessed plural suffix, -wan, used with certain nouns denoting family relations and similarly intimate 'possessions'. |
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Otherwise the reduplicated form of the singular possessed form is used. |
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Sometimes the possessive prefix is reduplicated instead. |
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Some word that may accompany a noun in the noun phrase, such as the determiners ne, ini, uni, are invariable for number
Grammatical number
In linguistics, grammatical number is a grammatical category of nouns, pronouns, and adjective and verb agreement that expresses count distinctions ....
, e.g., uni mistun 'that cat', uni mijmistun 'those cats'. On the other hand, nouns accompanied by a quantifier that is plural in meaning need not themselves be pluralized morphologically
Morphology (linguistics)
In linguistics, morphology is the identification, analysis and description, in a language, of the structure of morphemes and other linguistic units, such as words, affixes, parts of speech, intonation/stress, or implied context...
, e.g., ume mistun 'two cats'.
Adjectives
AdjectiveAdjective
In grammar, an adjective is a 'describing' word; the main syntactic role of which is to qualify a noun or noun phrase, giving more information about the object signified....
s used attributively can precede or follow the noun, e.g., se selek iswat or se iswat selek 'a tender leaf' (selek 'tender, fresh, green', iswat 'leaf').
There is considerable variation regarding how to mark plural number in noun phrase
Noun phrase
In grammar, a noun phrase, nominal phrase, or nominal group is a phrase based on a noun, pronoun, or other noun-like word optionally accompanied by modifiers such as adjectives....
s containing an adjective. As long as some element or other in the noun phrase marks the phrase as plural, it seems not to matter which one, or even how many elements are (redundantly) pluralized, though there some speakers seem to indicate a preference for (1) marking plurality in the first possible component, and (2) avoiding redundancy, thus chijchiltik tzaput or tzajtzaput chiltik, but ume chiltik tzaput or ume tzaput chiltik.
Pronouns and adverbs
No noun phraseNoun phrase
In grammar, a noun phrase, nominal phrase, or nominal group is a phrase based on a noun, pronoun, or other noun-like word optionally accompanied by modifiers such as adjectives....
is marked for case
Grammatical case
In grammar, the case of a noun or pronoun is an inflectional form that indicates its grammatical function in a phrase, clause, or sentence. For example, a pronoun may play the role of subject , of direct object , or of possessor...
, and this is just as true of the pronoun
Pronoun
In linguistics and grammar, a pronoun is a pro-form that substitutes for a noun , such as, in English, the words it and he...
s, which have each a single form that can perform any function in the sentence.
| Singular | Plural |
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naja 'I/me' taja 'you' yaja 'he/him, she/her, it' |
tejemet 'we/us' anmejemet 'you' yejemet 'they/them' |
| Pronouns | Place adverbs | Other adverbs | |
|---|---|---|---|
| Demonstrative |
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| Interrogative |
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| Indefinite |
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Case, prepositions and relationals
Noun phraseNoun phrase
In grammar, a noun phrase, nominal phrase, or nominal group is a phrase based on a noun, pronoun, or other noun-like word optionally accompanied by modifiers such as adjectives....
s in core grammatical functions are not marked for case
Grammatical case
In grammar, the case of a noun or pronoun is an inflectional form that indicates its grammatical function in a phrase, clause, or sentence. For example, a pronoun may play the role of subject , of direct object , or of possessor...
. To specify other roles, a preposition or a relational may precede a noun phrase. The main prepositions are:
| ka | 'to, at (etc.)' |
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| tik | 'in, to, from (etc.)' |
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| pak | 'on' |
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| tech | 'at, by, near, to' |
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| wan | 'with (etc.)' |
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| chan | 'chez' |
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| pal | 'of, for' |
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All the above prepositions derive diachronic
Diachronic
Diachronic or Diachronous,from the Greek word Διαχρονικός , is a term for something happening over time. It is used in several fields of research.*Diachronic linguistics : see Historical linguistics...
ally from relationals. In some cases the preposition merely represents an abbreviation of the relational by omitting the i- prefix.
Relationals are quasi-nouns expressing some relationship (sometimes spatial, but not always) to their possessive complement. For example, nu-jpak, meaning 'on or over me', consists of the relational (i)jpak conveying 'position above' with a first person singular possessor. Some relationals are shown in third-person-singular forms in the following table:
| Some relationals | |
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| Spatial relations | Other relations |
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Subject and object indices
The following table shows the prefixPrefix
A prefix is an affix which is placed before the root of a word. Particularly in the study of languages,a prefix is also called a preformative, because it alters the form of the words to which it is affixed.Examples of prefixes:...
es that serve to index the subject
Subject (grammar)
The subject is one of the two main constituents of a clause, according to a tradition that can be tracked back to Aristotle and that is associated with phrase structure grammars; the other constituent is the predicate. According to another tradition, i.e...
and object
Object (grammar)
An object in grammar is part of a sentence, and often part of the predicate. It denotes somebody or something involved in the subject's "performance" of the verb. Basically, it is what or whom the verb is acting upon...
, respectively. (Note that in the subjunctive mood the second-person subject prefix takes the special form shi-.)
| Number | Person | Subject prefixes |
Object prefixes |
|---|---|---|---|
| Singular | 1 | ni- | nech- |
| 2 | ti-, shi- | metz- | |
| 3 | - | ki- / -k- | |
| Plural | 1 | ti- | tech- |
| 2 | an(h)-, shi- | metzin(h)- | |
| 3 | - | kin(h)- |
Verbs with a plural subject take a plural suffix: basically -t except in the subjunctive when -kan is used:
| Indicative | Subjunctive | ||||
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Number | Person | Prefix | Suffix | Prefix | Suffix |
| Singular | 1 | ni- | - | ni- | - |
| 2 | ti- | shi- | |||
| 3 | - | - | |||
| Plural | 1 | ti- | -t | ti- | -kan |
| 2 | an- | shi- | |||
| 3 | - | - | |||
Transitive
Transitive verb
In syntax, a transitive verb is a verb that requires both a direct subject and one or more objects. The term is used to contrast intransitive verbs, which do not have objects.-Examples:Some examples of sentences with transitive verbs:...
verbs take, in addition, an object prefix after the subject prefix. The third-singular object prefix ki- is shortened to -k- when preceded by any of the subject prefixes ni-, ti- or shi-. This is illustrated here by the present (indicative) and subjunctive of an intransitive verb (panu 'pass') and a transitive verb with a third-person-singular object (-pia 'have'):
| panu (intransitive) | -pia (transitive) | ||||
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| Number | Person | Present | Subjunctive | Present | Subjunctive |
| Singular | 1 | nipanu | ma nipanu | nikpia | ma nikpia |
| 2 | tipanu | ma shipanu | tikpia | ma shikpia | |
| 3 | panu | ma panu | kipia | ma kipia | |
| Plural | 1 | tipanut | ma tipanukan | tikpiat | ma tikpiakan |
| 2 | anpanut | ma shipanukan | ankipiat | ma shikpiakan | |
| 3 | panut | ma panukan | kipiat | ma kipiakan | |
A few examples follow:
Intransitive: |
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Third-person-singular object: |
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Non-third-person-singular object: |
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Transitive with third-person (zero-prefix) subject: |
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Tenses
Tenses (so called for convenience although they include aspectGrammatical aspect
In linguistics, the grammatical aspect of a verb is a grammatical category that defines the temporal flow in a given action, event, or state, from the point of view of the speaker...
or mood
Grammatical mood
In linguistics, grammatical mood is a grammatical feature of verbs, used to signal modality. That is, it is the use of verbal inflections that allow speakers to express their attitude toward what they are saying...
categories) are characterized by distinct suffixes. The plural suffix -t combines with each tense suffix to give us plural tense endings, also shown here.
| Singular ending | Plural ending | |
|---|---|---|
| Present | - | -t |
| Past | -ki, -k, -, -j | -ket |
| Perfect | -tuk | -tiwit |
| Future | -s | -sket |
| Conditional | -skia | -skiat |
| Perfect Conditional | -tuskia | -tuskiat |
| Imperfect/Pluperfect | -tuya | -tuyat |
| Subjunctive/Imperative | - | -kan |
| Participle | -tuk | |
The present (despite its name), perfect and subjunctive are not time-specific, but may refer to events before, at or later than the time of speaking as determined by the context. They express an ongoing or habitual, completed and potential action or state, respectively. |
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The imperative Imperative mood The imperative mood expresses commands or requests as a grammatical mood. These commands or requests urge the audience to act a certain way. It also may signal a prohibition, permission, or any other kind of exhortation.- Morphology :... only differs from the subjunctive by the absence of the particle Grammatical particle In grammar, a particle is a function word that does not belong to any of the inflected grammatical word classes . It is a catch-all term for a heterogeneous set of words and terms that lack a precise lexical definition... ma. |
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The participle Participle In linguistics, a participle is a word that shares some characteristics of both verbs and adjectives. It can be used in compound verb tenses or voices , or as a modifier... acts like a noun or adjective: it does not take object prefixes and is pluralized by reduplication rather than suffixation. |
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Conjugation classes
| Present | Past | Perfect | Subjunctive | |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| I | kuchi 'sleep' | kuchki | kuchtuk | ma kuchi |
| II | panu 'pass' | panuk | panutuk | ma panu |
| III | tajtani 'ask' | tajtan | tajtantuk | ma tajtani |
| IV | mutalua 'run' | mutaluj | mutalujtuk | ma mutalu |
The verbs classified as Class I in this table end in a or i in the present and subjunctive, but that vowel is lost in the past (which ends in -ki in this class) and in the perfect (all perfects are in -tuk). Class II verbs, which end in a, i or u, retain this in all forms, and form their past in -k. Class III differs from Class I only in that there is no past suffix at all, only the bare stem. Class IV verbs end in -ia or -ua in the present, but lose their final a in all the other tenses (including the subjunctive), and add a j in the past and perfect.
| Present | Past | Perfect | Subjunctive |
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| pew-a 'begin' | pej-ki | pej-tuk | ma pew-a |
| -inay-a 'hide' | -inash-ki | -inash-tuk | ma -inay-a |
| -ku-a 'buy' | -kuj-ki | -kuj-tuk | ma -ku-a |
| -pi-a 'have' | -pish-ki | -pish-tuk | ma -pi-a |
Class I includes a sub-class of mutating stems that end in the present and subjunctive in -wa, -ua, -ya or -ia. These change to -j-, -uj-, -sh- and -ish-, respectively, in the past and perfect.
| Present | Past | Perfect | Subjunctive |
|---|---|---|---|
| yaw(i) 'go' | yajki | yajtuk | ma yaw(i) |
| witz 'come' | walaj | walajtuk | ma wiki |
| -kwa 'eat' | -kwaj | -kwajtuk | ma -kwa |
| -kwi 'take' | -kwij | -kwijtuk | ma -kwi |
There are very few truly irregular verbs. The present and subjunctive of yawi 'go' and witz 'come' are given in full here:
| yawi 'go' | witz 'come' | ||||||
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| Present | Subjunctive | Past | Present | Subjunctive | Past | ||
| Singular | 1 | niaw | ma niaw | niajki | niwitz | ma niwiki | niwalaj |
| 2 | tiaw | ma shu | tiajki | tiwitz | ma shiwi | tiwalaj | |
| 3 | yawi | ma yawi | yajki | witz | ma wiki | walaj | |
| Plural | 1 | tiawit | ma tiawit | tiajket | tiwitzet | ma tiwikikan | tiwalajket |
| 2 | anyawit | ma shumet / sh(i)akan | anyajket | anwitzet | ma shiwimet / shiwikan | anwalajket | |
| 3 | yawit | ma yawit | yajket | witzet | ma wikikan | walajket |
Directional prefix
The directional prefixPrefix
A prefix is an affix which is placed before the root of a word. Particularly in the study of languages,a prefix is also called a preformative, because it alters the form of the words to which it is affixed.Examples of prefixes:...
wal- 'towards the speaker' follows subject indices but precedes object indices (in transitive verbs) except for ki-. It has the morphological
Morphology (linguistics)
In linguistics, morphology is the identification, analysis and description, in a language, of the structure of morphemes and other linguistic units, such as words, affixes, parts of speech, intonation/stress, or implied context...
peculiarity that when preceded by ni-, ti-, shi- or ki- both i and w are omitted, leaving nal-, tal-, shal- and kal-. When ni-/ti-/shi-, ki- and wal- would all come together, the ki- component disappears altogether, so that nal-, tal- and shal- do double duty as transitive (= ni- + ki- + wal-, etc.) markers as well as intransitive (= ni- + wal-, etc.) ones. The plural object marker kin- is split in two when combined with wal-. The following examples illustrate.
| kiski 'went/came out' | walkiski 'came out (towards me)' |
| nitemuk 'I went down' | naltemuk 'I came down (here)' |
| kiwikak 'he took (it)' | kalwikak 'he brought (it)' |
| nikwikak 'I took (it)' | nalwikak 'I brought (it)' |
| kinnutzki 'he called them' | kalinnutzki 'he called them here' |
| nikinnutzki 'I called them' | nalinnutzki 'I called them here' |
Non-verbal predicates
Non-verbal phrases may be employed as predicates, with no verbal element at all in the sentence. |
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Non-verbal predicates do not have most of the morphological categories of verbs (such as tense), but some of them do take the subject indices. As usual there is no prefix for third-person subjects, hence Ini Carlos. |
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Subjunctive non-verbal predicates are possible. |
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Non-verbal predicates may be followed (like verbal ones) by an invariable katka, which establishes a past time-frame. In a non-verbal context katka can thus be translated as was or were. |
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Intransitive and transitive
Most Nawat verbs belong clearly to one of two major formal types: intransitive or transitive.Here, intransitive verbs are those that cannot have an object
Object (grammar)
An object in grammar is part of a sentence, and often part of the predicate. It denotes somebody or something involved in the subject's "performance" of the verb. Basically, it is what or whom the verb is acting upon...
and corresponding object prefixes—while transitive
Transitive verb
In syntax, a transitive verb is a verb that requires both a direct subject and one or more objects. The term is used to contrast intransitive verbs, which do not have objects.-Examples:Some examples of sentences with transitive verbs:...
verbs are those that must have an object and object prefix. Neither subject
Subject (grammar)
The subject is one of the two main constituents of a clause, according to a tradition that can be tracked back to Aristotle and that is associated with phrase structure grammars; the other constituent is the predicate. According to another tradition, i.e...
nor object noun phrases need be present in the sentence, but whether explicit or implicit, the corresponding subject and object indices must. (This statement rests on the convention of considering the index for a third-person subject to take the form of 'zero'.)
Some of the most common intransitive and transitive Nawat verbs are given below:
| Intransitive: | |||||
| chuka (II) | cry | ina (II) | say | kalaki (III) | enter |
| kisa (I) | go/come out | kuchi (I) | sleep | miki (II) | die |
| naka (II) | stay | nemi (II) | be (in a place or state), exist | nesi (II) | be seen, be born |
| paki (II) | be happy, laugh | panu (II) | pass | pewa (I) | begin |
| taketza (I) | talk | takwika (II) | sing | tami (II) | end |
| tekiti (I) | work | temu (II) | go down | chuka (II) | cry |
| weli (II) | be able, know (how to) | witz (irr.) | come | yawi (irr.) | go |
| Transitive: | |||||
| -chia (I) | wait (for) | -chiwa (I) | make, do | -ilpia (IV) | tie |
| -ilwia (IV) | tell (someone) | -ishtia (IV) | take out | -ita (II) | see |
| -kaki (II, IV) | hear, listen to | -kua (I) | buy | -kwa (irr.) | eat |
| -maka (II) | give (to someone) | -mana (I) | cook | -mati (I) | know, understand |
| -neki (II) | want, love | -nutza (I) | call, speak to | -paka (II) | wash |
| -palewia (IV) | help | -pia (I) | have | -talia (IV) | put |
| -temua (IV) | look for | -uni (II) | drink | -wika (I) | take, carry |
Valency changes
There are a number of means, grammatical or lexical, for changing a verb's valencyValency (linguistics)
In linguistics, verb valency or valence refers to the number of arguments controlled by a verbal predicate. It is related, though not identical, to verb transitivity, which counts only object arguments of the verbal predicate...
(the number of arguments it takes) and thereby effectively 'converting' it to a different transitivity type. A considerable number of lexical pairs exist consisting of two related verbs, one intransitive and the other transitive:
The -i (intr.) ~ -a or -ia (tr.) alternation Alternation (linguistics) In linguistics, an alternation is the phenomenon of a phoneme or morpheme exhibiting variation in its phonological realization. Each of the various realizations is called an alternant... is very frequent in the lexicon, but is not productive, and does not constitute a hard-and-fast rule. |
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A more productive lexical derivation that increases valency is the causative Causative In linguistics, a causative is a form that indicates that a subject causes someone or something else to do or be something, or causes a change in state of a non-volitional event.... suffix -tia. |
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Apart from such purely lexical alternations, there are two prefixes with specific grammatical functions which, attached to transitive verbs, reduce their surface valency (when they are used, there is no object prefix):
The unaccusative prefix ta- indicates that the object is indefinite or unspecified. Compare: Yaja ki-kwa 'He eats it', Yaja ki-kwa ne et 'He eats the beans', but Yaja ta-kwa 'he eats'. |
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The unergative prefix mu- avoids mentioning the agent Agent (grammar) In linguistics, a grammatical agent is the cause or initiator of an event. Agent is the name of the thematic role... , and the underlying object gets re-encoded as surface subject, e.g., Mu-kwa 'It gets eaten', Mu-kwa ne et 'The beans get eaten'. |
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Mu- has three other possible meanings, all involving a survace valency decrease: reflexive, reciprocal and middle. |
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Unmarked oblique complements
Some Nawat verbs have a complementComplement (linguistics)
In grammar the term complement is used with different meanings. The primary meaning is a word, phrase or clause that is necessary in a sentence to complete its meaning. We find complements that function as an argument and complements that exist within arguments.Both complements and modifiers add...
that does not correspond to any index in the verb. These include the following:
Intransitive verbs taking a locative complement. In this case the complement may optionally be replaced by a prepositional or relational Relational Relational may refer to:*Relational *Relational aggression*Relational algebra*Relational art*Relational database*Relational calculus*Relational operator*Relational model*Relational theory*Relational philosophy*Relational psychoanalysis... phrase. |
(also: Naja niyaw ka Sentzunat.) (also: Yaja nemi tik Awachapan.) |
Ditransitive verbs, i.e., transitive verbs with two 'objects'. Generally one of these has the semantic role of recipient or affected party, and this is encoded as a grammatical object in Nawat. The other complement, normally in a patient Patient (grammar) In linguistics, a grammatical patient, also called the target or undergoer, is the participant of a situation upon whom an action is carried out. A patient as differentiated from a theme must undergo a change in state. A theme is denoted by a stative verb, where a patient is denoted by a dynamic... role, is made the unmarked oblique Oblique case An oblique case in linguistics is a noun case of synthetic languages that is used generally when a noun is the object of a verb or a preposition... complement. |
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Valency-reduced ditransitives, i.e., verbs of the preceding type that undergo valency Valency (linguistics) In linguistics, verb valency or valence refers to the number of arguments controlled by a verbal predicate. It is related, though not identical, to verb transitivity, which counts only object arguments of the verbal predicate... -reduction with ta- or mu-, thereby becoming two-argument verbs without a grammatical object. For example, ta-machtia 'teach (something)' (without saying whom we teach). |
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With mu- we have mu-machtia 'learn, study' (i.e., 'teach oneself'). |
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Verb sequences
There are several ways for a verb to be subordinated to another (preceding) verb.- If the verbs have different subjects:
the subordinate verb may be in the subjunctive (always introduced by ma)... |
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| But if the first object is the same as the second subject, there may be no subordinator with the present (serial verb construction Serial verb construction The serial verb construction, also known as serialization, is a syntactic phenomenon common to many African, Asian and New Guinean languages... ). |
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- When both verbs share the same subject:
Pal may again be used, with both verbs indexed for the same subject: |
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| The two verbs may be juxtaposed with no intervening subordinator, again with both verbs indexed for the same subject and the second in the present (i.e., unmarked) tense. Called the serial verb construction Serial verb construction The serial verb construction, also known as serialization, is a syntactic phenomenon common to many African, Asian and New Guinean languages... , this pattern is very pervasive and has many uses in Nawat. |
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Periphrastic TAM constructions
The serial construction also serves as the structure for a number of compound expressions of tenseGrammatical tense
A tense is a grammatical category that locates a situation in time, to indicate when the situation takes place.Bernard Comrie, Aspect, 1976:6:...
, aspect
Grammatical aspect
In linguistics, the grammatical aspect of a verb is a grammatical category that defines the temporal flow in a given action, event, or state, from the point of view of the speaker...
and modality
Linguistic modality
In linguistics, modality is what allows speakers to evaluate a proposition relative to a set of other propositions.In standard formal approaches to modality, an utterance expressing modality can always roughly be paraphrased to fit the following template:...
, e.g.
yawi (present) + V (periphrastic future) |
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| nemi + V 'be V-ing' |
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| pewa + V 'start V-ing' |
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| -neki + V 'want to V' |
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| weli + V 'can/be able to/know how to V' |
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But there are also constructions, or variant expressions, that depart from this pattern somewhat.
The invariable word katka, which means 'was' or 'before, in the past', may occur following a verb form to establish past or habitual reference, e.g., inte kimati katka 'he didn't know'.
Negation
Negative particlesGrammatical particle
In grammar, a particle is a function word that does not belong to any of the inflected grammatical word classes . It is a catch-all term for a heterogeneous set of words and terms that lack a precise lexical definition...
immediately precede either a verb or a non-verbal predicate. Basically there are three of them:
the ordinary negator inte (with a shorter form: te and a dialect variant tesu), |
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| the less frequent nian or nan, which is conjunctive or emphatic, |
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| and the prohibitive maka or má. |
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They also combine with pronouns and adverbs to yield other negative expressions, e.g., (in)te (t)atka 'nothing', (in)te aka 'no one', (in)te keman 'never', nian aka 'no one at all, and no one', maka keman 'never ever!', etc.: Inte nikmati tatka (datka) 'I know nothing', Maka shikilwi aka! 'Do not tell anyone!'
Phase
Two suffixes, -a and -uk, lend different phasal nuances to a predicate, i.e., they add certain temporal (or related) notions, expressing that a situation has already been reached (with -a) or that it still obtains (with -uk). The more common phasal suffix, -a, is also used simply to place emphasis on the predicate so marked. Compare for example:
|
In negative sentences, the phasal suffixes are added to the negative particle, for example:
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Questions
Yes-no questionQuestion
A question may be either a linguistic expression used to make a request for information, or else the request itself made by such an expression. This information may be provided with an answer....
s are not differentiated grammatically from the corresponding statements. They may be affirmative, e.g., Taja tikmati? 'Do you know?', or negative, e.g., Inte tikitak kanka witz? 'Didn't you see where he was coming from?'
For replying affirmatively to yes-no questions, one may use E / Ej / Eje 'Yes', and sometimes Kia 'That's right' (literally 'So'). But it is equally common to respond using the appropriately inflected form of the main verb of the question, e.g.. (offering a cookie, for example) Tikneki se? - Nikneki 'Would you like one? - I would', Weli titaketza Nawat? - Weli 'Can you speak Nawat? - I can'. The standard negative answer is Inte / Te / Tesu 'No', or again, the verb of the question negated: Tikitak uni takat ka ne? - Te nikitak 'Did you see that man over there? - I did not'. Other idiomatic responses include Nusan 'Also', Teika inte! or Taika te! 'Why not!' and Inte / Te / Tesu nikmati 'I don't know'.
Wh-questions are formed with a wh-word, which usually immediately precedes the predicate (verbal or non-verbal.
Indirect questions are introduced by either (a)su 'if, whether' or a wh-expression, depending on the kind of question.
Coordination
Wan or iwan (which is also the preposition and relational 'with') serves as an all-purpose coordinating conjunctionGrammatical conjunction
In grammar, a conjunction is a part of speech that connects two words, sentences, phrases or clauses together. A discourse connective is a conjunction joining sentences. This definition may overlap with that of other parts of speech, so what constitutes a "conjunction" must be defined for each...
. There seem not to be any specialised native words for 'but' and 'or' (unless ush 'or' is one), and the Spanish words pero and o are sometimes used. N(i)an 'nor' may be used to coordinate negative statements. Mal or melka 'although, even though' can form adversative clauses, e.g., Niyaw niyaw, mal-te/melka te nikneki 'I will go, although I don't want to'. Nusan 'also' is common, e.g., Yaja nusan walaj 'She also came'; its negative counterpart is simply nusan te... 'not...either', e.g., Naja nusan te nikneki nitakwa 'I don't want to eat either'.
Subordination
subordinate clauses are introduced by subordinators; the following table illustrates some of the most common:| subor-dinator | translation | use | example |
|---|---|---|---|
| ka | 'that', 'because' | general complementizer, reason |
|
| ma (subjunc-tive) | 'that', 'to' | unrealized different-subject complements, purpose |
|
| pal | '(in order) to', 'for...to' | purpose |
|
| (a)su | 'if' | condition, indirect question |
|
| kwak | 'when' | time clause |
|
Relative clauses, which always follow (rather than precede) their head, may be simply juxtaposed clauses, or introduced by the article ne, the general complementizer ka or the interrogative pronoun ká (the last two being distinguished phonologically in various ways in the dialects). Headless relative clauses are introduced by interrogative pronouns.
General
As regards origin, the Pipil lexiconLexicon
In linguistics, the lexicon of a language is its vocabulary, including its words and expressions. A lexicon is also a synonym of the word thesaurus. More formally, it is a language's inventory of lexemes. Coined in English 1603, the word "lexicon" derives from the Greek "λεξικόν" , neut...
consists of the following components:
- The central component (by far the largest): native or inherited vocabulary, nearly all shared (with minor variations) with Mexican Nahuatl, though the lexeme pool is patently smaller than that of Classical Nahuatl)
- A small number of loans from surrounding indigenous languages
- Loans from Spanish, the proportion of which fluctuates depending on the speaker and register, and includes loans of varying antiquity and degree of integration
- Neologisms proposed by some speakers or writers based on extending the native vocabulary component
- Loans from Mexican Nahuatl varieties proposed by some speakers or writers
There exist mechanisms of native origin for the creation of derived and compound words. No doubt these were more actively used in the language's past, since some such mechanisms are only attested in fossilized form. In more recent periods of the language, use of such procedures appears to have decreased, and with them the productivity of the procedures themselves.
Derivation
A selection of well-attested derivationalDerivation (linguistics)
In linguistics, derivation is the process of forming a new word on the basis of an existing word, e.g. happi-ness and un-happy from happy, or determination from determine...
affixes follows:
| affix | function | meaning | examples |
|---|---|---|---|
| -k or -tik suffix | adjectives | general adjective suffix |
|
| -tuk suffix | adjectives from verbs | participle or stative adjective |
|
| -na(j) suffix | adjectives | cf. '-ish', '-y' |
|
| -yu suffix | nouns from nouns | 'special' inalienables (non-productive) |
|
| te- prefix | nouns from nouns | alienable from inalienable (non-productive) |
|
| -tzin/chin suffix | nouns from nouns | diminutive (or honorific) suffix |
|
| -pala suffix | nouns from nouns | old, pejorative suffix |
|
| -tal suffix | nouns from nouns | collective suffix, plantation |
|
| -l suffix | nouns from verbs | object of action |
|
| -ni suffix | nouns from verbs | agent |
|
| -lis suffix | nouns from verbs | action or result |
|
| -ya suffix | intransitive verbs from adjectives | inchoative |
|
| -tia suffix | transitive verbs from verbs | causative |
|
| -(i)lia suffix | ditransitive verbs from transitive verbs | applicative |
|
| mu- prefix | intransitive verbs from transitive verbs | reflexive or medio-passive |
|
| ta- prefix | verbs from transitive verbs | unaccusative (though sometimes re-transtivized) |
|
Ideophones
IdeophoneIdeophone
Ideophones are words used by speakers to evoke a vivid impression of certain sensation or sensory perceptions, e.g. smell, color, shape, sound, action, or movement. Ideophones are attested in all languages of the world, however, languages differ in the extent to which they make use of them...
s are a distinct set of lexical item
Lexical item
A Lexical item is a single word or chain of words that forms the basic elements of a language's lexicon . Examples are "cat", "traffic light", "take care of", "by-the-way", and "it's raining cats and dogs"...
s, often denoting some process that is directly perceived by the senses (such as a kind of sound or visual experience), which enter into a special range of language-specific grammatical patterns. Nawat is one of many languages possessing such items and the associated patterns, which in this case are 'expressive' verb formations. The root form of a typical Nawat ideophone is a CVCV sequence, e.g., -chala-, -china-, -kelu-, -kina-, -kumu-, -kwala-, -tapa-, -tikwi-, -tzaya-, -tzili-, -tzutzu-. These roots are not words and only acquire full meaning when they enter into one or another of the derivational patterns for Nawat ideophones. Some at least are probably onomatopoeic in origin.
The four most common morphological patterns for such Nawat verb formations are the following (R represents the ideophone root, rR a reduplicated root without j):
| pattern | type of formation | examples |
|---|---|---|
| Rni | intransitive diffusion verbs |
|
| -Rna or -Rnia | transitive diffusion verbs |
|
| rRka | intransitive repetitive verbs |
|
| -rRtza | transitive repetitive verbs |
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Incorporation
Classical NahuatlClassical Nahuatl
Classical Nahuatl is a term used to describe the variants of the Nahuatl language that were spoken in the Valley of Mexico — and central Mexico as a lingua franca — at the time of the 16th-century Spanish conquest of Mexico...
is characterized by widespread use of the device of incorporation
Incorporation (linguistics)
Incorporation is a phenomenon by which a word, usually a verb, forms a kind of compound with, for instance, its direct object or adverbial modifier, while retaining its original syntactic function....
. This is a grammatical and lexical phenomenon found in different guises in many languages. The Nahuatl system is quite well known to linguists because it is often cited as an example in linguistic literature.
Briefly, in incorporation a lexeme
Lexeme
A lexeme is an abstract unit of morphological analysis in linguistics, that roughly corresponds to a set of forms taken by a single word. For example, in the English language, run, runs, ran and running are forms of the same lexeme, conventionally written as RUN...
potentially representing one of a verb's semantic arguments
Verb argument
In linguistics, a verb argument is a phrase that appears in a syntactic relationship with the verb in a clause. In English, for example, the two most important arguments are the subject and the direct object....
or adjuncts
Adjunct (grammar)
In linguistics, an adjunct is an optional, or structurally dispensable, part of a sentence that, when removed, will not affect the remainder of the sentence except to discard from it some auxiliary information...
, rather than forming a separate grammatical constituent
Constituent (linguistics)
In syntactic analysis, a constituent is a word or a group of words that functions as a single unit within a hierarchical structure. The analysis of constituent structure is associated mainly with phrase structure grammars, although dependency grammars also allow sentence structure to be broken down...
is allowed to be attached directly to the verb itself thereby forming a compound
Compound (linguistics)
In linguistics, a compound is a lexeme that consists of more than one stem. Compounding or composition is the word formation that creates compound lexemes...
verb. In Nahuatl this incorporated lexeme is prefixed to the verb.
In Pipil, examples of this kind of structure also occur. However, their use is far less widespread than in Classical Nahuatl, and the process is barely (if at all) productive. Therefore existing examples rather resemble ordinary lexicalized compounds. Furthermore, most of those used involve one of a specific, limited range of incorporating elements that show considerable grammaticalization, and are therefore perhaps best viewed, in the Pipil context at least, simply as derivational
Derivation (linguistics)
In linguistics, derivation is the process of forming a new word on the basis of an existing word, e.g. happi-ness and un-happy from happy, or determination from determine...
prefixes.
The grammaticalization of these elements manifests itself in form, meaning and function. The Pipil forms of some of these incorporating stems are somewhat specialized phonologically; moreover, some of the forms used for incorporation no longer have corresponding full-word counterparts.
Most of the narrow set of widely-used incorporating elements belong to a single semantic set, that of body parts. While in some compounds the literal meanings of such elements subsists, in many others they only retain a broadly metaphorical sense, while in some it is quite difficult to perceive any particular meaning at all.
A selection of Pipil 'incorporation prefixes' with illustrations of some of their uses follows:
| prefix | meaning(s) | full word | examples |
|---|---|---|---|
| a- | water | a-t 'idem' |
|
| el- | chest, mind | (cf. -elpan 'chest', -elishku 'stomach'...) |
|
| ish- | eye / face / front | -ish 'eye' |
|
| ku- (1) | tree / wood / stick | kwawit 'idem' (possessed -kwaw) |
|
| ku- (2) | head |
|
|
| ma- | hand | -mey, -may 'idem' |
|
| sen- | one / together | se 'one' |
|
| ten- | mouth / opening / door | -ten 'idem' |
|
| tzin- | bottom / base | (cf. tzinkamak 'buttock' etc.) |
|
| tzun- | head | -tzuntekun 'head' |
|
| (y)ek- | good / well | yek 'idem' |
|
| yul- | heart, mind, life | -yulu 'heart', yultuk 'alive' |
|
Examples of sentences containing incorporation compounds:
|
Other compounds
Lexical stems may combine to form other kinds of lexical compoundsCompound (linguistics)
In linguistics, a compound is a lexeme that consists of more than one stem. Compounding or composition is the word formation that creates compound lexemes...
. Compounding mechanisms may still exist in the spontaneous language use of some speakers (to the extent that they still have spontaneous language use) but there is limited evidence for their natural, productive application.
Where traditional compounds are concerned, much of what has beensaid about incorporation is equally applicable. In fact, the same lexical combining forms that predominate in incorporation verbs often reappear in other compounds. Since these tend to be monosyllables with a low level of semantic specificity, we may call them 'light elements' and the compounds they form 'light compounds'.
| first element | second element | compound | meaning of compound |
|---|---|---|---|
| a- 'water' | kua- 'snake' | a-kua-t | 'eel' |
| ish- 'eye, face' | kal 'house' | ish-kal-yu | 'face' |
| ma- 'hand' | -kwi 'take' | ma-kwi-l | 'five' |
| ma- 'hand' | pipil 'child, diminutive' | ma-pipil | 'finger' |
| sen- 'one' | -pua 'count' | sen-pua-l | 'five, twenty (lit. one-count)' |
| ten- 'mouth, opening' | kal 'house' | ten-kal | 'patio, door' |
| ten- 'mouth, opening' | -tzun- 'hair' | -ten-tzun | 'beard, moustache' |
| tzin- 'bottom, base' | kal 'house' | tzin-kal | 'corner' |
| tzun- 'head' | -tukay 'name' | -tzun-tukay | 'surname' |
Compounds containing more than one 'heavy' lexeme are rather rarer, and when new ones are proposed it is perhaps most often in response to the pressure of Spanish, i.e., in attempts to find a 'native' equivalent to a Spanish word in order to avoid a loanword. In the following table, '%' preceding a word indicates a neologism (proposed by at least one native speaker).
| first element | second element | compound | meaning of compound |
|---|---|---|---|
| achtu 'first, before' | -ish 'eye' | %achtu-ish | 'spectacles' (cf. Spanish 'ante-ojos') |
| kujtan 'forest, countryside' | kuyam-et 'pig' | kujtan-kuyam-et | 'peccary' (cf. Spanish 'tunco de monte' ) |
| kujtan 'forest, countryside' | techan 'village' | kujtan-techan | 'hamlet' (Spanish 'cantón' ) |
| naka- 'meat' | tamal 'tortilla' | naka-tamal | 'tamale (with meat filling)' |
| siwa- 'female' | mistun 'cat' | siwa-mistun | 'female cat' |
| tajku 'middle, half' | tunal 'day' | tajku-tunal | 'noon' |
| tepus- 'iron' | patani 'fly' | %tepus-patani | 'plane' |
| ujti 'road, way' | patawak 'wide' | ujti-patawak | 'main road' |
| ukich 'male' | tijlan 'hen, chicken' | ukich-tijlan | 'rooster' |
Loanwords
When speakers fail to find an adequate word or expression in Nawat they may (1) employ a circumlocutionCircumlocution
Circumlocution is an ambiguous or roundabout figure of speech...
(for example, they could call the kitchen kan titamanat '(the place) where we cook'), (2) borrow
Loanword
A loanword is a word borrowed from a donor language and incorporated into a recipient language. By contrast, a calque or loan translation is a related concept where the meaning or idiom is borrowed rather than the lexical item itself. The word loanword is itself a calque of the German Lehnwort,...
a Spanish word or expression (e.g., ne cosinaj 'the cocina' (kitchen)), or (3) simply code-switch
Code-switching
In linguistics, code-switching is the concurrent use of more than one language, or language variety, in conversation. Multilinguals—people who speak more than one language—sometimes use elements of multiple languages in conversing with each other...
. However, when we speak of loanwords we have in mind items of foreign origin that have become habitual elements of Nawat usage and may also have undergone adaptation as a result.
Spanish loans into Nawat include some very common words indeed, such as mas 'more' or pero 'but'. Some loans, particularly older ones, may adopt forms or meanings that differentiate them from their Spanish source, e.g., pelu 'dog' (Spanish perro), mesaj 'table' (Sp. mesa), noya 'grandmother' (from Spanish señora 'lady'). There are also cases where the source form or meaning has become less common or disappeared from contemporary Spanish usage (at least in the standard varieties) but lives on in Nawat, e.g., tumin 'coin, money' (older Spanish tomín). In such cases as these, speakers may be unaware of a word's historical origin and simply view it as 'typical Nawat', even preferring it to a neologism created with an intention of greater 'authenticity'. |
|
With one possible exception (pashalua 'go for a walk, take time off work' < *pasyarua < Spanish pasear + the non-productive verb suffix -ua), verbs can only be borrowed into Nawat from other languages in an invariable form based on the Spanish infinitive
Infinitive
In grammar, infinitive is the name for certain verb forms that exist in many languages. In the usual description of English, the infinitive of a verb is its basic form with or without the particle to: therefore, do and to do, be and to be, and so on are infinitives...
. Such forms cannot be conjugated directly. Instead, they must be preceded by the Nawat verb -chiwa 'make, do' to form compound expressions, e.g., from Spanish escribir 'write' we have Nawat nikchiwa escribir (contracted to nikcha escribir) 'I write' (literally 'I do escribir' ), tikchiwket or tikchijket escribir 'we wrote' (lit. 'we did escribir' ), etc.
Dialects
Pipil internal dialectDialect
The term dialect is used in two distinct ways, even by linguists. One usage refers to a variety of a language that is a characteristic of a particular group of the language's speakers. The term is applied most often to regional speech patterns, but a dialect may also be defined by other factors,...
variation is incompletely documented at present. While recognising the existence of important gaps in our knowledge (which may or may not ever be filled, as the last native speakers pass on), we do know of two well-defined dialect areas, at least as far as the department of Sonsonate is concerned, which may tentatively be called Upland and Lowland. The Upland dialect area includes the towns of Izalco
Izalco
Izalco is a municipality in the Sonsonate department of El Salvador.Volcan Izalco is an icon of the country of El Salvador, a very young parasitic cone on the flank of Santa Ana volcano...
and Nahuizalco
Nahuizalco
Nahuizalco is a municipality in the Sonsonate department of El Salvador. It lies on the "flowers route" , 9 km from Sonsonate and 74 km from San Salvador, at 540 m above sea level on the southern part of the Apaneca-Ilamatepec mountain range.There are strong indigenous customs...
, the Lowland area those of Santo Domingo de Guzmán and Cuisnahuat
Cuisnahuat
Cuisnahuat is a municipality in the Sonsonate department of El Salvador....
. Present knowledge also includes some points of differentiation between Santo Domingo and Cuisnahuat. Thus for practical purposes we are chiefly able to speak of three known varieties: Izalco, Cuisnahuat and Santo Domingo.
Phonological variation
- The /k/ phonemePhonemeIn a language or dialect, a phoneme is the smallest segmental unit of sound employed to form meaningful contrasts between utterances....
has voicedVOICEDVirtual Organization for Innovative Conceptual Engineering Design is a virtual organization that promotes innovation in engineering design. This project is the collaborative work of researchers at five universities across the United States, and is funded by the National Science Foundation...
allophoneAllophoneIn phonology, an allophone is one of a set of multiple possible spoken sounds used to pronounce a single phoneme. For example, and are allophones for the phoneme in the English language...
s more frequently in Lowland, especially in Santo Domingo. - Syllable-final /l/ (as in kal 'house', chiltik 'red') is sometimes devoiced; no clear dialect distribution can be formulated for this trait, however.
- Pre-consonantal /s/ following /i/ (as in mistun 'cat') is often palatalizedPalatalizationIn linguistics, palatalization , also palatization, may refer to two different processes by which a sound, usually a consonant, comes to be produced with the tongue in a position in the mouth near the palate....
; again no precise distribution can be stated. - In some areas the evolution of secondary semivowelSemivowelIn phonetics and phonology, a semivowel is a sound, such as English or , that is phonetically similar to a vowel sound but functions as the syllable boundary rather than as the nucleus of a syllable.-Classification:...
s described above for unstressed syllables also takes place in stressed syllables, the stressStress (linguistics)In linguistics, stress is the relative emphasis that may be given to certain syllables in a word, or to certain words in a phrase or sentence. The term is also used for similar patterns of phonetic prominence inside syllables. The word accent is sometimes also used with this sense.The stress placed...
then falling on the vowel following the semivowel giving rise to word-final stress, e.g., /maltia/ 'bathes' → [mal'tja] (rather than [mal'tija]), and /kuat/ 'snake' → ['kwat] (instead of ['kuwat], ['guwat]). This feature has been attested for Nahuizalco and for the department of Ahuachapan, but a complete isogloss remains to be drawn.
Morphological variation
- The plural prefixes with a nasalNasal consonantA nasal consonant is a type of consonant produced with a lowered velum in the mouth, allowing air to escape freely through the nose. Examples of nasal consonants in English are and , in words such as nose and mouth.- Definition :...
element (in(h)-, kin(h)-) tend to be avoided by some speakers in Santo Domingo, but this appears to be a new development. - The sequence /nm/ in second person plural forms (anmejemet, anmu-) is variously altered: amejemet, amu-, anhejemet, awmejemet, mejemet...).
- For Izalco nikan 'here', ashan 'now, today', nemá 'later', kwakuni 'then' and ijkiuni 'like that', Santo Domingo has nin, an, nemanha, kunij ([g-]) and kiunij ([k-]).
- 'What' and 'who':
Izalco/Upland Cuisnahuat Santo Domingo 'what' tey ta tay 'who' ka ka gaj - There are many differences between the assignment of individual verbs to one or another conjugationGrammatical conjugationIn linguistics, conjugation is the creation of derived forms of a verb from its principal parts by inflection . Conjugation may be affected by person, number, gender, tense, aspect, mood, voice, or other grammatical categories...
class, most noticeably affecting past tense formation. - The verb yawi 'go' possesses both longer and shorter forms (e.g., niyaw versus niu, nu...), but the latter vary between dialects.
- The verb -chiwa 'make, do' possesses full and short forms (e.g., nikchiwa versus nikcha), but -cha is more general in Upland dialects.
- The verb -maka 'give' and derivatives (such as -namaka 'sell') are normally contracted to monosyllabic -ma in Upland speech.
- Some sporadic differences in verb valenciesValency (linguistics)In linguistics, verb valency or valence refers to the number of arguments controlled by a verbal predicate. It is related, though not identical, to verb transitivity, which counts only object arguments of the verbal predicate...
, e.g., in Izalco tajtani 'ask' is intransitive, in Santo Domingo transitive. - General negative particle: Upland inte, Lowland te(su).
- Miscellaneous differences in the forms of some words, e.g.
Izalco/Upland Cuisnahuat Santo Domingo 'arrive' asi ajsi ajsi 'tell' -ilia -ilwia -ilwia 'forest, country' kujtan kujtan kojtan
Syntactic variation
- Somewhat different periphrastic tense constructions are found in Upland and Lowland dialects.
- Izalco dialect often adds ne to subordinators, e.g., kwak ne 'when', kan ne 'where', tay ne 'what', pal ne 'in order for'.
Lexical variation
A few examples of inter-dialectal lexical differences follow:| Izalco/Upland | Cuisnahuat | Santo Domingo | |
|---|---|---|---|
| 'be born' | takati | waltakati | nesi |
| 'brother (older)' | -echkaw | -man | -manuj (< Sp. hermano |
| 'high' | wejkapan | kujtik | kojtik |
| 'laugh' | wetzka | wetzka | paki |
| 'party, fiesta' | yualu | ilwit | ilwit |
| 'remain' | mukawa | naka | naka |
| 'send, order' | -titania | -tuktia | -tuktia |
Spelling systems
Among the works published since the early twentieth century until the present in which the Pipil language is described or transcribed at any length, rarely do two authors fully coincide in the spelling conventions they use. The spelling system used in this article is that employed in recently produced materials associated with the Nawat language recovery initiative IRIN. The following table allows this to be compared to with other spelling systems, ordered approximately in reverse chronological order.| IRIN/ this article |
Geoffroy Rivas/ Lemus |
Campbell | Schultze Jena | Spanish-based |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| a | a | a | a | a |
| e | e | e | e | e |
| i | i | i | i | i |
| u | u | u | u | u, o |
| p | p | p | p | p |
| t | t | t | t | t |
| k | k | k | k | k, c, qu |
| k | k | k | g | g, gu |
| kw | q | kw | ku | ku, cu |
| tz | z | ts | ts | tz, ts |
| ch | c | ch | č | ch |
| s | s | s | s | s, z, c |
| sh | x | x | š | sh |
| j | h | h | χ | j |
| m | m | m | m | m |
| n | n (m) | n (m) | n, ń, m | n (m) |
| l | l | l | l | l |
| y | y | y | y (i) | y (i) |
| w | w | w | u | u, hu, gu, gü |