Abstract
This paper is based on extensive team research focusing on the reconstruction of the history of contact-induced change in Nahuatl from the first encounter with Spanish until the present day, taking into account both peripheral and central varieties. We trace the long-term trajectories of several morphosyntactic features that mark typological change: animacy as a grammatical category; the relational word as a lexical category; the formal distinction between comitative and instrumental markers; existential predicative possession; and relatively free word order. We argue that key innovations in Nahuatl during the colonial period are either borrowed from Spanish or begin as minor internal patterns that gradually become dominant due to similarity with an element of Spanish structure, and that these two processes have driven typological change in the language.
Abbreviations
- abs
absolutive
- ag
agentive
- antec
antecessive
- ben
benefactive
- caus
causative
- com
comitative
- det
determiner
- dim
diminutive
- freq
frequentative
- fut
future
- hum
human
- ind
inbound directional
- inf
infinitive
- inst
instrumental
- inp
inbound purposive
- ints
intensification
- ipfv
imperfective
- lig
ligature
- loc
locative
- nact
non-active
- neg
negation
- nhum
non-human
- npres
non-present
- numcl
numeral classifier
- obj
object
- opt
optative
- outd
outbound directional
- outp
outbound purposive
- pl
plural
- poss
possessive
- refl
reflexive
- rev
reverential
- sbj
subject
- sg
singular
- sr
subordinator
- unspec
unspecified
- vr
verbing suffix
Acknowledgments
The research leading to these results has received funding from the European Research Council under the European Union’s Seventh Framework Programme (FP7/2007-2013)/ERC grant agreement n° 312795. We would like to thank all Project members whose research contributed to the results discussed in this paper, including Julia Madajczak, Agnieszka Brylak, Victoriano de la Cruz Cruz, Katarzyna Granicka, Szymon Gruda, Delfina de la Cruz de la Cruz, Sabina Cruz de la Cruz, Ofelia Cruz Morales, Catalina Cruz de la Cruz, Eduardo de la Cruz Cruz, Abelardo de la Cruz de la Cruz, Marcin Kilarski and Adam Coon. The data from San Miguel Xaltipan, Tlaxcala were recorded and transcribed by collaborators of the Project, Beatriz Cuahutle Bautista, Refugio Nava Nava and Constantina Bautista Nava. A 1985 recording from Ixhuatlan de Madero, Veracruz, was kindly provided by Alan and Pamela Sandstrom. We also express our gratitude to José Antonio Flores Farfán and Thomas Stolz for their insightful comments on the draft of our paper.
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