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Mezquital Otomi verb fusion

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  22 April 2026

Ethel E. Wallis
Ethel E. Wallis*
Affiliation:
Summer Institute of Linguistics
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Extract

A previous paper focused on a process of affixation operating on the Mezquital Otomi verb-root-initial consonant. In brief, this process involves a series of glottal elements (?, h, and voicing) fused with root-initial stops, and a series of palatal elements (y, ñ, and t) fused with root-initial glottal consonants, ? and h. The present paper describes other simulfixes to complete the discussion. Two other processes, prefixation and suffixation, are also described in relation to the verb nucleus.

Information

Type
Research Article
Information
Language , Volume 40 , Issue 1: January-March , March 1964, pp. 75 - 82
Copyright
Copyright © 1964 by Linguistic Society of America

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References

1 Ethel Wallis, ‘Simulfixation in aspect markers of Mezquital Otomi’, Lg. 32.453–59 (1956). The present paper continues and expands the analysis of verb morphology begun in the previous paper. I am indebted to Viola Waterhouse for criticism and help in the preparation of this paper; Robert Longacre made helpful suggestions, particularly concerning the terminology of morphemes.

2 I apply the term ‘fusion’ to any ‘fusion, change, or interference between … two abutting segments of any kind’ (K. L. Pike, Language 3.56; Glendale, Cal., 1960).

3 Inasmuch as the present paper is focused upon the processes of affixation as they relate to fusion toward the verb root, no attempt will be made to list affixes exhaustively.

4 Lawrence Ecker, ‘Compendio de gramática otomí‘, Anales del Instituto Nacional de Antropología e Historia 4.138–41 (1952). Ecker refers to the morpheme in question, the explicit relational suffix of my analysis, as a pronominal suffix which anticipates an indirect object, or which enters into a type of dative construction. But the form of the morpheme is not pronominal : it bears no relation to the pronoun system of the language. One of the structural meanings of the morpheme is doubtless dative, particularly where it is benefactive or privative.

5 Cf. Herman Aschmann and William Wonderly, ‘Affixes and implicit categories in Totonac verb inflection’, IJAL 18.130–45 (1952).

6 Some present-day dialects of Otomi use disyllabic prefixes corresponding to complex monosyllabic ones of Mezquital Otomi. This is notably true of the San Gregorio dialect.

7 In the Otomi of the State of Mexico a heavy grammatical load is carried by a complicated and intricate prefix system, much more complex than that of Mezquital Otomi. My colleague Henrietta Andrews has described this system in terms of proclitics (unpublished manuscript).