Re: Dropping from the root

On Tue, 17 Jul 2001, Marcus Smith wrote:

> Marcus Smith wrote:
>
>   Is there a possible historical/phonological reason
>  > which caused the last consonant to vanish?
>
> I don't think so. For one thing, the process would have to be very complex.
> Truncation does not only operate over the last consonant, but sometimes
> over the last coda; e.g., elid > el 'think'. But then kaij 'say' does not
> truncate: the perfective and imperfective forms are identical. As far as I
> can tell, it is not possible to predict which words will truncate, and how
> much of it will be erased; but I'll admit that I haven't gone after this in
> detail.
I also don't know of any work which has been done to assess the
predictability of truncation in either Pima or Papago. As one of
my professors used to say, "A bright young scholar could make a
killing ... "

>   Is such a feature particular of
>  > these two languages - do we have analogue cases in the other U.A. languages?
>
> I don't have enough exprience in general UA to say. My Comanche grammar
> does not refer to truncation at all, though Comanche is at the other end of
> the language family, so to speak. If you felt like tracking something down,
> I would suggest looking at Southern Tepehuan, because it is very similar to
> Pima and Papago.
Truncation as a grammatical process occurs elsewhere in Southern
Uto-Aztecan. It doesn't occur in Northern Uto-Aztecan languages
(including Comanche) with the exception of Serrano (Takic),
where it is coupled with reduplication:

        kwuuman 'sleep' > kwu-kwum 'gone to sleep'

Other SUA languages that I can find which show truncation are
(besides Tepiman, which includes Pima, Papago, Pima Bajo, and
the Tepehuan languages) Tarahumara and Nahuatl. In Tarahumara,
it seems to be the final CV which drops off:

        rahini     raha -re
        burn    >  burn -PAST
        'burns'    'burned'

In Nahuatl, the final V drops off:

        miki     oo-   mik
        die   >  PERF- die
        'die'    'died'

That's all I can find on Uto-Aztecan truncation. There is an
analysis of French adjectives which derives the masculine forms
from the feminine forms via truncation. Since I'm not a French
linguist (i.e., a linguist working on French), I don't have a
strong opinion on the merits or deficiencies of such an account.

Dirk

--
Dirk Elzinga                          dirk.elzinga@m.cc.utah.edu

"The strong craving for a simple formula
has been the undoing of linguists."               - Edward Sapir

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