The Mesoamerican Indian Languages

Suárez, Jorge A.

doi:10.1017/cbo9780511554445

Cited by 207 publications

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“…The Mayan family is less so, with approximately 30 members located primarily in Guatemala and Mexico (Campbell 1997, England 1994, and Suaréz 1983. Both families include languages with different V1 patterns-predominantly VSO, predominantly VOS, and VSO/VOS-alternating-and both share typologically unusual properties that extend beyond those expected for V1 languages.…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Verb‐Initial Word Orders, Primarily in Austronesian and Mayan Languages

Clemens¹,

Polinsky²

2017

The Wiley Blackwell Companion to Syntax, Second Edition

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This chapter presents several approaches to the syntax of verb‐initial (V1) languages with a special emphasis on Mayan and Austronesian languages. Some V1 languages are strictly VSO, others are VOS, and a significant number combine both orders. This chapter focuses on data from VSO/VOS languages and the factors that underlie these alternations. A number of V1 languages can be more adequately characterized as predicate‐initial, with V1 representing just a subset of possible clause‐initial predicates. The chapter presents a number of structural properties that are or may be associated with V1 and discusses possible implicational relations between such properties and V1. While there are certain common characteristics observed across V1 languages, it is also clear that there are several distinct subtypes of V1. These subtypes call for different syntactic analyses; main approaches include the derivation of V1 via phrasal movement (VP‐raising) and via head‐movement (verb‐raising). Other syntactic approaches to the derivation of V1 include the parametrization of specifier direction within a single language, non‐configurational syntax, and subject lowering. In addition to these purely syntactic analyses, several recent approaches place the derivation of V1 outside syntax or at the syntax–PF interface. Careful, in‐depth analyses of individual languages are required to test the different approaches to V1; in quite a few cases such analyses are still lacking.

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Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Verb‐Initial Word Orders, Primarily in Austronesian and Mayan Languages

Clemens¹,

Polinsky²

2017

The Wiley Blackwell Companion to Syntax, Second Edition

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“…Las lenguas zapotecas, por el contrario, se consideran lenguas típi-camente aspectuales en las que los valores temporales son escasos o, incluso, inexistentes en el nivel flexivo (cf. Suárez (1983), Marlett y Pickett (1987), López Cruz (1997 Black (2000), entre otros). Dado que en español la flexión proporciona sobre todo información temporal, la información aspectual se tiene que codificar mediante otros medios o se tiene que inferir.…”

Section: Propósitounclassified

Cómo convertir el aspecto en tiempo: traducción del zapoteco al español

Arellanes

2013

Estud. Trad.

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Recibido: 28 de noviembre de 2012 Aceptado: 30 de marzo de 2013 RESUMEN En este trabajo se plantea la problemática de traducir una narración de una lengua que codifica en el nivel flexivo fundamentalmente valores aspectuales (zapoteco) a una lengua que lo que codifica flexivamente es fundamentalmente valores temporales (español). Como resultado de lo anterior, un traductor no profesional puede producir ciertas construcciones anómalas desde el punto de vista de la lengua meta (v. gr. una serie de oraciones traducidas con flexión de pretérito imperfecto seguida de una serie de oraciones flexionadas en presente, sin que haya una aparente motivación para el cambio flexivo). Se argumenta que tales fenómenos no deben verse simplemente como errores atribuibles a una escasa competencia del traductor en la lengua meta, sino que pueden verse como el resultado de la tensión generada entre lo que cada lengua codifica y lo que de cada lengua se infiere.Palabras clave: traducción, zapoteco, español, aspecto, flexión verbal. How to Convert Aspect into Time: Translation from Zapotec into Spanish ABSTRACTThis article explores the difficulties of translating a narrative from a language that predominantly encodes aspectual information in its verbal inflection (Zapotec) to a language that by and large encodes temporal information in its verbal inflection (Spanish). As a consequence of this, an untrained translator may produce structures that are considered anomalous in the target language (e.g. a body of sentences in the imperfect preterite tense followed by a body of sentences in the present tense, without there being any apparent reason for the change in tense). It is argued that such phenomena should not simply be put down as errors owing to the translator's lack of competence in the target language, but that they can be seen as the result of the conflict that arises out of what each language encodes and what each language presumes.

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“…It belongs to the Otomanguean language family, which also includes Zapotec and Mixtec (for linguistic classification in Mesoamerica, see Suárez 1983). Hñahñu is spoken in at least the states of Querétaro, Puebla, and Hidalgo.…”

Section: O N C L U S I O Nmentioning

confidence: 99%

“Al fin que ya los cueros no van a correr”: Pragmatics of power in Hñahñu (Otomi) markets

Farfán

2003

Lang. Soc.

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A B S T R A C TThis article analyzes the specific pragmatics of an extremely asymmetrical example of market interaction between Spanish-speaking middlemen Mestizos and Hñahñu (Otomi) occasional sellers in the market of Ixmiquilpan, in the state of Hidalgo, Mexico, where Hñahñu is still spoken. The fine indications of interpersonal cross-cultural conflict found in the transcript (e.g., duration of turns, varied use of indexical terms by buyers to address sellers, and the timing of verbal performance) allow us to understand how interethnic, gender, and power differences operate in this specific setting, relating the global and local levels. Detailed analysis of one case demonstrates the validity of certain universal theories regarding the use of language and enables us to understand the unavoidable conditions of conversation in terms of their universal status vis-à-vis the use of language as the material expression of power, or symbolic violence (Hñahñu, markets, communication universals, cooperative principle, power, Mexico.)* I N T R O D U C T I O NThis article presents evidence derived from market interactions in a context of interethnic conflict to support the idea that language constitutes, in principle, an open means for human communication and emancipation, even when specific power arrangements of symbolic violence (Bourdieu 1979(Bourdieu , 1994 counteract this presumably universal assumption (Habermas 1987). To this end, I will outline the political economy of indigenous markets in Mexico, especially in the context of Hñahñu 1 markets; I will then analyze an extreme case of asymmetric interethnic face-to-face interaction, in Spanish, between a Mestizo 2 professional middleman and a female Hñahñu occasional seller in markets of the region of El Mezquital, in Hidalgo, Mexico. As we will see, such an interaction represents a general pattern of Mestizos "talking down" to Indians in Mexico, especially in this region and specifically in the context of these markets. The main claim that this article advances is that even when an extreme power differential is strongly evident in this type of conversation, the general nature of discourse -in terms of the universal conditions that provide the very possibility of communication

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The Mesoamerican Indian Languages

Cited by 207 publications

References 0 publications

Verb‐Initial Word Orders, Primarily in Austronesian and Mayan Languages

Verb‐Initial Word Orders, Primarily in Austronesian and Mayan Languages

Cómo convertir el aspecto en tiempo: traducción del zapoteco al español

“Al fin que ya los cueros no van a correr”: Pragmatics of power in Hñahñu (Otomi) markets

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