YNQ:yes–no question ANT:antecessive particle; IN:particle 'in'; V:verb; S:subject; O:object; P:possessive; R:reflexive; H:human; L:linker; PLUP:pluperfect; DIR:directional; LOC:locative; CISL:cislocative ('towards'); TRSL:translocative ('away from');
The grammar of Classical Nahuatl is agglutinative, head-marking, and makes extensive use of compounding, noun incorporation and derivation. That is, it can add many different prefixes and suffixes to a root until very long words are formed. Very long verbal forms or nouns created by incorporation, and accumulation of prefixes are common in literary works. New words can thus be easily created.
Orthography used in this article
Classical Nahuatl did not possess a standard orthography, meaning that manuscripts provide inconsistent and varied spellings. Two features in particular are marked in this article despite their frequent absence in texts. These are vowel length and the saltillo or glottal stop ([ʔ]). In this article, the saltillo is indicated with an h following a vowel. The grammarian Horacio Carochi (1645) represented saltillo by marking diacritics on the preceding vowel: grave accent on non-final vowels ⟨à, ì, è, ò⟩ and circumflex on final vowels ⟨â, î, ê, ô⟩. Carochi is almost alone among colonial-era grammarians in consistently representing both saltillo and vowel length in transcription, even though they are both essential to a proper understanding of Classical Nahuatl.
Morphophonology The phonological shapes of Nahuatl morphemes may be altered in particular contexts, depending on the shape of the adjacent morphemes or their position in the word.
Assimilation Where a morpheme ending in a consonant is followed by a morpheme beginning in a consonant, one of the two consonants often undergoes assimilation, adopting features of the other consonant. ch + y → chch l + tl → ll l + y → ll x + y → xx z + y → zz Almost all doubled consonants in Nahuatl are produced by the assimilation of two different consonants from different morphemes. Doubled consonants within a single morpheme are rare, a notable example being the verb "see", and possibly indicates a fossilized double morpheme.
Alternations in syllable-coda position A number of consonants regularly undergo change when resyllabified into the coda position of a syllable due to morphological operations that delete following vowels, such as the preterite of class 2 verbs, and the possessive singular of some nouns. Examples of each alternation are given below, with each form broken into its syllables and the alternating consonants in bold:
becomes which is further devoiced "flag" — "our flag" "he shaves" — "he shaved" devoices to , or to when preceded by /s/ (i.e. or , ) in the same word "I do — "I did" "plants are in bud, spring is arriving" — "plants were in bud" debuccalizes to . This alternation does not affect all instances of syllable-final and is sensitive to stem choice and position in the word. "I was" — "I am". Here the alternation is mandatory in word-final position, but absent in non-word-final syllable-final position. "I find out" — or "I found out" (the former being more common), but "we found out". Here likewise the alternation is absent in non-word-final -final position, but is optional in -final position. "I am born" — "I was born". Here the alternation is always absent.
Additionally, syllable-final /kʷ/, spelled may sometimes delabialize to with no conditioning factors, as in the word , from "our lord".
Subject marking Every predicate takes an obligatory prefix marking the person and number of its subject, except for the third person that has no prefix, only the plural marker (e.g. tlācatl both means "person" and "she/he is a person"). Both verbal predicates (e.g. 'I ') and nominal predicates (e.g. 'I ') mark their subjects ('I' in the two preceding examples) identically, and nouns bearing subject prefixes can serve as predicates (i.e. 'to be an X') without a copula. Both nominal and verbal predicates distinguish two numbers: singular and plural, and the number of a subject prefix must match that of its predicate. PersonMarkerVerbal predicateNominal predicate1S 2S, 3S 1P 2P, 3P
Nouns The noun is inflected for two basic contrasting categories:
possessedness: non-possessed contrasts with possessed number: singular contrasts with plural
Nouns belong to one of two classes: animate or inanimate.
Nominal morphology is mostly suffixing. Some irregular formations exist.
Absolutive suffix Nouns in their citation form take a suffix called the absolutive (unrelated to the absolutive case of ergative-absolutive languages). This suffix takes the form after vowels (, "water") and after consonants, which assimilates with a final /l/ on the root (, "rabbit", but , "house"). A smaller class of nouns instead take (, fish), and some have no absolutive suffix (, dog).
The absolutive suffix is absent when the noun is incorporated into a compound of which it is not the head, for example with the roots , , and in the following compounds: , "rabbit-hole", , "fishing net", , "to build a house". Possessed nouns do not take the absolutive suffix, and instead take a possessive suffix marking their number.
Number
The absolutive singular suffix has three basic forms: -tl/tli, -in, and some irregular nouns with no suffix. The absolutive plural suffix has three basic forms: , , or a final glottal stop . Some plurals are formed also with reduplication of the consonant (if present) and vowel onset of the stem's first syllable, and the reduplicated vowel lengthened if not already long, e.g. "eagle" — "eagles". In compound nouns, reduplication may apply to the embedded (i.e. first) noun, the head noun, or rarely both, e.g.: "sorcerer, demon" — , not "species of bird of prey" — , not . "maize god (figure) — , (also attested as ) Only animate nouns can take a plural form. These include most animate living beings, but also words like tepētl — tepēmeh ("mountain, mountains"), citlālin — cīcitlāltin ("star, stars"), and some other phenomena. The plural is not totally stable and in many cases several different forms are attested.
+Possible forms of the absolutive pluralWithreduplicationteōtl, tēteohtōchtli, tōtōchtinWithoutreduplicationcihuātl, cihuahoquichtli, oquichtinmichin, michmeh
Alienable possession Possessed nouns receive a prefix indexing the person and number of the possessor, and a possessive suffix indicating the number of the possessed noun, which may be phonologically null.
singular plural 1st person , "my" , "our" 2nd person , "thy" , "your" 3rd person , "his, hers, its" /, "their" Unknown possessor , "their" (somebody's)
The of the first and second person singular and plural suffixes , , , is eclipsed by the following vowel of any vowel initial noun, except for short , which may instead be eclipsed by . Whether this stem initial short is considered a "real" vowel which resists eclipsis varies with each noun stem, and some nouns are attested with both possibilities.
ClassAbsolutivePossessedFull vowel eclipses , "soap", "my soap" eclipses , "daughter", "my daughter"Both variations attested, "fingernail" or , "my fingernail"
Nouns may also be divided into several classes based on the shape of the singular possessive suffix they take, and any modifications to the noun stem itself when possessed. The plural possessive is comparatively regular, always taking the suffix , and observes the same restriction as the absolutive in that it is only available for animate nouns.
ClassAbsolutivePossessed SingularPossessed Plural- or , , "fish", "my fish", "my fish", , "grandmother", "my grandmother", "my grandmothers", -, "husband", "my husband", "my husbands", , "wife", "my wife", "my wives", , "aunt", "my aunt", "my aunts", , "meat", "my meat", , "pot", "my pot", , "jewelry", "my jewelry", "my pieces of jewelry"
Possessed nouns may also take subject prefixes, preceding the possessor prefix. Plural subjects require the use of the plural possessive suffix.
Inalienable possession The suffix — the same suffix as the abstract/collective — may be added to a possessed noun to indicate that it is a part of its possessor, rather than just being owned by it. For example, both and (possessed forms of ) mean "my meat", but may refer to meat that one has to eat, while refers to the flesh that makes up one's body. This is known as inalienable, integral or organic possession.
Affective nouns Some other categories can be inflected on the noun such as: Honorific formed with the suffix .
Verbs All verbs are marked with prefixes which agree with their subjects. Classical Nahuatl displays nominative–accusative alignment, and transitive verbs thus take distinct a set of prefixes which mark their objects. Verbs inflect for a number of tense–aspect–mood categories through a series of stem changes and suffixes which agree with the subject in number, and can change their valency through a number of morphological processes, which are also exploited in a system of verbal honorifics.
Tense-aspect-mood inflection Verbs inflect for tense-aspect-mood by adding various suffixes to the appropriate verbal base. Base 1 is the normal or citation form of the verb, also known as the imperfective stem, with no special suffixes. Base 2, also known as the perfective stem, is usually shorter in form than base 1, often dropping a final vowel, though formation thereof varies. Base 3, the hypothetical stem, is normally the same as base 1, except for verbs whose stem ends in two vowels, in which case the second vowel is dropped, and the formerly penultimate, now final vowel is lengthened in front of a suffix that does not begin with the glottal stop .
Stem classes Verbs can be divided into four classes depending on how the stem is modified in the various inflections; most verbs will fall within classes 2 and 3 described below. Important to understanding the behavior of vowel length in the various inflections is the generalization that long vowels are shortened when word-final (i.e. not followed by further suffixes) or before a glottal stop. These vowels' underlying length resurfaces when suffixes are attached. In the following examples, verb stems are cited with their underlying final vowel length, and only in inflected forms is phonetic shortening applied.
Stems ending in or , which are the only verbs which end in two consecutive vowels, are always of class 3. Class 4 comprises only a few commonly used verbs. Stems which end in a long vowel with the exception of those in class 4, or in two consonants followed by a vowel, are always of class 1. Stems ending in a single, short vowel, possibly preceded by a single consonant, may belong to either class 1 or 2.
Verbs of class 3 and 4 end in a long vowel, and thus exhibit shortening in some forms, while the final vowel of class 2 verbs is never long, and thus is invariant in length. Here class 1 is divided into two subclasses based on the length of the final vowel, 1-S(hort) and 1-L(ong).
Class Class 1-SClass 1-L Class 2 Class 3 Class 4 verb base (cry) (descend) (live) (flee) (eat) Base 1 base form base form base form - base form base form Base 2 no change no change drop vowel - replace vowel with -h - Base 3 no change no change no change drop vowel, lengthen penult no change
Present The present is formed on base 1, with no suffix in the singular, and in the plural, e.g. 'I am sleeping,' 'they are speaking,' 'I am making it.' A number of common irregular verbs lack a morphological present, instead using the preterite with a present tense meaning.
Imperfect The imperfect is formed on base 1, with the suffix in the singular and in the plural, preserving underlying vowel length. It is similar in meaning to the imperfect in the Romance languages, signifying a 'repeated or continuing process in the past', e.g. 'I was sleeping,' 'they used to speak,' 'I was making it.'
Quotidian