[Nahuat-l] teotihuacan etymology

[Magnus Pharao Hansen]

Dear. Dr. Sullivan

The proposed analysis of Teotihuacan seems pretty far stretched. Firstly why
assume that it is from a t dialect - teotihuacan is well within the central
dialect area where tl would be expected, (although of course it might not
always have been) - and use of the name itself is attested only in a -tl
dialect, classical Nahuatl. Secondly the etymology requires i not just a
t-dialect but also an i-dialect since central dialects tend to have /tle/ as
the root for fire.   Thirdly splitting up the locative suffix /ka:n/ into an
agentive and a -n locative suffix seems completely unwarranted - to my
knowledge no grammarian has made this analysis before, all seeing -/ka:n/
and /ya:n/ as single morphemes. I would propose that a much better analysis
would be:

teo - divine, god, holy, mystic
ti - causative suffix (the one used on nouns to form a denominal verb
meaning to become as in /tla:kati/ "be born")
hua- passive/non-specific agent suffix
can - locative suffix

"place where someone becomes (a) god"

Magnus Pharao Hansen
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