Náhuat-pipil art from typology to possessive

Abstract

Analyzing a single Nahuat-PIpil sentence in context, four typological traits are deduced: a headmarking language, a serial language with conjugated verbs in sequence, a lack of plural in (in) animate nouns, marked in adjective or number, and an arithmetic hybrid system, quintesimal (base 5) and vigesimal (base 20). The sphere of possession is added to these four attributes to establish a radical distinction from Spanish grammar. In contrast to a deep Spanish ambiguity —unifying the genitive phrase under a single preposition “de”— Nahuat-Pipil uses at least three different syntactic techniques: apposition, established relation, and inherent relation. The concepts of ownership, relation of part to whole, affiliation to a biological genus, etc. are steadily expressed. As pertinent as poetic, the ART/ARS of a language is defined by its grammatical notions and categories.