Scholars

David H. Tuggy Turner

Field Linguist

I am a field linguist, a member of the Instituto Lingüístico de Verano (Summer Institute of Linguistics) in Mexico. Most of my work has been on a couple of varieties of Nahuatl (Aztecan). Much of my published work has been done within the Cognitive grammar framework.

Areas I am particularly interested in include:

Publications available on this website include:

In English:

  • (1981 - 2008) The Transitivity-related verbal morphology of Tetelcingo Nahuatl: An exploration in Cognitive grammar. 
    PDF format, 5 M.
    A slightly revised version of my UCSD dissertation.
  • (1984 ?) All affix and no stem: Orizaba Nawatl tlahtia. (HTML format, 43 K)
    Would you believe, ‘stuff’ combines with ‘-ify’ to mean ‘give a wedding or baptismal garment to your godchild’?
    Summary: Surprises like that are what make linguistics fun.
  • (1985a) Imagic meaning and dative possessors in Spanish. (HTML format, 63 K)
    Why is it that Le robaron todo el dinero and They stole all his money do and don’t mean the same thing?
    Summary: For the same reason it’s half full and it’s half empty do and don’t mean the same thing.
  • (1985b) Why the oddness of reflexives isn’t odd. (HTML format, 50 K), Spanish version also available.
    Summary: Because we don’t do things to ourselves the way we do them to others.
  • (1987) Scarecrow nouns, generalizations, and Cognitive grammar. (HTML format, 62 K)
    (In case you ever wondered how a lackluster lackbeard thatch-gallows got to be that way) 
    Summary: To account for English compounds like scarecrow you need lots of generalizations on many levels.
  • (2002) On reinventing the wheel. (HTML format, 10 K)
    Summary: Sometimes it’s a good and useful thing to do.

In English and Spanish:

  • (2003) Mösiehuali materials (HTML format)
    Summary: A series of pages about the Mösiehuali (Nahuatl) language of Tetelcingo, Morelos.
  • (2003) Amatlapohualistli de don Lázaro Cárdenas. (HTML format)
    Summary: Bilingual editions (Nahuatl-English and Nahuatl-Spanish) of a text in Mösiehuali, written by Martín Méndez Huaxcuatitla, about Lázaro Cárdenas (President of México 1934-1940) and his relationship with the town of Tetelcingo.
  • (2007) Mösiehuali texts.
    Summary: Bilingual  (Nahuatl-English and Nahuatl-Spanish) versions of a number of Mösiehuali texts, including one that explains why the Nevado de Toluca looks like its head’s chopped off.
  • (2008) How to read in Orizaba Nahuatl. (HTML format.)
    Rules for pronouncing the written language, with links to recordings.

In Spanish:

  • (1991 - 2002) Lecciones para un curso del náhuatl moderno. (HTML format, zipped)
    Summary: A set of lessons (in Spanish) on the morphology of Orizaba (or Zongolica) Nawatl (Nahuatl). This is an electronic reedition of a book published in 1991.
  • (2005) Abrelatas y scarecrow: Compuestos exocéntricos verbo + objeto en el español y el inglés en ilustración de principios básicos de la Gramática Cognoscitiva(This is a translated version of Tuggy 2004PDF format, 776K. A PowerPoint version, 3.7M, is also available.)


 

PowerPoint presentations