Náhuat-Pipil Grammar Breviary

Abstract

The article describes several typological traits of Nahuat-Pipil language, the most important Native language from El Salvador. Nahuat-Pipil belongs to the Uto-Aztec family – Uto-Nahua in Spanish - whose syntactic structure radically differs from Spanish to which is normally adapted. It is characterized by a word-sentence that marks almost all syntactic functions in the verb, while the so-called nominal phrases of subject, direct and indirect object are real adjunct and independent sentences. If this attribute is known as head-marking language, its poetic implications have been forgotten: a Borgean Aleph or point, which concentrates all other points or grammatical functions. Some additional concomitant typological traits are omni-predication, syntactic and aspectual serialism, as well as literary reiteration.

Revista Humanismo y Cambio Social. Número 6. Año 3. Julio - Diciembre 2015: 69-76