The phonology and morphology of Filomeno Mata Totonac

57) s%kus%tupáatiti&
/s"-kus"tu-paa-titi&/
PAST-weed- PROG2-2SUB.pl
‘you pl. were weeding’
PAST #- combines with the perfective aspect only to form the conditional ‘would have X’d’ or,
when the counterexpectational is also present, the ‘should have X’d’ form, as described and
exemplified in §4.7.1.2, and again below:
58) s%talakawakaqóo"
/s"-ta-laka-waka-qu’u-li&/
PAST-3SUB.pl-FACE-up-TOT-PFTV
‘they all would have confronted him/her’
59) s%tími
/s"-ti-min-li&/
PAST-CNTR-come-PFTV
‘s/he should have come’
I propose that these ‘would have/should have’ forms are in irrealis mood, with the irrealis marker
morphologically blocked by the PAST marker, which occurs in the same position. Therefore, I
contend that the past marker does not meaningfully co-occur with the perfective aspect in realis
mood.
4.7.4 TAM conclusion. This section has provided a brief overview of the TAM system in FM
Totonac, revealing an agglutinative system that is morphologically additive and, for the most
part, semantically transparent.
4.8 Person agreement. As noted previously, subject inflection is obligatory on all verbs, as is
object inflection on transitive verbs. Independent pronouns, which are the same for subject and
object, are optional (see §3.2.1). Person agreement is accomplished through affixation,
suppletion and glottalization.
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