The phonology and morphology of Filomeno Mata Totonac

80) kiitantliiyaac%itátiti&
/kii-tantlii-aa-c"ita-titi&/
RT-dance-IMPF-HERE-2SUB.pl
‘you pl. only come for a moment to dance’
In an interesting example of blocking, (the suppression of a morpheme by another with which it
is semantically compatible), the second person allomorphs of the independent verbs and suffixes
can never co-occur with the first person plural object marker (for details, see §4.8.2.1). In
example 81, the object is first person singular, and the second person allomorphs of the verb and
two suffixes are present. In example 82, the object is 1 st plural, and none of the morphemes
appears in its second person form. This blocking receives further analysis in §4.8.2.1.
81) s%kinqas%pátpaapi&
/s"-kin-qas"pat-paa-pi&/
PAST-1OBJ-hear2-PROG2-DEICTIC2
‘you were listening to me over there’
82) s%kilaaqas%matmaac%a’áw
/s"-kin-laa-qas"mat-maa-c"a’a-wa&
PAST-1OBJ-3OBJpl-hear-PROG-DEICTIC-1pl
‘you were listening to us over there’
4.8.1.3 Third person subject. The third person singular subject is zero-marked, that is, a verb
without other subject markers will be interpreted as having a third person singular subject. The
prefix ta- indicates a third person plural subject. With a 3 rd plural subject, the progressive marker
takes the suppletive form –maana, as noted in §4.7.2.4.
83) c%uh
/c"uh-aa/
spit-IMPF
‘s/he spits’
84) kintatáami"
/kin-ta-taa-min-li&/
1OBJ-3SUB.pl-COM-come-PFTV
‘they came with me’
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