The phonology and morphology of Filomeno Mata Totonac

94) s%páta
/s"pata-li&/
mash-PFTV
s/he mashed it’
95) kimaamáqnii
/kin-maa-maq-nii-li&/
1OBJ-CAUS-CAUS-die-PFTV
‘s/he made me kill him/her/it’, ‘s/he made him/her/it kill me’
The third person plural object makes use of the general plural object prefix kaa-.
96) kaakuc%iiyáatiti&
/kaa-kuc"ii-aa-titi&/
OBJ.pl-cure-IMPF-2SUB.pl
‘you pl. cure them’
4.9 Subject and Object Inflection. Due to issues of complementarity, the pronominal
agreement inflection found on transitive verbs is not always the simple additive result of the
expected subject marker plus the expected object marker. Table 4.9 provides each possible
subject-object combination.
The primary departures from a simple additive inflectional system involve syncretism in the
marking of first and second persons acting on one another when either or both are plural (in
which case the object marker must be plural, whether it is the object or subject referent who is
plural), the blocking of second person morphology when a first person plural object is present
(already described in §4.8.2.1), and the blocking of the 3 rd plural subject marker when the plural
object marker is affixed (because these two prefixes fall into the same prefix position).
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