An Introduction to Classical Nahuatl

Michel Launey, now retired, was a professor at the Université Denis Diderot, Paris and the Institut de Recherches pour le Développement, Cayenne. He was a visiting professor at the Universidad de Guadalajara, Universidad Nacional Autónoma de México and Yale University, among others. His other books include Introduction à la langue et à la literature aztèques (the French edition of this book, published in 1979), Une grammaire omniprédicative (1994) and Awna Parikwaki: Introduction à la langue palikur de Guyane et de l'Amapa (2003).

• Preliminary lesson: phonology and orthography; 1. Intransitive verbs, word order, absolutive suffix; 2. Nouns and nominal predicates, the plural of nouns, questions and negation; 3. Transitive verbs; 4. Emphatic, interrogative, demonstrative and negative pronouns; 5. Irregular verbs, introduction to locatives; 6. Directional and reflexive prefixes; 7. Quantifiers, zan, ye, oc; 8. Preterite tense; 9. Imperative/optative, vocative, future, imperfect; 10. Possessed forms of the noun; 11. Inherent possession, the suffix -yō, 'to have', possessive nouns; 12. Nominal suffixes, 'adjectives'; 13. The principal locative suffixes; 14. Coordination, phrases of time and manner; 15. Impersonal and passive verb forms; Review exercises; 16. Agent nouns, the -ni form; 17. Compound nouns, verbal incorporation; 18. Bitransitive verbs, ambitransitive verbs; 19. Causative verbs; 20. Applicative verbs; 21. Honorific and deprecatory verbs; 22. Pluperfect, counterfactual, vetitive, directional conjugations; 23. Morphological peculiarities of certain nouns and verbs; 24. More on locatives; 25. More on quantifiers; 26. Details about number and person, indefinite pronouns and adverbs; 27. Compound verbs; 28. Reduplication outside of the plural, more on verbs; 29. Derivative verbs; 30. Derivative nouns; 31. Noun clauses; 32. Attributives, relative clauses, predicative verbs, predicative constructions, semi-auxiliaries; 33. Comparisons, clauses of result, purpose and cause; 34. Conditions, more particles; 35. Temporal clauses, particles, interjections; Appendix 1. Traditional orthography; Appendix 2. The Aztec calendar; Appendix 3. Paradigms; Appendix 4. Key to the exercises; Reading passages; Vocabulary.

'An Introduction to Classical Nahuatl is an excellent language-learning textbook. Launey has written many articles about classical Nahuatl … his expertise is evident in the details in each lesson. The textbook is very thorough in detailing classical Nahuatl grammar, and the examples and exercises are well-suited to reinforce concepts introduced in each lesson.' Dibella Wdzenczny, Linguist List