Temoaya Otomi

Temoaya Otomi, also known as Toluca Otomi or Otomi of San Andrés Cuexcontitlan, is a variety of the Otomi language spoken in Mexico by ca. 37,000 people in and around the municipality of Temoaya, and in three communities within the municipality of Toluca: San Andrés Cuexcontitlán, San Pablo Autopan and San Cristobal Huichochitlan. The two varieties are quite different. The speakers themselves call the language Ñatho.^[2] Lastra (2001) classifies it as a southwestern dialect along with the dialects of Mexico state. Lastra also notes that the endangered Otomí dialect of San Felipe in eastern Michoacán is most similar to the Otomí spoken in San Andrés Cuexcontitlan.

The pronominal system of Toluca Otomi distinguish four persons: 1st inclusive and exclusive, second and third and three numbers singular, dual and plural.^[3]

Otomi nouns are inflected for possession. The particular pattern of possessive inflection is widespread throughout the

The preterite uses the prefixes do-, go- and bi-, perfect uses to-, ko-, ʃi-, imperfect uses dimá, gimá, mi, future uses go-, gi- and da- and pluperfect tamą-, kimą-, kamą-. All tenses use the same suffixes for dual and plural numbers and clusivity as the present tense, from here on only the singular forms will be given. The difference between preterit and imperfect is similar to the distinction between the preterit in Spanish habló "he spoke (punctual)" and the imperfect hablaba "he spoke/He used to speak/he was speaking (non-punctual)".

In Toluca Otomi the semantic difference between the two subjunctive forms (A and B) are not easily defined according to Lastra sometimes Subjunctive B has a meaning that is more recent in time than Subjunctive A. Both have the meaning of something counterfactual. The past and present progressive are similar in meaning to English was and is X-ing respectively. The imperative is for issuing direct orders.

Verbs expressing movement towards the speaker such as ʔįhį "come" use a different set of prefixes for marking person/T/A/M. These prefixes can also be used with other verbs to express "to do something while coming this way". In Toluca Otomi mba- is the third person singular imperfect prefix for movement verbs.

To form predicates from nouns the subject prefixes are simply added to the noun root:

Transitive verbs are inflected for agreement with their objects by means of suffixes, while using the same agent prefixes as the intransitive verbs to agree with their arguments. However in all dialects a few intransitive verbs take the object suffix instead of the agent prefix, usually these intransitive verbs are stative, i.e. describing a state. This has led to the interpretation that in Otomi

Temoaya Otomi also allow different kinds of adverbial meanings to be inflected on the verb.

From Toluca Otomi examples of adverbial affixes are:

• bí- An evidential prefix used about progressive events being witnessed by the speaker (It only exists in third person singular):

• ga- A prefix expressing two simultaneous events or one event immediately preceding another. Also has the second person ngo-:

• ndɨ- A prefix expressing that something was done well or a lot:

Other affixes express