Chapter 4 Between Grammars and Dictionaries: The ‘Tratado de las partículas’ (Treatise on Particles) in Diego de Basalenque’s Work on Matlatzinca
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Abstract
It is a common practice that the so-called particles belong in fact to a plethora of categories and it has been often demonstrated that missionary grammarians and lexicographers are straightforward in their parts of speech system, and anything which falls outside these models was usually gathered in a final section devoted to the particles. In fact, the history of particles goes back to Antiquity. Basalenque decided to break with the traditional model and compiled an independent work devoted to the particles, between his grammar and his dictionary. In this paper, Zwartjes demonstrates how “particles” are defined and classified, and which decisions Basalenque made in order to include them in the Tratado, and omitting them in the grammars and dictionaries. The hitherto unknown properties of Matlatzinca motivated Basalenque to develop innovating descriptive approaches.