This presentation details a case study of two competing participles of the Spanish verb matar ‘to kill’ (matado/muerto ‘killed/dead’). I provide quantitative data from corpora of modern Spanish that show that muerto ‘dead’ is the preferred form for matar in passive periphrastics. The use of the participle muerto (from the infinitive morir ‘to die’) in the paradigm of matar has long been considered a textbook example of verbal suppletion in Romance; however, I offer an alternate explanation. The objective of this analysis is to demonstrate that these two participles are best considered to be allomorphs of the same archimorpheme /to die/. The general premise of my claim is that agentivity determines the distribution of forms: an agentive reading triggers the participle matado, while a non-agentive reading triggers muerto. The nature of this particular instance of verbal allomorphy provides insight into the origins and maintenance of irregular verbal forms in language.

The Chatino people from Oaxaca, Mexico, believe that the departed begin a new life that is parallel to the world of the living, known in the Chatino language as Jlya^G.  In order to reach Jlya^G, the recently departed must traverse on a treacherous path that goes through mountains, rivers, and towns. Jlya^G  is a metaphysical place that corresponds to an actual location in our plane of existence found towards the northern part of the Chatino region in the municipality of Zenzontepec (coordinates 16° 32′ 0″ N, 97° 30′ 0″ W). 

Prayers, stories, myths, place, and performance are crucial elements in the practice and belief of the Chatino concept of the dead. In the Chatino town of San Marcos Zacatepec, when an adult dies, family members call an expert to perform a speech called Ti^A Su^A Kna^A or ‘prayer to the dead.’ The Ti^A Su^A Kna^A is recited at the dead person’s wake. The goal of the speech is to guide the dead through the trail of the dead and to encourage them not to come back and taunt their family members, friends, and community members either by showing up in individual’s dreams or appearing as a ghost qu^B tiq^E.

The departed also need to demonstrate endurance, agility, and artistic skills. For example, when they reach a place called Sa^A tqen^A, located in the town of Cieneguilla, San Juan Quiahije (coordinates 16.3000° N, 97.3167° W), the dead have to dance. The dead men, in addition to dancing, must whistle or sing. Women only have to dance. Hence, Chatinos believe that artistic abilities such as dancing, whistling, and singing must be learned and practiced during the course of a person’s lifetime. This presentation will discuss these aspects of Chatino conceptions of the dead and describe the verbal art of the rituals involved as the recently dead move on to Jlya^G.

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