37 These examples are written in the orthography of the language, which does not distinguish whether a
consonant is palatalized or is occurring contiguous to j, since orthographies in Mexico use y to express both j and palatalization. Although the heading indicates that palatalization is involved in the process of
metathesis, there is no indication of which consonants are palatalized, since the authors do not give phonetic details of this phenomenon.
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3.6.4 Other Zoque language descriptions
Other authors writing about various Zoque languages, such as Harrison, Harrison and García 1981, Copainalá, Harrison and Harrison 1984, Rayón, Knudson 1975, Chimalapa indicate that palatalization
in these languages is similar to one of those described above. In all of these Zoque languages except Chimalapa, the third person possessive prefix on nouns andor the third person subject prefix on some
types of verbs or verbal clauses is one cause of palatalization. In the languages more fully described, it is evident that only primary palatalization occurs, with the exception of one instance of secondary
palatalization described in section 3.6.1.
3.7 Palatalization in Mixe languages
Wichmann 1995:9 classifies the Mixe languages according to the Oaxacan Mixe subgroup four languages and among them seventeen dialects, and three other Mixe languages not spoken in Oaxaca:
Sayula Popoluca, Oluta Popoluca, and Tapachulteco. The Oaxacan Mixe languages and dialects are named according to a place name with the word Mixe following. According to Wichmann 1995:xix, in all the
Oaxacan Mixe languages, all consonants except the glottal stop may undergo palatalization. However, in Hoogshagen 1984:4, Van Haitsma [Dieterman] and Van Haitsma 1976:5–11, and in this study, the
glottal stop is included along with all of the other consonants as being mutated by secondary palatalization.
3.7.1 Sayula Popoluca and Oluta Popoluca
According to Wichmann 1995:184–185, the coronal affricate is palatalized preceding a high front vowel in Oluta Popoluca and preceding or following a high front vowel in Sayula Popoluca. These are examples
of primary palatalization. Clark 1959, 1961 makes no mention of palatalized consonants in Sayula Popoluca, other than the alveopalatal affricate and the sibilant counterpart, which contrast lexically with
the palatal affricate and sibilant. Palatal j is one of the consonant phonemes.
3.7.2 Totontepec Mixe
In describing Totontepec Mixe, Crawford 1963:39 states that “… sequences of another consonant plus y pattern very much as single phoneme units, so that there is considerable evidence for a series of palatalized
phonemes.” However, rather than doubling the number of consonant phonemes by positing palatalized consonants, Crawford chooses to phonemicize the palatalized consonants as a sequence of the consonant
plus y.
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He says that if he had chosen to posit palatalized consonants as phonemes, for example, “what is now phonemicized as ty would be treated as t
y
, and would consist of the simultaneous contrastive features of t voiceless central stop consonant plus a sequential feature of palatal release” 1963:39.
Schoenhals and Schoenhals 1982 indicate that y following the initial consonant of the word is the third person marker. Apparently all of the consonants may be palatalized in word initial position. From these
sources it appears that this palatalization in Totontepec Mixe is the same as described in section 3.7.4 for Coatlán Mixe.
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These types of dictionaries are written for general use; they do not give detailed linguistic descriptions.
56
Because the palatalization in Totontepec Mixe is phonemicized as Cy, Maddieson 1984 does not include Totontepec Mixe among the languages having palatalized consonants.
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3.7.3 Tlahuitoltepec Mixe
