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and ʃi because the high sibilant could pull the mid vowel to a high; or 2. they always surface as
ts︢ɛ and sɛ because the mid vowel could force a lowering of the sibilant. Currently, there is no data which forces one repair strategy over the other, it is a matter for further research. It is
also noteworthy that the indigenous usage of ɾ is limited to i, ɛ and a, and all of the occurrences
appear in clitics.
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It sometimes occurs with all of the vowels, but only in borrowed words. In other words, there are no examples of indigenous, monomorphemic, unbound morphemes which contain
ɾ. The only restriction listed in Golston and Kehrein for the flap is the prohibition of occurring with nasalized vowels.
Because of its limited distribution, I have placed a diagonal line through the cells indicating ɾi, ɾɛ and
ɾa. The only significant gaps in the distribution of simple consonants with oral vowels involve o,
ɾ and postalveolar consonants with front mid vowels
ʃɛ and tʃ︢ɛ.
3.3.4 Simple Consonants with Nasal Vowels
The distribution of simple consonants with nasal vowels is more restricted than with oral vowels. Table 3-7 demonstrates the available co-occurrence examples for all simple oral consonants with the nasal
vowels. Again, the POA is indicated in the far left column followed by the exact consonant C and then each nasal vowel. If the pattern occurs only in borrowed words, an example is listed but the cell is shaded.
Stressed syllables are underlined in multisyllabic examples.
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Although the existence of the ri, r ɛ and ra is limited to clitics, several are very common and
pervasive. This phoneme has a limited distribution in all of the Mazatec dialects; although it varies with the lateral l in other dialects, the phoneme is mostly limited to this small set of common clitics.
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Table 3-7 Examples of simple consonants with nasal vowels
POA C
ĩ ɛ̃
ã õ
ũ a.
labial p
ni˩pã˦˩ ‘bread’
b. w
c. f
d. alveolar
t ndʒ︢u˩tĩ˩
‘corncob’ tõ˩˧
‘money’ nga˧tũ˧
‘back’ POA
C ĩ
ɛ̃ ã
õ ũ
e. s
ta˧sĩ˦ ‘tick’
sɛ̃˧ ‘wager’
sã˧ ‘sour’
kji˥sõ˥ ‘swims’
sũ˥ ‘straight’
f. ts︢
tᶘ︢u˩ts︢ĩ˦˥ ‘glass’
g. l
h. ɾ
i. post-
alveolar Σ
thiu˩ʃĩ˦˥ ‘skin’
ʃã˦ ‘liquor’
ᶘũ˥˧ ‘diet’
j. t
Σ tʃ︢ɛ̃˦˩
‘trap’ tʃ︢ã˥
‘brown’ tᶘ︢õ˥
‘a bird’ k.
palatal j
l. velar
k t
͡ʃa˧kĩ˦˥ ‘firewood’
kã˧˦ ‘twenty’
kũ˦ ‘are’
m. glottal
ʔ ʃi˩ʔĩ˧
‘man’ ʔɛ̃˦˥
‘word’ ʔã˧
‘I’ ʔõ˥
‘five’ tᶘ︢ʔũĩ˥
‘chayote’ n.
h hĩ˧˦
‘eight’ hɛ̃˧˩
‘smells hã˥
‘three’ hõ
˧˦ ‘six’
hũ˥ ‘you pl.’
In general, nasalized vowels are much less widespread than oral vowels as can be seen by the multiple gaps in the table above which can be seen more clearly in the schematized table below. Of the 70
possible consonant-vowel co-occurrence possibilities only 28 occur, 8 of which are in multisyllabic examples and 2 are only in borrowed words. It is not surprising that borrowed words are usually encoded
without nasalization since there is no contrastive nasalization in Spanish. In other words, pĩ, pɛ̃, lã, lĩ etc.
do not occur in Spanish. The only time when nasalization occurs in a borrowed word is when a nasal occurs
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in the word final position of the original Spanish word. Since Soyaltepec does not allow closed syllables, these instances are interpreted as nasalized vowels, as in the example in row a of the Table 3-7 above.
Table 3-8 below provides a schematized summary of the co-occurrence of the consonants with the nasal vowels in indigenous words. The table is a repeat of Table 3-7 with the data removed. I have also omitted
p and l since they only occur in borrowed words. The shaded blocks indicate the presence of the given combination except when the only example appears in a borrowed word in which case the cell is left blank.
There was only one example of tʃ︢ɛ̃ in my database, so I marked the representative cell with diagonal line
to indicate rarity.
Table 3-8 Co-occurrence of simple consonants with nasal vowels
POA C
ĩ ɛ̃
ã õ
ũ a.
labial w
b. f
c. alveolar
t d.
s e.
ts︢ f.
ɾ g.
postalveolar Σ
h. t
Σ︢ i.
j j.
velar k
k. glottal
ʔ l.
h The only consonants which demonstrate complete distribution with nasal vowels are s and the
glottals, ʔ and h. Interestingly, the s and tʃ︢ appear with the nasal õ but not with the oral o c.f.
Tables 3-5 and 3-6. Conversely, t only occurs with ĩ and ũ and ts
︢ only occurs with ĩ, but they both have wide distribution among oral vowels.
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The only co-occurrence restriction which specifically targets the modality of the vowel prohibits the co-occurrence of sonorants with nasal vowels. This accounts for the lack of [
ɾ], [j] and [w]. The only other indigenously occurring phoneme that is completely absent is the f. According to Gudschinsky
1959, the f finds its origins in the Proto-Mazatec hw. If that is the case, it makes sense that f would follow the same vocalic restrictions as w. The possibility of complementary distribution between all of
these phonemes with nasal consonants is explored below in §3.3.5.
If we momentarily ignore the six consonants which never occur with nasal vowels and focus on the consonants which sometimes occur with nasal vowels, we can make some observations about the
occurrence of nasal vowels. In Table 3-9 below, I have repeated the data from Table 3-8; however, I have removed the consonants which never occur with nasal vowels i.e., p, w, f, l,
ɾ and j and eliminated co-occurrences which only occurred in borrowed words. Shading signifies the attestation of the
co-occurrence and the diagonal bar, extreme rarity.
Table 3-9 Consonants occurring with Nasal Vowels
POA C
ĩ ɛ̃
ã õ
ũ a.
alveolar t
b. s
c. ts︢
d. postalveolar
Σ e.
t Σ︢
f. velar
k g.
glottal ʔ
h. h
First, we see that the mid vowels ɛ̃ and õ are equally underrepresented which is not
unexpected cross-linguistically.
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The high and low vowels, ĩ, ã and ũ, are the most common of the
nasal vowels, occurring with all but one or two consonants each; however, the consonants omitted are not
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The absence of nasalized mid vowels was discussed in Hyman 1972.
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the same. In the case of ĩ, t
ʃ︢ĩ does not occur. The ã does not occur with t or ts︢. Finally, ũ does not occur with
ts︢ or tʃ︢. Second, the nasalized mid vowels, ɛ̃ and õ, in general do not occur with coronal consonants with the exception of s which occurs with all nasal vowels and
tʃ which occurs with the non-high nasal vowels.
When nasal vowels occur, it is always with voiceless onsets and they are most common when there is no oral obstruction to the airflow i.e., glottal consonants, thus supporting the notion of
rhinoglottophilia. The pervasive presence of s with nasal vowels is interesting and perhaps indicates that Steriade’s 1994 suggestion that s is always phonetically aspirated in Huautla Mazatec should be
revisited in search of phonological realities and features which would support a natural class between s and h, or more research into Soyaltepec Mazatec may reveal a set of sh clusters which are difficult to
distinguish phonetically, but are apparent because of the co-occurrence with the nasal vowels see the discussion of consonant clusters in
§3.4.3 for clarification of this argument.
3.3.5 Simple Nasal Consonants
