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environments but surfaces as [u] under certain conditions, or if there are no underlying lexemes with o in other environments. Borrowed words that contain an [o] in Spanish occasionally occur with [o] 7a, but
more frequently they surface with an [u] 7b-c. 7
Encoding of borrowed words Transcription
Spanish source Gloss
a. to˧ro˩
toro ‘bull’
b. ndu˧mi˦ngu˩
domingo ‘Sunday’
c. bu˧ru˩
burro ‘donkey’
Further research is needed to determine if the [o] pronunciation is favored by speakers who are more familiar with Spanish
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and monolingual speakers would never use the [o] even in borrowings. Perhaps examples such as 7a are more recent borrowings which are in the process of shifting to a more natural
Soyaltepec Mazatec pronunciation. Another possibility is that increasing exposure to Spanish is making the [o] more acceptable and more recent borrowings will never shift to [u].
The pronunciation of vowels in Soyaltepec is relatively stable, with the exception of some variation in the expression of
ɛ and õ. The differences are speaker specific and do not influence the greater phonological analysis of the language. There is also the possibility of vowel quality neutralization
between o and u and theoretically the nasal counterparts as well in non-glottal, non-velar environments. These differences do not influence the tone of the language.
3.2.3 Nasal Occurrence Restrictions
The distribution of vowels within words, specifically restrictions on nasal vowels, is addressed below. The question of co-occurrence restrictions of vowels with various consonants will be addressed
when the consonants are discussed in §3.3. Oral vowels occur without restriction or reduction in both
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All of my language collaborators demonstrate at least minimal proficiency in Spanish – I have not had the opportunity to interview any monolingual speakers to witness truly indigenous pronunciation.
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stressed and unstressed syllables. Nasal vowels, however, do not occur in non-stressed syllables
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of unbound, monomorphemic content words. In multisyllabic, monomorphemic words, there is at most one
nasal syllable and it always occurs in the stressed syllable. In 8 there are two examples each of one, two and three syllable monomorphemic words with nasalized vowels appearing in the stressed ultimate
syllable. The stressed syllable is underlined. 8
Nasal vowels only appear in the stressed syllable of monomorphemic words Transcription Gloss
1σ a.
ʃkũ˩ ‘eyes’
b. sɛ̃˧
‘a bet’ 2σ
c. ʔa˧sɛ̃˦
‘an image’ d.
βa˧khã˦˥ ‘a crack’
3σ e.
βi˧ʃtu˧ts︢ĩ˦˩ ‘a squirrel’ f.
nda˧tʃ︢a˦kũ˧˩ ‘a sea’ There are three exceptions to this restriction of nasalized vowels to the stressed syllable. The
exceptions all occur in multimorphemic words, for monomorphemic words, the rule stands. First, certain enclitics are always nasalized such as the first person marker demonstrated in 9.
9 Occurrence of a nasalized enclitic
Transcription Gloss
a. ʔã˧ khɛ̃˧˩ʔã˩
‘I eat’ b.
ʔã˧ khue˧ʔã˩ ‘I go’
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Stress occurs on the final syllable of the stem and is indicated through intensity and a slight lengthening of the vowel. It will be discussed in more detail in
§3.6 below.
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The pronoun can optionally occur before a verb for the purpose of emphasis as is indicated through the use of parenthesis. The tone on the morpheme changes depending on whether or not it appears
as an affix, but the nasalization remains in each form. The second exception to the restriction of nasal vowels to stressed syllables is that some enclitics,
such as the negative marker 10, acquire nasality from the stem.
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10 A clitic can take on the nasality of the stem
Soyaltepec Gloss
Underlying forms a. h
ũ˧hĩ˥ ‘no’
hũ˧ ‘yes’ -
hi˥ ‘neg’ b. s
ɛ˧hi˥ ‘not thick’
s ɛ˧ ‘thick’
- hi˥ ‘neg’
The first example, 10a, demonstrates the negative particle attaching to a stem in which the final vowel is nasal and the suffix appears nasalized as well. The second example, 10b, demonstrates the case
of an oral vowel occurring in the final syllable; in this case the suffix also appears with an oral vowel. The final case in which a nasal vowel may occur outside of the primary stress syllable occurs in
compound words. In compound words, nasality that initiates in the uncompounded morpheme is maintained in the compound whether or not it ends up in the primary stress position. Notice the form in
11a which compounds two words, ‘skin’ 11b and ‘mouth’ 11c, to form ‘lips.’
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This admittedly begs the question of whether nasality is able to spread in general; however, as the nasal vowel always appears in the final syllable of the stem, there is not much corroborating evidence. In
compound words which contain a nasal, no spreading occurs as 11 confirms. It is possible that nasality only spreads across certain types of morphemes or phonemes like the glottal fricative; however, more
research is needed to make a statement one way or the other.
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11 Creation of a compound word with a nasalized vowel in the non-stressed syllable
Soyaltepec Gloss
a. tjiu˩ʃĩ˧ts︢ʔua˥-ɲa˦˥ ‘lips’ b + c
b. tjiu˩ʃĩ˧
‘skin’ c.
ts︢ʔua˥-ɲa˦˥ ‘our mouth’
The word for ‘skin’ in 11b originates as a two syllable word with the final syllable nasalized. In the compounded word in 11a, the stem contains three syllables with primary stress on the final syllable of the
stem which is the third syllable of the word; however, the nasal remains intact on the second syllable.
3.3 Simple Consonants and Distributional Issues
