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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
The discussion of the co-occurrence of vowels with nasal consonants cannot be separated into two distinct groups of oral versus nasal vowels because the nasality of vowels after nasal consonants is
indistinct. While some degree of phonetic nasalization occurs on vowels which occur after nasals, there are no contrasting examples of oral versus nasal vowels in this position.
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Phonetically, the vowel following a nasal does not sound nasalized. Residual nasality on the nucleus which results from the consonant
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An alternative analysis of nasals in languages which contain contrasts between oral and nasal vowels posits a relationship of allophony between nasal consonants and nasalized, voiced obstruents via the
process of denasalization Burquest 1998:127. The idea behind the process being that when the vowel which occurs after a nasal is specified as oral, an oral consonant is inserted to ensure the lowering of the
velum. Soyaltepec Mazatec does have a series of prenasalized, voiced stops: [nd], [ ŋg], [ndz︢] and [ndʒ︢].
Unfortunately, the series does not line up with the nasal vowels. If the process of denasalization was occurring, we would expect [mb], [nd] and [
ɲ
ɟ
]. We would also expect alignment in the types of vowels which occur with each POA which is also contrary to the language facts. Therefore, the process of
denasalization cannot account for either the existence of the prenasalized obstruents or for the neutralization of nasalization after nasal vowels.
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phoneme’s nasality decreases over the course of the syllable. Golston and Kehrein 1998 would argue that the same feature can never occur on both the onset and nucleus in Mazatec syllables [sv sv]
σ
and therefore since the vowels in question occur after a nasal consonant, they must be underlyingly oral.
The distribution of the nasals with different vowels appears in Table 3-10. The nasal consonant is listed down the left column and the vowels are listed across the top row of the table. There is one instance
mu in which the co-occurrence is only present in borrowed words, the cell is shaded to indicate this distinction. Finally, the occurrence of
ɲɛ is limited to a morphophonemicly derived environment, no underlying examples exist. The stressed syllables are underlined in multisyllabic words.
Table 3-10 Nasal Consonants
POA C
i ɛ
a o
u a.
labial m
mi˧ɲa˦ ‘threshes’
mɛ˧hɛ˥na˩ ‘I want’
ma˧ ‘he can’
mo˧ʔõ˦
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‘hit with stick’
mu˧la˦˩ ‘mule’
b. alveolar
n ni˩hĩ˩
‘dried corn cob’
si˧nɛ˥ ‘yellow’
na˩˧ ‘mother’
nu˧˥ ‘year’
c. palatal
ɲ ɲa˦˥
‘we inclusive’ ɲũ˧hũ˥
‘four’ The nasals m and n appear mostly with front vowels. There are a few examples of nu, but mu
only occurs in borrowed words. The only instance of mo occurs as a phonetic variant of ma and no does not occur. All three nasal consonants occur abundantly with the a. The palatal nasal is plentiful with
low and back vowels excluding o, but does not occur with the other front vowels which aligns with the co-occurrence restriction [front front]
σ
as it was described by Golston and Kehrein 1998. Given the limited distribution of
ɲ it is reasonable to look for complementary distribution or some other means of explaining its occurrence.
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This word has a variant pronunciation, ma
˧ʔõ˦. It is the only example of mo.
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First, it is possible that m, n and ɲ all vary with the sonorant consonants that occur at the same
points of articulation but never occur with nasal vowels, namely w, ɾ and j. The bilabial m and w
share widespread distribution among front vowels and an avoidance of back vowels which aligns with the co-occurrence restriction [labial labial]
σ
. The coronal n and ɾ likewise share a distribution pattern that
avoids back vowels; however, recall that the flap is limited to a closed set of clitics. The nasal on the other hand is very common in both unbound and bound morphemes. Since nasal vowels are in general less
common than oral vowels, it seems unlikely that the nasal version of this one phoneme would be so much more plentiful than the oral version. Finally, the palatal j and
ɲ do not share a distribution pattern like the other two nasals did with the non-nasal sonorant corresponding to their place of articulation. Both
palatal sonorants are relatively uncommon phonemes, but, while the ɲ only occurs with a and u the j
can also occur with ɛ in indigenous words. Positing that the ɲ emerges when the vowel is nasalized, or
even when the consonant is nasalized, fails to explain the lacking vowel co-occurrences, although, the restriction labeled [front front]
σ
leads us to expect that neither j nor ɲ should occur very frequently with
[i] or [ ɛ].
Even though the nasal and non-nasal sonorants somewhat align in their distribution, the process of alternating a sonorant phoneme with the nasal which occurs at the same place of articulation in a process
similar to denasalization would be unusual i.e., the assumption would be that when a nasal feature is present, the nasal phoneme emerges but when no nasal feature is present, the non-nasal sonorant phoneme
emerges. The language facts do not make a case for it. Positing that the nasal phonemes are underlying seems the most natural alternative.
Since there is not a strong argument in favor of complementary distribution between the sonorant consonants and the nasals at the same point of articulation, there is the possibility that just the
ɲ is derived since it occurs with a very restricted distribution. It is not uncommon for a high front vowel to form
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diphthongs
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with the central ia and back iu vowels. It is also not uncommon cross-linguistically for a high front vowel to palatalize a nasal. In my data, there are no examples of these diphthongs occurring with
any nasals, therefore, it is possible that when the underlying diphthongs occur with nasals the palatal nasal surfaces rather than the diphthong. While it is a possibility, more research is needed to document this as a
real process in Soyaltepec Mazatec. The only argument against this possibility is that the occurrence of ɲa
and ɲu is much more common than all of the instances of the occurrence of the respective diphthongs
with other consonants combined. The most straightforward interpretation of the data at hand supports the existence of all three of
the nasal consonants as independent phonemes.
3.3.6 Summary
