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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
In this section, I discuss the simple, unmodified consonants followed by the allophonic variations that occur and then I show the co-occurrence patterns with oral and nasal vowels.
3.3.1 Consonant Phonemes
The consonant inventory was given in Table 3-2 above but will be repeated here as Table 3-4 for ease of reference.
Table 3-4 Soyaltepec Mazatec Consonant Phonemes
Labial Coronal
Dorsal Guttural
bilabial labio-dental
alveolar postalveolar
palatal velar
glottal stops
p t
69
k ʔ
fricatives f
s Σ
h affricates
ts︢ t
Σ︢ nasals
m n
ɲ laterals
l flap
ɾ glide
w j
69
Remember that this t is actually denti-alveolar.
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Soyaltepec Mazatec makes use of 17 consonant phonemes in seven places of articulation. Alveolar consonants are by far the most common. No consonants in Soyaltepec are contrastive for voicing. All of the
voicing specifications are unmarked: obsturents are voiceless and sonorants are voiced. There are four stops,
p, t, k and ʔ; however, only three of these, t, k and ʔ occur in non-borrowed words. There are four fricatives:
f, s, ʃ and h. The fricatives do not follow the places of articulation of the stops. There is a labio-dental fricative f, but no labial-dental stop. Similarly, there is a postalveolar
fricative ʃ, but no postalveolar stop. There is no velar fricative, but there is a velar stop k. The alveolar
and glottal positions each contain both stops and fricatives. Affricates appear in alveolar ts ︢ and
postalveolar t
ʃ︢ positions. These affricates behave like simple phonemes in terms of the modifications or clusters that can be formed For example they can occur in an onset with either glottal or nasal features like
the other obstruents and, therefore, will be considered to be single phonemes. Nasals appear in indigenous words in bilabial, alveolar and palatal positions. The only lateral that occurs, l, is in the alveolar position
and all of its examples are in borrowed words. The only flap ɾ is also alveolar. These are limited in
distribution as will be seen below Table 3-5; however, they occur in several pervasive indigenous function words. The final phonemes are the bilabial w and palatal j glides. The pronunciation of the w
tends to be unrounded especially among those speakers more fluent in Spanish whose pronunciation p
honetically is closer to a β which has become an accepted allophonic variation in the syllable initial position. Steriade 1994 in her analysis of highland Mazatec dialects centering on the Huautla dialect
considers the corresponding phoneme to be the lacking bilabial stop; however, I consider it as a glide because: 1 it is voiced while all other indigenous stops are voiceless, 2 it lacks the expected consonant
combinations that occur with other stops Ch, C ʔ and nC as will be discussed below in §3.4.3 and 3
like the j the only consonant combination it occurs with is being preceded by the glottal ʔw. Considering
the underlying phoneme to be a bilabial glide produces a symmetrical system with no unexpected voicing or consonant combinations and it is faithful to an acceptable phonetic pronunciation.
3.3.2 Allophones
