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Clusters with ʔ are the most pervasive; all of the indigenous phonemes participate in these
clusters except for the f
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and the ɾ which never participate in clusters. I consider the member of the
cluster which supplies the oral place of articulation to be the primary member of the cluster. The glottal consonants never appear as the primary member i.e., they modify but are never ‘modified’. The s-stop
and stop-stop clusters do not have a primary member as neither member assumes features from the other. In other words, the s retains its coronal features and sibilant energy even when paired with the dorsal k, etc.
Consonant clusters of Soyaltepec can be divided into two main groups. The first group consists of the five clusters which are combinations of two distinct phonemes which do not influence the
characteristics of their neighbor, specifically, st, sk, ʃt, ʃk and tk. Each phoneme has equal weight
in the cluster. An analysis which proposed that st was a t with s modification seems linguistically unusual. Similarly, considering the s to be primary with some kind of t modification in unacceptable.
The second groups involves combinations such as th which could be analyzed as a t with the modification of h features, i.e., aspiration. All members of this group involve combinations of phonemes
in which one member of the clusters may be seen as more dominant and therefore may be argued to be modified phonemes instead of true clusters. This group involves clusters with glottal consonants and nasals
such as tʔ, th and nt, which might be interpreted as glottalized, aspirated or pre-nasalized
respectively. I begin the discussion by giving examples of s-stop and stop-stop clusters, and then present the combinations which could either be interpreted as clusters or as modified consonants.
3.4.3.1 S-Stop and Stop-Stop Clusters
As stated above, this group includes st, sk, ʃt, ʃk and tk; clusters with two distinct
phonemes, both obsturents, in which there is no subordinate member. The first four clusters involve a fricative followed by a stop and the final cluster combines two stops. General observations include that
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The f never occurs in clusters, possibly because it originated historically from the hw cluster and clusters of more than two consonants do not occur.
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each cluster ends with a stop either t or k and the places of articulation are either similar i.e., both coronal or begin forward in the mouth and move back i.e., move from coronal to dorsal. The members of
this group are all less common than the clusters which will be discussed in the three sections below.
Phonetically, the two phonemes present are articulated separately in succession, in the order specified. Examples of all five of the clusters co-occurring with oral vowels can be found in Table 3-14
which is similar to the tables found above that display the simple consonants in order to demonstrate the distribution of the clusters with oral vowels. The vowels are listed across the top row. When monosyllabic
examples are unavailable, multisyllabic words are included in order to demonstrate the co-occurrence. As Soyaltepec Mazatec does not allow codas, these clusters do not separate even when intervocalic. Recall that
the syllable break occurs after the tone letter and stressed syllables are underlined.
Table 3-14 Examples of indisputable clusters
cluster i
ɛ a
o u
st ni˩sti˧
‘child’ st
ɛ˦ɲa˧˥ ‘he sells’
ʃt ʃtiu˦
‘underdeveloped’ ʃta˩ni˩sti˧
‘adult son, unmarried’
βi˧ʃtu˧ts︢ĩ˦˩ ‘squirrel’
sk ski
˩ ‘cicada’
ska˧ngi˩ ‘collected’
ta˧ri˦˥sko˩˧ ‘vulture’
sku˧nda˩ ‘she took
care of him’ cluster
i ɛ
a o
u ʃk
ʃki˩ ‘stories’
ʃkɛ˧ ‘swollen’
ʃka˥ ‘pants’
ʃkua˧ ‘ugly’
tk tki˦˥
‘medicine’ tka˧
‘bald’ tku˩
‘head’
Although the only examples of ʃti and ʃku occur with diphthongs, they nevertheless confirm the
adjacency of the phonemes in question. An inspection of the data presented reveals all four level tones and rising tones. Falling tones are absent here but there is an example in Table 3-15 below which focuses on
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diphthongs. The gap is due to the rarity of both falling tones and this type of cluster rather than a prohibition.
All five clusters occur with i. All except st occur with a and u. The ɛ only occurs with st
and ʃk and o only occurs with sk. Recall that examples of t and k co-occurring with i, ɛ, a
and u where given in §3.3.3. There are no examples of indigenous words containing to; however, examples with ko are available. While there are not examples of all of the vowels with each cluster, there
are no examples in which a vowel occurred adjacent to a cluster ending in a given phoneme when the simple onset is not also represented in my database. Stated another way, [Cto]
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is not allowed since [to] does not occur while [Cko] is allowed because [ko] exists. The mid vowels are, in general,
underrepresented. There are only four examples of co-occurrence of the consonant clusters with nasal vowels; one
cluster appears with ã and three with ũ. Examples are listed in 28.
28 Consonant clusters with nasal vowels
Cluster V Example
Gloss a. skã
ja˧skã˦ ‘after’
b. skũ
nga˧skũ˦˥ ‘left’
c. ʃkũ ʃkũ˩
‘eyes’ d.
tkũ ndʒa˧tkũ˩
‘be frightened’ Two of the examples with nasalized vowels 28a and b occur with sk which is also the only cluster which
occurs with o. Although there are multiple examples of several of these combinations, they are not common. Recall from
§3.3.4 that the simple onset k also occurs with ã and ũ.
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C refers to a generic consonant.
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The consonant clusters can also occur with vowel clusters. Table 3-15 is set up in the same way as Table 3-14, but only lists the four diphthongs that occur with the consonant clusters in my data, rather than
all oral diphthongs. These are listed across the top row of the chart. The consonant clusters are listed down the far left column.
Table 3-15 Consonant Clusters with Oral Diphthongs
cluster ua
uɛ iu
iɛ st
ʃt ʃtiu˦
‘underdeveloped’ sk
skua˩ ‘heron’
ʃk ʃkua˧
‘ugly’ ʃkuɛ˦˥
‘lettuce’ ʃkiɛ˦˩
‘frog tk
t kua˧
‘snail’ tkuɛ˧
‘raspy’
Three of the clusters, sk, ʃk and tk occur with ua, and the latter two also occur with uɛ. The
final two diphthongs which occur with clusters are iu which occurs with ʃt and iɛ with ʃk. Again,
while there are not examples of all possible combinations, the ones that occur also occur with the corresponding simple onset, i.e., kua, ku
ɛ, kiɛ and tiu see §3.4.2.1 for examples. There are only two nasalized diphthongs which occur with these consonant clusters, examples
appear in 29. 29
Nasal diphthongs with consonant clusters Cluster
Example Gloss
a. sk skũã˧˩
‘dust’ b. ʃk
ʃkũɛ̃˦˥ ‘unripe’
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This is unsurprising given the co-occurrence pattern that was demonstrated in §3.4.2.2. Nasal
diphthongs never occur with t and the only two which occur with k are the same two which occur here, ũã and
ũɛ̃. There are no examples of nasalized diphthongs occurring with a cluster if the corresponding oral diphthong does not also occur with that cluster.
There is some evidence that tk emerged from the elision of i. For example, in 30a the common form of the word for ‘snail’ appears. A disyllabic form containing and i in the first syllable is
shown in 30b. This form is recognized and used by some of the older speakers, but is no longer used commonly by younger speakers. If they recognize it at all, they note that it is the pronunciation used by
their grandparent’s generation. 30
Emergen ce of tk… from tik...
Soyaltepec Gloss
a. tkua ˦˥
‘snail’ current pronunciation b. ti˧kua˦˥
‘snail’ antiquated pronunciation
While the tk cluster might be attributed, with some validating examples of i elision which may explain its existence in the absence of other similar clusters, there is no such evidence for the remaining
four members of this group. A comparison with other Mazatec dialects reveals that st, sk , ʃt and ʃk
appear in varying degrees of commonness. There is a hypothesis Gudschinsky 1959, that the sibilants formed from older forms that were pre-aspirated; however, some, including Steriade 1994, claim that the
present pre-aspirated stops, ht, etc, in Highland Mazatec are derived from underlying st. There is also no explanation for the differentiation of st from
ʃt if both derived from the pre-aspirated ht. I will leave further speculation to future research.
The two clusters which end in t are the least common clusters; st and ʃt are involved in only a
handful of examples each. There are no single syllable examples of st and only one of ʃt which occurs
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with a diphthong.
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The clusters which end in k are more plentiful; each is available both in single and multi-syllable words. The instances of nucleus co-occurrence with clusters always have corresponding
examples in which the given nucleus appears adjacent to the simple onset that represents the second member of the cluster in question.
These five clusters provide evidence that the syllable template of Soyaltepec Mazatec needs to allow at least two consonants CC. Furthermore, these forms never appear in combination with any other
consonant phoneme; they are never aspirated, glottalized or nasalized. This is evidence that the maximal template contains at most two consonants. The consonant clusters also occur with several diphthongs,
giving examples of CCVV as the maximum syllable of Soyaltepec Mazatec.
3.4.3.2 Clusters Containing Glottal Stops or Glottalized Consonants
