112
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
Most of the phonemes in Soyaltepec Mazatec are consistent, occurring word initially and intervocalically without restriction. The only exception is the case stated above regarding the w in word
initial positions which surfaces as a β. Consider the data in 12. The first column shows word initial
examples while the second shows word medial examples.
113
12 β vs. w
Transcription Gloss
Transcription Gloss
βa˧sɛ˧ ‘half’
ti˧wa˩ ‘plate’
βɛ˧ ‘know’
kha˧wɛ˦˥ ‘grabs’
βi˧ʃu˥ ‘they fell’
ndʒ︢u˧wi˧ ‘worm’
The process in 12 can be expressed as the rule in 13a which can be further generalized to 13b since the w is the only consonant phoneme which is rounded.
70
13 Loss of w rounding
a. w
→ β __ b.
[+round] →[-round] _____
While there are no other positional allophones, there are allophones which occur when more than one phoneme occurs in the onset of a syllable. First, when a nasal precedes an obstruent, two changes occur: the
first in the place of articulation of the nasal, the second in the voicing of the obstruent 14. 14
Nasal assimilation data Underlying Representation
Surface Structure Gloss
a. Nku˧˦
[ŋgu˧˦] ‘one’
b. Nta˧˥
[nda˧˥] ‘good’
c. Ntʃ︢a˩
[ndʒ︢a˩] ‘waterythin’
The nasal assumes the place of articulation of the obstruent and the obstruent assumes the voicing of the nasal. In each of these examples, the nasal is indicated as N – it is unclear if the nasal should have any
specification for place in the underlying representation. In the surface form, the nasal assimilates to the place of articulation of the following obstruent. The position after the nasal is the only place where an
obstruent in Soyaltepec Mazatec experiences voicing. 15
Allophones resulting from nasal, voicing assimilation Underlying form
Surface form
70
The features could also be represented in a tree structure and the tendency to flatten could be stated in a constraint; I am more interested in the processes which occur than in a theoretic orientation.
114
a. N
[n] or [ŋ]
b. t [t] or [d]
c. k [k] or [g]
d. ts︢ [ts︢] or [dz︢]
e. tʃ︢ [t
ʃ︢] or [dʒ︢] A second set of allophones involving consonant clusters in the onsets are those which contain a
glottal fricative and a nasal element. These morphemes are articulated with a voiceless nasal; however, there is no need to hypothesize the existence of the voiceless nasals as phonemes because this is the only
environment in which they surface and the assimilation is not uncommon cross linguistically 16. 16
Voiceless nasals Underlying form
Surface form Gloss
a. hma˥
[m̥ma˥] ‘black’
b. hnu˩ [n̥nu˩]
‘cornfield’ c. hɲu˥
[ ɲ̥ɲu˥]
‘night’ In each case, the glottal fricative assumes the place of articulation of the following nasal, but retains its
voiceless distinction. Again, there is no need to posit three voiceless nasal phonemes which would unnecessarily expand the number of phonemes as this is the only place that the allophones occur.
17 Glottal fricative allophones
Underlying representation Surface form
h [h], [m̥], [n̥] or [ɲ̥]
A final case of assimilation involves the postalveolar phonemes ʃ and tʃ︢ which are
optionally retroflexed when preceding a back vowel 18.
71 71
Although ş is more universally used to indicate this phoneme, I have chosen to indicate the retroflexed phoneme with the symbol
ᶘ because it is an allophonic free variation of the ʃ and not a separate phoneme.
115
18 Postalveolar sibilant pronunciation
Before back vowels Elsewhere
Transcription Gloss
Transcription Gloss
a. βi˧ᶘu˥
‘they fell’ g.
ki˧ʃi˥ ‘dry’
b. ᶘu˩hũ˩ ‘paper’
h. na˩ʃi˩
‘hill’ c.
ᶘu˧ ‘boils’
i. βi˧ʃtu˧sĩ˦˩
‘squirrel’ d
. tᶘ︢u˩ ‘animal’
j. ʃkũ˩
‘eye’ e.
tᶘ︢ho˩˦ ‘egg’
k . tʃ︢i˧ndɛ˧
‘tender’ f.
tᶘ︢hũ˩˦ ‘woman’
l . tʃ︢hɛ˩
‘alms’ The retroflection occurs in both the simple phoneme 18a-c as well we in the affricate 18d-f and is not
influenced by the presence of the glottal fricative as is evident in 18e, f and l. Likewise, the elsewhere condition holds for both the simple phoneme and the affricate for the environment directly preceding a
front vowel 18g, h and k which is also not hindered by the presence of the glottal fricative 18l. Also, the cluster before a stop retains the non-retroflexed version of the phoneme 18i, j despite the back vowel in
the nucleus. Finally, syllable structure, and by extension the stress on the syllable, does not play a role in this alternation 18a, b, g, h, i and k.
19 Postalveolar allophones
Underlying representation Surface form
ʃ [ʃ] or [ᶘ]
tʃ︢ [tʃ︢] or [tᶘ︢]
Each of these place and voice assimilations are common allophonic relationships cross- linguistically and none play a role in the tonal system.
116
3.3.3 Simple Consonants with Oral Vowels
