The state of language use for Northern Pame is not promising and the language shows every sign of being moribund. A similar diagnosis was given by Soustelle two generations ago during his initial
research of the language. Una informante con quien trabajamos en Tierras Coloradas, una anciana inteligente y vigorosa,
deploraba la desaparición inminente del pame y reprochaba a los demás indígenas su indiferencia o su timidez; pero ella parecía la única que tenía conciencia de la situación 1937: 333.
One informant with whom we worked in Tierras Coloradas, an intelligent and vigorous older woman, deplored the imminent disappearance of Pame and reproached the other indigenous for
their indifference or their timidity; but she appeared to be the only one that had consciousness of the situation.
Another example comes from Felix Baltazar, a Northern Pame speaker who presently resides in Cuesta Blanca. Mr. Baltazar was raised speaking Northern Pame and subsequently learned Spanish at
seven years of age in primary school. He describes the humiliation of constantly being behind in his studies and the ridicule by both teachers and classmates because of his ‘poor Spanish’, as leaving a
permanent scar on his scholastic studies. When Mr. Baltazar married his wife, María de los Ángeles, they both consciously made the decision to speak only Spanish with their children so that they would not
suffer the same experiences their parents. Some years later, Mr. Baltazar began working with educators and linguists in documenting his
mother tongue. This gave him a new appreciation for Northern Pame, and he and Maria changed their philosophy of ‘Spanish only’ with their children. However, with four of the five already past puberty,
only the youngest child was able to learn Northern Pame well enough to speak and understand it. Of the seven principal Northern Pame villages that surround La Palma, monolingual speakers of the
language have been identified only in La Manzanilla and Pozos Cuates. In these communities, parents speak the language with one another as well as with their children. Likewise, children can be found
speaking in Northern Pame with one another, although this is the exception not the rule. In the villages of Cuesta Blanca and Copalillos, adult speakers still regularly converse in the language, but with few
exceptions these same speakers use only Spanish with their children.
1.4 State of research
Research of the Pamean languages began in the 18
th
century by early Catholic friars and was limited to the comparison of Pame data to Spanish. One such example is that from Fray Francisco Valle in his
Quaderno de Algunas Reglas y apuntes sobre el Idioma Pame. From roughly 1920 to the present day, we find linguistic descriptions by scholars such as Soustelle and Avelino to be of a higher quality and of
greater depth than those of the colonial era. From this latter period, the linguistic borders of Northern, Central and the now extinct Southern Pame were firmly established. Likewise, the basic facts related to
Central and Northern Pame phonetics were documented for the first time. Avelino’s research has brought to light several morphological and morphophonemic facts specifically
about Northern Pame. Regarding morphology, Avelino 1997 describes the number system for certain Northern Pame nouns, which includes both a dual and plural system. Likewise, Avelino 1997, 2002
gives considerable attention to the grammatical tone system of Northern Pame nouns. Avelino 1997 focuses on a limited, but important set of morphophonemic processes including palatalization, dorsal
mutation reasociación de articuladores, denasalization oralización, lateralization, epenthesis, the allomorph s in the context of the dual morpheme and tone sandhi.
1.5 Research problem
Our understanding of the phonological structure of Northern Pame is still quite limited. For this reason, the present research has endeavored to clarify a number of important issues; aiming for a clear
description, and ultimately incorporating the Northern Pame data into an explanatory framework. First,
we lack acoustic evidence for all of the claims made about Northern Pame phonemics, with the exception of Avelino’s work on Northern Pame tone sandhi 1997, 2002. In addition, there exists no
comprehensive description nor explanation of the syllable structure of Northern Pame, nor accounts of the Northern Pame syllable compared to other languages with regard to markedness. Such a comparison
is pivotal in order to provide an account under a constraint theory, where markedness plays a crucial role.
The topic of laryngeal theory in Northern Pame has yet to be addressed, although important strides have been made with regard to laryngeals in other Otomanguean languages. Such studies carried out by
scholars such as Longacre 1952 and Silverman 1995, 1998, make definitive claims regarding laryngealized vowels VhV, VʔV in Trique, Mazatec and Chinantec. However, it is not clear how
applicable their conclusions are to other Otomanguean languages including those of the Pamean family. The segmental status of laryngeally ambiguous vowels in Northern Pame, the most Northern relative of
the Otomanguean language family, is yet to be determined. Finally, Northern Pame research is completely void of a description of its verbal morphology since
we have only Avelino’s 1997 description of morphological number in Northern Pame, and very little else. At the same time, a cursory look at Northern Pame data reveals that there is much more to be
described and explained within the noun system as well. Avelino 1997 has given us much to consider in his account of Northern Pame morphophonemics
from a descriptivist perspective. However, we have no understanding of how the rich morphophonemic system of Northern Pame might be understood in light of an explanatory theory of markedness. At the
same time, other domains remain completely unexplored such as the alternations of laryngeal features during morphological concatenation.
1.6 Methodology
