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Table 3-3 Vowel Examples in Soyaltepec Mazatec
Vowel Oral Vowel Nasal Vowel
a. aã
ha˩ ‘eagle’ ha˧ʔa˧ ‘happened’
hã˥ ‘three’ hã˧˥ ‘there’
b. ɛɛ̃
hɛ˧ ‘fat’ hɛ˩ʔɛ˩ ‘young ear of corn’
hẽ˧˩ ‘smells’ ts︢ɛ˧hẽ˧˦ ‘visible’
ts︢ɛ˧hɛ̃˧ ‘fell’
c. iĩ
- hi˥ ‘negative suffix’
hi˦ ‘you singular’ hĩ˥ ‘name’
hĩ˦˥ ‘blood’ hĩ˧˦ ‘eight’
hĩ˧˩ ‘we, exclusive’
d. oõ
ho˥ ‘two’ ja˧ho˥ ‘sharp
ja˧ho˧ ‘meat’ hõ˧˦ ‘six’
hõ˧ ‘soldier’
e. uũ
ndu˧hu˥ ‘long’ ndu˩hu˩ ‘soap’
hũ˧ ‘yes’ hũ˥ ‘you plural’
The corresponding nasal vowel for each of the five oral vowels is contrastive; oral and nasal vowels are distinct phonemes. The further examples with various consonants given in §3.3 will reinforce this fact.
3.2.2 Pronunciation and Variation
In this section, I discuss the variation that occurs in Soyaltepec vowel pronunciation. For the most part, the pronunciation of the vowels is consistent. The vowels a, i, o and u are realized as [a], [i], [o]
and [u] respectively in every environment with little variation. In the case of the nasalized phonemes, the vowel quality of
ã, ɛ̃, ĩ and ũ is maintained by all speakers. The only vowels which undergo variation by some speakers are the oral vowel
ɛ and the nasal vowel õ. The only oral vowel to exhibit variation is
ɛ which sometimes appears as [e]. While [ɛ] is more common, [e] often appears in Spanish loan words and occasionally in indigenous words. In 5, 5a is
borrowed from Spanish and 5b is an indigenous word.
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5 Examples of [e]
Transcription Gloss
a. pe˧ᶘu˦˩ ‘peso’ the Mexican monetary unit
b. te˧ja˧˦ ‘deaf’
It is possible that the presence of the palatal consonant following the ɛ as occurs in 5b conditions the
pronunciation for some speakers. Occasionally, the same word will be articulated with the pronunciation of the [e
ɛ] varying from utterance to utterance or person to person. An initial hypothesis is that the [e] pronunciation is more prevalent in speakers who have a greater exposure to Spanish; however, the issue
will be left to further research. Since there is no consistent environment across all speakers, the [e ɛ]
variation will be considered a case of free variation. The only nasal vowel to exhibit variation is õ. Some speakers always pronounce the õ as
[õ], some pronounce it as
[ ũ] thus merging these two phonemes and others exhibit some free variation.
Because of this variation, the alternate pronunciations in 6 occur; 6a demonstrates the underlying phonemes maintained by some speakers while 6b demonstrates the alternate articulation of [
õ] as [ũ].
6 Possible [
õ] to [ ũ] pronunciation alternation
Transcription Gloss
Notes a.
Hũ˧, hõ˧ hõ˦˩ ‘Yes, six soldiers.’
underlying phonemes b.
Hũ˧, hũ˧ hũ˦˩ ‘Yes, six soldiers.’
alternate pronunciation When speakers hear someone with the alternate pronunciation from their own, they attribute the variance to
exposure to the San Jose Independencia dialect of Mazatec. These differences in pronunciation do not affect the tone system. I will always indicate the underlying õ.
Although there is not free variation between the oral vowels o and u, it would appear that there may be vowel quality neutralization. It will be demonstrated in §3.3 that [o] has a very limited distribution,
only occurring with velar and glottal consonants in indigenous words. It is unclear if o occurs in other
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environments but surfaces as [u] under certain conditions, or if there are no underlying lexemes with o in other environments. Borrowed words that contain an [o] in Spanish occasionally occur with [o] 7a, but
more frequently they surface with an [u] 7b-c. 7
Encoding of borrowed words Transcription
Spanish source Gloss
a. to˧ro˩
toro ‘bull’
b. ndu˧mi˦ngu˩
domingo ‘Sunday’
c. bu˧ru˩
burro ‘donkey’
Further research is needed to determine if the [o] pronunciation is favored by speakers who are more familiar with Spanish
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and monolingual speakers would never use the [o] even in borrowings. Perhaps examples such as 7a are more recent borrowings which are in the process of shifting to a more natural
Soyaltepec Mazatec pronunciation. Another possibility is that increasing exposure to Spanish is making the [o] more acceptable and more recent borrowings will never shift to [u].
The pronunciation of vowels in Soyaltepec is relatively stable, with the exception of some variation in the expression of
ɛ and õ. The differences are speaker specific and do not influence the greater phonological analysis of the language. There is also the possibility of vowel quality neutralization
between o and u and theoretically the nasal counterparts as well in non-glottal, non-velar environments. These differences do not influence the tone of the language.
3.2.3 Nasal Occurrence Restrictions
