33 One additional term may cause confusion, that is, palatal. Hume 1994:79 distinguishes palatalized
consonants and palatals, stating: “…palatalized consonants are specified for secondary vocalic features whereas palatals are not.” In clarifying the use of these terms, it is to be noted that the process of primary
palatalization creates palatal segments, while the process of secondary palatalization creates palatalized segments. In addition, there are inherently palatal segments i.e. articulations made in the palatal area that
are not the result of any known process. For example, in English, the palatal consonant
¾ as in ¾o
u
‘show’ is always articulated in the palatal area; there is no process involved that causes it to move to the palatal area. Likewise, there are palatalized segments with a secondary articulation of palatalization that are
not the result of any known process. Authors using the term secondary articulation of palatalization may include consonants palatalized by the process of secondary palatalization as defined here, and also
palatalized consonants in which no process of palatalization is known. Further explanations and examples are given in the following sections.
3.2 Primary palatalization
In the process of primary palatalization, the point of articulation of the affected consonant moves toward the palatal region, usually in the presence of front vowels or the palatal segment j. Primary palatalization
mainly affects alveolar and velar articulations and consonants located between them. For example, in English, k in keep is more palatal than k in karma. English orthography often reflects this difference in
using k in more palatal environments e.g. key, kiss, keg, and c preceding vowels which do not have a palatalizing effect e.g., car, cold, cut. Many uses of k in nonpalatalizing environments are in words
of non-English origin e.g. karma from Sanskrit and karate from Japanese.
Bhat 1974 gives many examples of different kinds of primary palatalization in the world’s languages. For example, in contrast to the palatalization of the velar stop k in English, Bhat indicates that
in a number of languages, alveolar or alveopalatal consonants are palatalized, but not velar consonants. Bhat cites Wonderly 1949 stating that “in some ZOQUIAN [sic] languages, a contiguous y
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palatalizes an alveolar consonant to an alveopalatal one, but not a velar consonant” 1974:22. In some languages,
apical palatalization occurs before a high-back vowel. Bhat cites Miller 1967 stating that “in PAPAGO, t d s n
are palatalized before i e and u” and “in TEPEHUAN, d is palatalized before i e u” 1974:24. Another type of primary palatalization adds stridency or friction to the consonant. Bhat lists a number of
languages in which this type of palatalization occurs; citing Chomsky and Halle 1968, he states that “in WEST SLAVIC, t d become dental affricates before y” 1974:27. Just how primary palatalization is
manifested is a language specific matter; nevertheless, some kind of primary palatalization is very common cross-linguistically Hume 1994, Keating 1993, Ladefoged and Maddieson 1996.
3.3 Secondary palatalization
In contrast to primary palatalization, secondary palatalization does not necessarily change the place of articulation of the main articulator. In Isthmus Mixe, for example, there is a contrast between pa
πm [paπm] ‘illness’ and
j
-pa πm [p
j
a ÿππm] ‘her illness’ in which the primary bilabial articulation of the palatalized plosive
is still bilabial. According to Bhat, secondary palatalization usually affects all of the consonants of a language,
resulting in contrasting sets of plain and palatalized consonants. As compared to primary palatalization, secondary palatalization is much less common and is areal in occurrence. Moreover, languages in which
secondary palatalization occurs may have some type of primary palatalization as well Bhat 1974:36. This description by Bhat is true of all of the Oaxacan Mixe languages. As an example that secondary
palatalization is relatively uncommon, Maddieson 1984:95 states that: “True palatalized consonants, that
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Bhat 1974 uses y following the Americanist phonetic symbols. Italics and slashes, which have been added to this quotation from Bhat for the reader’s convenience, represent phonemes.
34 is, ones with a palatal secondary articulation usually perceptible because of a j-like offglide, occur in
about 10 of the languages in the survey … .” Although Totontepec Mixe is included in his survey of 317 languages, it is not shown to have [secondary] palatalization because the palatalization in Totontepec Mixe
is analyzed as a sequence of consonant plus j section 3.7.2.
Although the terms primary and secondary palatalization make valid distinctions regarding the processes of palatalization, it is still necessary to describe language specific parameters as to the outcome
of these processes. Mester and Ito 1989:268 note that:
Palatalization does not have the same surface realization among all segments. The characterization ‘palatalized’ is strictly speaking only accurate for noncoronals, i.e.
labials and velars. Palatalization of coronals t, d, s, z, n on the other hand, changes their primary place of articulation to palatalalveopalatal….
In keeping with the parameters set forth by Bhat 1974:36 that [secondary] palatalization often affects all of the consonants of a language, rather than “only a limited portion of the consonantal system” and that in
Isthmus Mixe secondary palatalization usually manifests a morpheme see section 3.7.5, the term secondary palatalization is applied to this phenomenon for all of the Isthmus Mixe consonants, with the
realization that the primary place of articulation of the coronal consonants changes. An additional distinction is that primary palatalization is usually caused by the immediate phonetic environment,
whereas, in Isthmus Mixe, the palatalizing effects are not caused by an adjacent segment, but are morpheme-induced.
3.4 Palatalized consonants
