32 feature, in which every Isthmus Mixe consonant and vowel may be modified by secondary
palatalization, which usually manifests a morpheme see section 3.7.5. In most of the world’s languages that have a set of palatalized consonants in complementary
distribution with plain consonants, the palatalized consonants occur adjacent to front vowels only, or in the case of word-final palatalization, historically, there was a front vowel, which is now truncated to consonant
palatalization, for example, Lithuanian Kenstowicz 1972, Nenets Salminen 1999, and Russian Comrie 1981. In these languages, palatalization is not related to a morpheme. Extensive research by the author of
this study has not revealed any languages, except the Oaxacan Mixe languages, in which the entire consonant inventory may be modified by secondary palatalization manifesting a morpheme. Thus, this type
of palatalization appears to be typologically rare.
The remainder of this study is dedicated to explaining the phonological processes of palatalization, especially as found in the Mixe-Zoque languages and specifically in Isthmus Mixe, both from the phonetic
perspective of a detailed case study, and from theoretical implications. In the next section, a distinction is made between primary and secondary palatalization, and a review of the existing descriptions of
palatalization in the Mixe-Zoque languages is given. Original to this study is a discussion of the origin of secondary palatalization in the Oaxacan Mixe languages. In section 4, a case study of Text A will reveal
that all of the Isthmus Mixe consonants including the laryngeal consonants, h and
Ð, may be palatalized, and that a complete set of vowel allophones occurs adjacent to palatalized consonants. This
case study of the phonology of the language utilizing acoustic analyses of continuous text data is the first of its kind in the Mixe-Zoque languages.
3. General considerations on palatalization
3.1 Introduction
The definitions of the basic types of palatalization processes given in section 1.1 are reviewed here: 1 primary palatalization, which modifies the primary articulation of the consonant itself, and 2 secondary
palatalization, which is the addition of a high front tongue position [i]-like as a secondary articulation that occurs simultaneously with the primary consonantal articulation Bhat 1974:19–20, Keating 1993:6,
Ladefoged 1993:230.
50
However, these major types of palatalization processes have not always been differentiated, which often results in ambiguity. Bhat 1974:19 states that palatalization was considered to
be a single diachronic or morphophonemic process by linguists and the cover term palatalization was commonly used without making important and necessary distinctions as to the type of palatalization
process.
Hume 1994 uses the term palatalization for what is defined here as secondary palatalization and coronalization
for what is defined here as primary palatalization. She states: In Palatalization, the consonant acquires a vowel-like articulation while maintaining
its original major place of articulation. In Coronalization, a front vocoid affects a change in the consonant’s major place of articulation, either from velar to nonanterior
coronal, or from anterior coronal to nonanterior coronal Hume 1994:129.
However, since the term palatalization has a long history of being used for both processes, the modifiers of primary
and secondary are used in this study to distinguish the two processes.
50
The terms primary palatalization and secondary palatalization are from Keating 1993:6 who quotes the definition by Ladefoged 1982:210 and states: “This is called secondary palatalization because the palatalization is a secondary
articulation added to a primary one. … This can be called primary palatalization because the primary articulation is affected and there is no separate secondary articulation.”
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
