Browsing by Subject "Otomanguean languages"

Now showing 1 - 3 of 3

Betaza Zapotec phonology : segmental and suprasegmental features
(2009-08) Teodocio Olivares, Amador; Crowhurst, Megan Jane
This report analyzes the phonology of Betaza Zapotec, a language within the linguistic family of the Otomanguean languages of Mesoamerica that is spoken in northern Oaxaca, Mexico. The first part of this report describes the consonants of the language; the second part focuses on the vowel system; and the third section describes the suprasegmentals; tone and stress. I support my claims about the phonological system in Betaza Zapotec using data collected during the Summer of 2008 in San Melchor, Betaza Villa Alta, Oaxaca. I analyze the phonetic properties of the consonants, vowels and tones using spectrograms obtained through Praat, software for phonetic analysis. I consider the fortis/lenis opposition inherent in the consonants rather than using the traditional classification of voiced/voiceless consonants. The tone system in Betaza Zapotec involves four contrastive tones: high, low, falling, and rising. In addition there is a phonetic mid-tone which is a toneme of the high tone.
The phonology and inflectional morphology of Cháʔknyá, Tataltepec de Valdés Chatino, a Zapotecan language
(2015-05) Sullivant, John Ryan; Woodbury, Anthony C.; England, Nora; Epps, Patience; Myers, Scott; DiCanio, Christian; Rasch, Jeffrey
This dissertation is a description of the phonology and inflectional morphology of an endangered indigenous language of Mexico stemming from a collaborative research project that places an emphasis on natural language and on describing a language on its own terms. The language described is Tataltepec Chatino (ISO 639-3: cta), a Zapotecan language spoken by fewer than 500 people only in the community of Tataltepec de Valdés in Mexico's Oaxaca state. The language has a complex system of tone in which tone sequences are the crucial morphological element rather than the constituent tones of the tone sequences. The tone system has a slightly peculiar inventory, with the level tones Low, High, and Superhigh rather than Low, Mid, and High in addition to a High-Low contour tone. The tonal system is also notable given the unlinked tone in two tone sequences which only surfaces in particular phonological contexts, but is never displaced from the word it is associated with, unlike canonical floating tones. The segmental phonology shows a language that permits a large number of often very complex onset clusters many of which violate the Sonority Sequencing Principle, but maintains tight restrictions on codas, allowing only a simple coda which can only be filled by one of two consonants in the language. Tataltepec Chatino also has interesting morphological features in its complex systems of verb aspect and person inflection which are instantiated by a system of prefixes and a system of complex paradigmatic alternations which only partially intersect. The language also has an unusual word I analyze as a "pseudoclassifier" which appears to serve some pragmatic functions of numeral classifiers while failing to do any lexical classification.
The phonology and morphology of Zacatepec eastern Chatino
(2015-05) Villard, Stéphanie; Woodbury, Anthony C.; England, Nora C; Epps, Patience L; Law, Danny; Sicoli, Mark A
This dissertation presents an analysis of the phonology and some aspects of the morphology of Zacatepec Eastern Chatino (ISO 639-3: ctz), an Otomanguean language of the Zapotecan branch spoken near the Pacific coast of the State of Oaxaca, Mexico. It is based on primary data obtained from fieldwork conducted by the author (from 2006 to 2013) in the community of San Marcos Zacatepec, district of Juquila, Oaxaca, Mexico. Zacatepec Chatino is only spoken in that small community of about one thousand inhabitants. There are only about 300 speakers left, all above 50 years old. This variety of Chatino finds itself in an advanced language shift to Spanish, and as a result its vitality status is considered severely endangered. The description of Zacatepec Chatino is important within the study of Chatino languages in general, as contrary to most other Chatino varieties, it conserves all non-final syllables of its roots. This fact makes it a centerpiece for the Chatino language puzzle as its transparent morphology tells the story of the evolution of more innovative Chatino varieties. Indeed, beyond simply revealing lost segments/morphemes, it provides polymoraic structures that host clear sequences of tones that are not discernable in the monosyllabic/monomoraic varieties. The phonological analysis begins with a presentation of the segmental sound system, including two of the three contrastive supra-segmental features: nasalization and vowel length. Nasal vowels and long vowels are described together with oral vowels whereas tone, is dealt with in detail in a separate chapter. Directly following the segmental analysis, a chapter is devoted to the phonotactics of the language. Tone, being the hallmark of Otomanguean languages, is an area of the phonology that is described in great detail. The tonal system is intricate as it involves four levels of pitch represented in five mora-linked tones and three unlinked (floating) tones arranged in many tonal sequences which become the signatures for lexical classes. Furthermore, polysyllabicity allows for many moraic shapes resulting in a variety of possible phonetic realizations of the tonal sequences which mark the tonal Classes. The other highlight of this dissertation is a chapter dedicated to the description of the inflectional system, an area revealed to be quite com plex at the morphological and the morphophonological level. Nevertheless, despite its prima facie maze of irregularities, this intricate inflectional system actually presents a high rate of predictability in its segmental (aspect prefixes) and tonal conjugation Classes. This chapter describes the different patterns of inflection (segmental and tonal) for three different parts of speech: the verb, the inalienable noun, and the predicative adjective. The last chapter is devoted to the description of the numerical system which is interesting because the numerical phrases do not always follow the tonal sandhi rules of the language, and often result in idiosyncratic tonal patterns. It is important to document and describe this ancient numerical system as the language is in advanced language shift to Spanish. Its usage is loosing ground very rapidly and usually, when speakers need to count or utter a number (especially one above 15), they code-switch to Spanish. This work is a first step towards a comprehensive documentation of Zacatepec Chatino, which as of today, includes a large corpus of natural discourse recorded within the community by native speakers (about 170 hours), a collection of transcribed and translated texts, and a lexicon and verb database with full paradigms for more than 300 verb roots. The corpus is archived with open access at the Archive of Indigenous Languages of Latin America, University of Texas at Austin, and at the Endangered Languages Archive, School of Oriental and African Studies, London.