DOCSLIB.ORG

Prosodic Structure in Ixtayutla Mixtec: Evidence for the Foot

Total Page：16

File Type：pdf, Size：1020Kb

Download full-text PDF Read full-text
Prosodic Structure in Ixtayutla Mixtec: Evidence for the Foot Prosodic structure in Ixtayutla Mixtec: Evidence for the foot by Kevin L. Penner A thesis submitted in partial fulfillment of the requirements for the degree of Doctor of Philosophy Department of Linguistics University of Alberta Examining committee: Dr. David Beck, Supervisor Dr. Anja Arnhold, Supervisory Committee Dr. Christian DiCanio, Supervisory Committee Dr. Stephanie Archer, Examiner Dr. Larry Hyman, External Examiner © Kevin L. Penner, 2019 Abstract Research on Mixtec languages (Otomanguean, Mexico), has long recognized a bimoraic/ bisyllabic “couplet” as an essential structure for the description of the phonology and morphology (e.g. Pike 1948; Josserand 1983); however, what exactly this structure is in terms of the struc- ture of the word, as well as the nature and extent of its influence in the grammar has not been adequately addressed. Most researchers have assumed that the couplet is the root, but this is prob- lematic since some synchronic roots are larger than a couplet, other couplets are multimorphemic and some couplets have a reduced form when not the stressed element in compounds. For a more adequate understanding of this structure, I turn to prosodic phonology where units of higher level phonological organization arranged in what is called the prosodic hierarchy form the domains for phonological patterns and provide the shapes of templates. Of particular relevance to the problem at hand is the foot, which is identified in the literature as a constituent between the syllable and the prosodic word in the prosodic hierarchy (Selkirk 1980a; Selkirk 1980b). Cross-linguistically, the foot is integrally connected to stress assignment, has a small inventory of basic shapes, plays an important templatic function in the synchronic and diachronic phonology of many languages and provides the domain for phonological rules and phonotactic generalizations. In this dissertation I show that the couplet in Ixtayutla Mixtec (IM), an underdescribed Mixtec variety spoken in Oaxaca, Mexico has all of these properties of the foot. I first show that the couplet is the locus of stress assignment in IM, a structure intermediate in size between the syllable and prosodic word and has the shape identified as a moraic trochee in Hayesʼ (1995) inventory of foot types. Although IM stress is not the iterative kind usually used in metrical arguments for the foot, Spanish loanword adaptation in IM clearly demonstrates that stress is obligatorily realized in a left-headed, bimoraic structure. ii iii Strong evidence that the couplet is a foot comes from the way this structure to which stress is assigned also functions templatically to create foot-sized structures. As the minimal word/root template, the foot triggers the synchronic augmentation of underlyingly monomoraic /CV(ˀ)/ struc- tures to bimoraic CV(ˀ)V. Fossilized stems also show how subminimal forms were combined to create foot-sized stems at an earlier stage of the phonology, while at the same time the foot pro- vides a template for the truncation of larger structures down to foot-size. Beyond mere size/shape, evidence for foot structure is seen, for instance, in the loss of unfooted, and therefore prosodically weak, pre-couplet vowels, as well as the loss of couplet-medial consonants, which stand in the weak position of the trochaic foot. Like the foot, the couplet also provides the domain for the realization of a number of diverse phonological patterns including distributional restrictions on contrastive laryngealization, nasalized segments, vowels, labial consonants, epenthetic laryngealization and tone. The end result of the foot-based analysis provided is in this dissertation a coherent explana- tion for a disparate set of phonological patterns encompassing the synchronic and the diachronic dimensions of the phonology. Preface This thesis is an original work by Kevin L. Penner. The research project, of which this thesis is a part, received research ethics approval from the University of Alberta Research Ethics Board, Project Name “Documentation of Ixtayutla Mixtec”, ID: MS9_Pro00012477, April 21, 2010 (final renewal March 7, 2018). iv Dedication In memory of Alyssa Anne Penner 2006–2010 v Acknowledgments I would first like to acknowledge my Mixtec friends and consultants, who have spent count- less hours helping me learn and explore their language. I am particularly grateful to Primo Quiroz Quiroz, who invited me and my family to live among them, Miguel Quiroz Merino, who was my primary consultant and let our family live in his house for over a year, and Inez Merino Quiroz, who also provided a mountain of data, especially in the early days of my research. Other important Mixtec friends and consultants are Celerina Quiroz Merino, Andrea Hernandez Merino, Francisco Quiroz Merino and Andrés Quiroz Quiroz. I owe a debt of gratitude to the members of my supervising committee—Dr. David Beck, Dr. Anja Arnhold and Dr. Christian DiCanio—for the many hours they have devoted to this project, their challenging comments/questions and expert advice. I particularly thank my supervisor, David, for his patience, encouragement, expertise, commitment to excellence and repeated attempts to help me remember that this dissertation is just the beginning and not the last word about Ixtayutla Mixtec phonology. Thanks, also, to the other members of my committee, Dr. Larry Hyman and Dr. Stephanie Archer, for taking time to evaluate my dissertation and offer their insights. Thanks to Dr. Keith Snider for his input particularly in regard to the tone analysis; to Dr. Ben Tucker for serving on my candidacy committee, encouraging me and introducing me to acoustic analysis; to Dr. Scott Berthiaume for helping me with the initial analysis of vowel coalescence; to Robert Kirchner for his guidance on my initial descriptions of the tone system; to Dr. Antti Arpe and Stan Guedes for their help with statistics; and to Dr. Inga McKendry for her encouragement. Dr. Andy Black deserves a medal for developing the XLingPaper software I used to write this dissertation and for the one-on-one support he gave me. This dissertation would never have been completed vi vii without the help of these people and it is certainly a much better product for their input; but don’t blame them for the shortcomings that it still displays! My dear wife, Laurel, should be awarded a degree herself for her contribution in this project, preparing production experiment sound files for analysis, helping to populate my tone and Field- works databases, transcribing oral texts in ELAN for hours and hours and editing drafts of the dissertation. Beyond these practical helps, however, she has believed in me, when I did not believe in myself, endured my tirades and discouragement and shouldered extra family responsibilities be- cause of my long hours of work. I love you very much, Dear, and it’s clear that you love me, too. Thanks, also, to my children, Kyle, Gabrielle and Daniela, for your patience and love during the long journey to complete this project. May Alyssa, who passed away in the first year of my program, experience unbridled joy and peace in the loving arms of Papa. I also wish to express my gratitude for the considerable help and encouragement I have received from various others, without which I would not have made it through: to my parents for their unceasing prayers and encouragement; to my brother and his wife for letting me stay at their home in Edmonton; to Doug and Connie Inglis for discussions, friendship, coffee at Tim Horton’s, meals and a place to stay; to Greg and Chrisie Rector for letting me hide away in their loft to work undistracted for months; to Wayne Nelson for his friendship, hanging out with me early on Saturday mornings, encouraging me and praying with me; to Darcy Austin for his friendship, prayers, breakfasts and encouragement; to the guys in my Monday night group for the prayers and encouragement; and to my parents-in-law for their patience and many prayers. I would also like to thank SIL International for its financial support throughout the duration of my study program. The most important consequence of this PhD program has not been the linguistic knowledge and expertise I have developed, nor the contribution to the field that I believe my dissertation makes, but rather that it has made me face my fear of failure and taught me to cast myself upon the grace of my Heavenly Papa and to trust him a little more. It is my desire that this ancient heart-cry of the Psalmist would be true of me: viii Yet I am always with you; you hold me by my right hand. You guide me with your counsel, and afterward you will take me into glory. Whom have I in heaven but you? And earth has nothing I desire besides you. My flesh and my heart may fail, but God is the strength of my heart and my portion forever.1 1 The Holy Bible: New International Version. (1984). (Ps 73:23–26). Grand Rapids, MI: Zondervan. Contents Abstract ........................................... ii Preface . iv Dedication . v Acknowledgments . vi Abbreviations . xiii List of Tables . xvii List of Figures . xxi 1 Introduction . 1 2 Background to Ixtayutla Mixtec . 14 2.1 Language background . 14 2.2 The couplet in previous studies . 18 2.3 The syntax of Ixtayulta Mixtec . 24 2.4 Morphology . 33 2.4.1 Nominal morphology . 34 2.4.2 Verbal morphology . 37 2.4.3 Adjectives . 49 2.4.4 Summary . 51 2.5 Clitics . 52 3 Non-tonal phonology . 60 3.1 Vowels . 60 3.2 Consonants . 68 3.2.1 Voiceless consonants . 69 3.2.2 Voiced consonants . 72 ix x 3.2.3 Phonetically complex structures . 78 3.3 The syllable . 83 3.4 Stress . 88 4 Tonal phonology . 93 4.1 Tone in noun couplets .
Load more

Recommended publications
  • Some Principles of the Use of Macro-Areas Language Dynamics &A
    Online Appendix for Harald Hammarstr¨om& Mark Donohue (2014) Some Principles of the Use of Macro-Areas Language Dynamics & Change Harald Hammarstr¨om& Mark Donohue The following document lists the languages of the world and their as- signment to the macro-areas described in the main body of the paper as well as the WALS macro-area for languages featured in the WALS 2005 edi- tion. 7160 languages are included, which represent all languages for which we had coordinates available1. Every language is given with its ISO-639-3 code (if it has one) for proper identification. The mapping between WALS languages and ISO-codes was done by using the mapping downloadable from the 2011 online WALS edition2 (because a number of errors in the mapping were corrected for the 2011 edition). 38 WALS languages are not given an ISO-code in the 2011 mapping, 36 of these have been assigned their appropri- ate iso-code based on the sources the WALS lists for the respective language. This was not possible for Tasmanian (WALS-code: tsm) because the WALS mixes data from very different Tasmanian languages and for Kualan (WALS- code: kua) because no source is given. 17 WALS-languages were assigned ISO-codes which have subsequently been retired { these have been assigned their appropriate updated ISO-code. In many cases, a WALS-language is mapped to several ISO-codes. As this has no bearing for the assignment to macro-areas, multiple mappings have been retained. 1There are another couple of hundred languages which are attested but for which our database currently lacks coordinates.
    [Show full text]
  • The Separate Life Cycles of Prefix Classes Vs Tone Ablaut Classes in Aspect/Mood Inflection in the Chatino Languages of Oaxaca
    AMERINDIA 41: 75-120, 2019 Conjugational double-classification: The separate life cycles of prefix classes vs tone ablaut classes in aspect/mood inflection in the Chatino languages of Oaxaca Anthony C. WOODBURY University of Texas at Austin Abstract: In the Chatino languages (Oto-Manguean; Oaxaca), verbs show two independent patterns of conjugational classification in marking aspect and mood, one based on prefixation and the other based on tonal ablaut. I term this conjugational double-classification. Each pattern determines its own conjugational classification of verb stems: verbs fall into several aspect/mood prefix conjugation classes that depend partly on their segmental structure and transitivity; and they simultaneously fall into several largely orthogonal tone-ablaut conjugation classes that depend partly on the tonal characteristics of the stem. A Chatino child therefore must learn both the prefix conjugation class and the tone-ablaut conjugation class of every verb s/he learns. Furthermore, it is shown that diachronically, the prefix classes and the tone-ablaut classes have had independent life cycles: in San Marcos Zacatepec Eastern Chatino, both systems are largely intact; in Zenzontepec Chatino, the prefixation classes are intact but the tone ablaut classes have eroded through tonal simplification; and in San Juan Quiahije Eastern Chatino, the prefixation classes have eroded through initial syllable loss while the tone ablaut classes are intact. It is suggested that autosegmental phonology and morphology, when placed in diachronic
    [Show full text]
  • (ELDP) APPLICATION for a Major Documentation Project
    ENDANGERED LANGUAGES DOCUMENTATION PROGRAMME (ELDP) APPLICATION FOR A Major Documentation Project Read the Guidelines carefully in planning your proposal, and the Terms & Conditions of Award before completing and submitting an application. The application form must be completed in English. Late or incomplete applications will not be considered. Submit one original hard copy with signatures which should be single-sided and unbound and submit an electronic copy. The electronic and paper copies of the application must be identical in content (except that signatures are not required in the electronic copy). Only material specifically requested in the application should be sent. The original hard copy to be submitted by the deadline to: ELDP Grants Coordinator Endangered Languages Documentation Programme School of Oriental and African Studies 10 Thornhaugh Street London WC1H 0XG United Kingdom The electronic version must be a single file in MS Word or pdf format (multiple files are not accepted) and must be emailed by the deadline to [email protected] All copies must arrive by 3rd August 2009 You should only send the information requested in the application form. If you are successful in receiving a grant you will be asked to provide the following: • evidence that the relevant permissions and visas have been secured (if required) • any other information required by the panel after assessment • an assurance that an indication of support from the language community will be provided once the project has begun • evidence of institutional pay scales used to calculate salary costs - 1 - v0901 APPLICATION FOR A Major Documentation Project Grant Ref Number: MDP Q1 Applicant details First Name Jonathan Title Dr.
    [Show full text]
  • Universität Duisburg-Essen
    Jan Tent The Structure of Deictic Day-Names Systems: Evidence for Universal and Culture-Specific Conceptualisations of Diurnal Division of the Time Continuum? Series A: General & Theoretical Papers ISSN 1435-6473 Essen: LAUD 1998 (2nd ed. with divergent page numbering 2007) Paper No. 435 Universität Duisburg-Essen Jan Tent Macquarie University, Australia The Structure of Deictic Day-Names Systems: Evidence for Universal and Culture-Specific Conceptualisations of Diurnal Division of the Time Continuum? Copyright by the author Reproduced by LAUD 1998 (2nd ed. with divergent page numbering 2007) Linguistic Agency Series A University of Duisburg-Essen General and Theoretical FB Geisteswissenschaften Paper No. 435 Universitätsstr. 12 D- 45117 Essen Order LAUD-papers online: http://www.linse.uni-due.de/linse/laud/index.html Or contact: [email protected] Jan Tent THE STRUCTURE OF DEICTIC DAY-NAME SYSTEMS: EVIDENCE FOR UNIVERSAL AND CULTURE-SPECIFIC CONCEPTUALISATIONS OF DIURNAL DIVISION OF THE TIME CONTINUUM? Abstract. This paper is a cross linguistic study examining the structure of deictic day-name systems of 157 of the world's languages. Most of these systems reveal a recurring structural symmetry in the number of diurnal units identified either side of 'today'. As well as this type of numerical symmetry, most languages exhibit a morphological symmetry, and several a lexical symmetry. A small number of languages have numerically and/or morphologically asymmetrical systems. The nature of these symmetries and asymmetries in the light of linguistic relativity is briefly explored. 1. Introduction In the discussion of calendric units, in his now famous Santa Cruz Lectures on Deixis, Charles Fillmore (1975:47) mentions that many languages have a rich set of lexicalisations for deictic day-names.
    [Show full text]
  • Catálogo De Las Lenguas Indígenas Nacionales: Variantes Lingüísticas De México Con Sus Autodenominaciones Y Referencias Geoestadísticas
    Lunes 14 de enero de 2008 DIARIO OFICIAL (Primera Sección) 31 INSTITUTO NACIONAL DE LENGUAS INDIGENAS CATALOGO de las Lenguas Indígenas Nacionales: Variantes Lingüísticas de México con sus autodenominaciones y referencias geoestadísticas. Al margen un logotipo, que dice: Instituto Nacional de Lenguas Indígenas. CATÁLOGO DE LAS LENGUAS INDÍGENAS NACIONALES: VARIANTES LINGÜÍSTICAS DE MÉXICO CON SUS AUTODENOMINACIONES Y REFERENCIAS GEOESTADÍSTICAS. El Consejo Nacional del Instituto Nacional de Lenguas Indígenas, con fundamento en lo dispuesto por los artículos 2o. de la Constitución Política de los Estados Unidos Mexicanos; 15, 16, 20 y tercero transitorio de la Ley General de Derechos Lingüísticos de los Pueblos Indígenas; 1o., 3o. y 45 de la Ley Orgánica de la Administración Pública Federal; 1o., 2o. y 11 de la Ley Federal de las Entidades Paraestatales; y los artículos 1o. y 10 fracción II del Estatuto Orgánico del Instituto Nacional de Lenguas Indígenas; y CONSIDERANDO Que por decreto publicado en el Diario Oficial de la Federación el 14 de agosto de 2001, se reformó y adicionó la Constitución Política de los Estados Unidos Mexicanos, determinando el carácter único e indivisible de la Nación Mexicana y su composición pluricultural sustentada en sus pueblos indígenas. Que con esta reforma constitucional nuestra Carta Magna reafirma su carácter social, al dedicar un artículo específico al reconocimiento de los derechos de los pueblos indígenas. Que el artículo 2o. constitucional establece que “los pueblos indígenas son aquellos que descienden de poblaciones que habitaban en el territorio actual del país al iniciarse la colonización y que conservan sus propias instituciones sociales, económicas, culturales y políticas, o parte de ellas.” Que uno de los derechos de los pueblos y las comunidades indígenas que reconoce el apartado “A” del artículo 2o.
    [Show full text]
  • Bartholomew Collection of Unpublished Materials SIL International - Mexico Branch
    Language and Culture Archives Bartholomew Collection of Unpublished Materials SIL International - Mexico Branch © SIL International NOTICE This document is part of the archive of unpublished language data created by members of the Mexico Branch of SIL International. While it does not meet SIL standards for publication, it is shared “as is” under the Creative Commons Attribution- NonCommercial-ShareAlike license (http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc- sa/4.0/) to make the content available to the language community and to researchers. SIL International claims copyright to the analysis and presentation of the data contained in this document, but not to the authorship of the original vernacular language content. AVISO Este documento forma parte del archivo de datos lingüísticos inéditos creados por miembros de la filial de SIL International en México. Aunque no cumple con las normas de publicación de SIL, se presenta aquí tal cual de acuerdo con la licencia "Creative Commons Atribución-NoComercial-CompartirIgual" (http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc- sa/4.0/) para que esté accesible a la comunidad y a los investigadores. Los derechos reservados por SIL International abarcan el análisis y la presentación de los datos incluidos en este documento, pero no abarcan los derechos de autor del contenido original en la lengua indígena. Non-modal voicing as morphemic features in Íénná, Mazatec of Mazatlán Villa de Flores1, 2 R. David Klint SIL International 1 Introduction Mazatec is a Mexican language with 12-20 variants spoken in the La Cañada area of Oaxaca. Many variants show asymmetries in the laryngeally modified consonants of the phonemic inventory. Specifically, the laryngeally modified consonants in the phonemic inventory of Íénná, Mazatec of Mazatlán Villa de Flores, ISO 639-3 = vmz, mazateco del suroeste (INALI 2016), are asymmetric.
    [Show full text]
  • COMPARING HUMANS and BIRDS by Daniel C. Mann a Dissertation
    STABILIZING FORCES IN ACOUSTIC CULTURAL EVOLUTION: COMPARING HUMANS AND BIRDS by Daniel C. Mann A dissertation submitted to the Graduate Faculty in Linguistics in partial fulfillment of the requirement for the degree of Doctor of Philosophy, The City University of New York 2019 2019 DANIEL C. MANN All rights reserved ii This manuscript has been read and accepted for the Graduate Faculty in Linguistics in satisfaction of the dissertation requirement for the degree of Doctor of Philosophy. JULIETTE BLEVINS Date Chair of the Examining Committee GITA MARTOHARDJONO Date Executive Officer MARISA HOESCHELE DAVID C. LAHTI MICHAEL I. MANDEL Supervisory Committee THE CITY UNIVERSITY OF NEW YORK iii Abstract STABILIZING FORCES IN ACOUSTIC CULTURAL EVOLUTION: COMPARING HUMANS AND BIRDS By Daniel C. Mann Advisor: Professor Juliette Blevins Learned acoustic communication systems, like birdsong and spoken human language, can be described from two seemingly contradictory perspectives. On one hand, learned acoustic communication systems can be remarkably consistent. Substantive and descriptive generalizations can be made which hold for a majority of populations within a species. On the other hand, learned acoustic communication systems are often highly variable. The degree of variation is often so great that few, if any, substantive generalizations hold for all populations in a species. Within my dissertation, I explore the interplay of variation and uniformity in three vocal learning species: budgerigars (Melopsittacus undulatus), house finches (Haemorhous mexicanus), and humans (Homo sapiens). Budgerigars are well-known for their versatile mimicry skills, house finch song organization is uniform across populations, and human language has been described as the prime example of variability by some while others see only subtle variations of largely uniform system.
    [Show full text]
  • Pathways and Patterns of Metaphor and Metonymy in Mixtepec-Mixtec Body-Part Terms Jack Bowers
    Pathways and patterns of metaphor and metonymy in Mixtepec-Mixtec body-part terms Jack Bowers To cite this version: Jack Bowers. Pathways and patterns of metaphor and metonymy in Mixtepec-Mixtec body-part terms. 2020. hal-02075731v5 HAL Id: hal-02075731 https://hal.inria.fr/hal-02075731v5 Preprint submitted on 18 May 2020 (v5), last revised 7 Jun 2020 (v7) HAL is a multi-disciplinary open access L’archive ouverte pluridisciplinaire HAL, est archive for the deposit and dissemination of sci- destinée au dépôt et à la diffusion de documents entific research documents, whether they are pub- scientifiques de niveau recherche, publiés ou non, lished or not. The documents may come from émanant des établissements d’enseignement et de teaching and research institutions in France or recherche français ou étrangers, des laboratoires abroad, or from public or private research centers. publics ou privés. Pathways and patterns of metaphor and metonymy in Mixtepec-Mixtec body-part terms Jack Bowers Austrian Center for Digital Humanities and Cultural Heritage (Vienna) École Pratique des Hauts Études (Paris) Inria – Team ALMANaCH (Paris) To cite (as of May 2020- HAL version 4): Bowers, Jack. (in press). Pathways and Patterns of metaphor and metonymy in Mixtepec-Mixtec body-part terms: Vol. The Grammar of Body-Part Expressions in Amerindian Languages (R. Zariquiey & P. Valenzuela, Eds.). Oxford University Press. https://hal.inria.fr/hal- 02075731 Abstract In accordance with data published from several related varieties of Mixtecan, and numerous other languages, Mixtepec-Mixtec body-part terms feature expansive networks of extended senses as the head component of a compound, in multi-word expressions and polysemous forms.
    [Show full text]
  • TEI and the Documentation of Mixtepec-Mixtec Jack Bowers
    Language Documentation and Standards in Digital Humanities: TEI and the documentation of Mixtepec-Mixtec Jack Bowers To cite this version: Jack Bowers. Language Documentation and Standards in Digital Humanities: TEI and the documen- tation of Mixtepec-Mixtec. Computation and Language [cs.CL]. École Pratique des Hauts Études, 2020. English. tel-03131936 HAL Id: tel-03131936 https://tel.archives-ouvertes.fr/tel-03131936 Submitted on 4 Feb 2021 HAL is a multi-disciplinary open access L’archive ouverte pluridisciplinaire HAL, est archive for the deposit and dissemination of sci- destinée au dépôt et à la diffusion de documents entific research documents, whether they are pub- scientifiques de niveau recherche, publiés ou non, lished or not. The documents may come from émanant des établissements d’enseignement et de teaching and research institutions in France or recherche français ou étrangers, des laboratoires abroad, or from public or private research centers. publics ou privés. Préparée à l’École Pratique des Hautes Études Language Documentation and Standards in Digital Humanities: TEI and the documentation of Mixtepec-Mixtec Soutenue par Composition du jury : Jack BOWERS Guillaume, JACQUES le 8 octobre 2020 Directeur de Recherche, CNRS Président Alexis, MICHAUD Chargé de Recherche, CNRS Rapporteur École doctorale n° 472 Tomaž, ERJAVEC Senior Researcher, Jožef Stefan Institute Rapporteur École doctorale de l’École Pratique des Hautes Études Enrique, PALANCAR Directeur de Recherche, CNRS Examinateur Karlheinz, MOERTH Senior Researcher, Austrian Center for Digital Humanities Spécialité and Cultural Heritage Examinateur Linguistique Emmanuel, SCHANG Maître de Conférence, Université D’Orléans Examinateur Benoit, SAGOT Chargé de Recherche, Inria Examinateur Laurent, ROMARY Directeur de recherche, Inria Directeur de thèse 1.
    [Show full text]
  • LIN 631 Linguistic Description of American Languages
    Course: LIN 631 Linguistic description of American languages: Typological properties of Mesoamerican languages Term: Fall 2007 Text: Readings on reserve Meetings: T/R15:30 -16:50 in 118 Baldy Instructor: Dr. Jürgen Bohnemeyer – Office 627 Baldy Phone 645-2177 ext 727 E-mail [email protected] Office hours T 11:00-11:30 and R 10:00-11:00 Overview: The seminar covers Mesoamerican (MA) and adjacent languages. 1 The MA linguistic and cultural area stretches from the Valley of Mexico in the North to the northern Honduran border on the Caribbean coast and well into Costa Rica on the Pacific Coast. The MA languages comprise five unrelated families: Otomanguean; Aztecan (a branch of the larger Uto-Aztecan language family); Totonacan; Mixe- Zoquean; and Mayan. A number of MA languages are isolates or of uncertain genealogical grouping; these include Purépecha (or Tarascan), Huave, Oaxaca Chontal (or Tequistlatec), and Xinca. The MA languages have long been recognized as forming a sprachbund or linguistic area. Several millennia of intensive contact have changed the members of the various unrelated language families so as to enhance their compatibility in formal and semantic categories. Phenomena that are pervasive in the MA area include head-marking; ergative and split-intransitive traits in both morphology and syntax; alignment-hierarchy (or “obviation”) effects in argument linking; verb-initial and verb-final constituent orders; morpho-syntactic alienable-inalienable distinctions in adnominal possession; (numeral, nominal, and possessive) classificatory systems; and lack of deictic tense coupled with rich systems of aspectual and modal marking. Polysynthesis, in the sense that syntactic relations and processes tend to have morphological reflexes at the word level and in the sense that content words, in combination with the necessary inflections and function words, can constitute clauses by themselves (independently of their lexical category), is widespread in most MA language families, the most important exception being Otomanguean.
    [Show full text]
  • Proposal for Superscript Diacritics for Prenasalization, Preglottalization, and Preaspiration
    1 Proposal for superscript diacritics for prenasalization, preglottalization, and preaspiration Patricia Keating Department of Linguistics, UCLA [email protected] Daniel Wymark Department of Linguistics, UCLA [email protected] Ryan Sharif Department of Linguistics, UCLA [email protected] ABSTRACT The IPA currently does not specify how to represent prenasalization, preglottalization, or preaspiration. We first review some current transcription practices, and phonetic and phonological literature bearing on the unitary status of prenasalized, preglottalized and preaspirated segments. We then propose that the IPA adopt superscript diacritics placed before a base symbol for these three phenomena. We also suggest how the current IPA Diacritics chart can be modified to allow these diacritics to be fit within the chart. 2 1 Introduction The IPA provides a variety of diacritics which can be added to base symbols in various positions: above ([a͂ ]), below ([n̥ ]), through ([ɫ]), superscript after ([tʰ]), or centered after ([a˞]). Currently, IPA diacritics which modify base symbols are never shown preceding them; the only diacritics which precede are the stress marks, i.e. primary ([ˈ]) and secondary ([ˌ]) stress. Yet, in practice, superscript diacritics are often used preceding base symbols; specifically, they are often used to notate prenasalization, preglottalization and preaspiration. These terms are very common in phonetics and phonology, each having thousands of Google hits. However, none of these phonetic phenomena is included on the IPA chart or mentioned in Part I of the Handbook of the International Phonetic Association (IPA 1999), and thus there is currently no guidance given to users about transcribing them. In this note we review these phenomena, and propose that the Association’s alphabet include superscript diacritics preceding the base symbol for prenasalization, preglottalization and preaspiration, in accord with one common way of transcribing them.
    [Show full text]
  • Genetic Diversity in Urban and Rural Indigenous Mexico
    Genetic Diversity in Urban and Rural Indigenous Mexico The Harvard community has made this article openly available. Please share how this access benefits you. Your story matters Citation López, John Emilio William. 2016. Genetic Diversity in Urban and Rural Indigenous Mexico. Master's thesis, Harvard Extension School. Citable link http://nrs.harvard.edu/urn-3:HUL.InstRepos:33797263 Terms of Use This article was downloaded from Harvard University’s DASH repository, and is made available under the terms and conditions applicable to Other Posted Material, as set forth at http:// nrs.harvard.edu/urn-3:HUL.InstRepos:dash.current.terms-of- use#LAA Genetic Diversity in Urban and Rural Indigenous Mexico John Emilio William López A Thesis in the Field of Biotechnology For the Degree of Master of Liberal Arts in Extension Studies Harvard University March 2016 Copyright 2016 John Emilio William López Abstract The goal of this study was to examine the genetic diversity of indigenous (and semi-indigenous) populations in Mexico and determine if any genetic variation correlated to culture and language. Mexico’s indigenous populations have not been extensively studied using contemporary genetic typing systems; the ones conducted used too few loci, or very small sample sizes. Mexico has 291 living native languages derived from twelve separate and distinct linguistic families divided into 68 major linguistic groups, and an indigenous culture just as diverse. Previous notions that ancient Mexican civilizations were “obliterated” were wrong—they were simply transformed—and many ideas of pre- colonial indigenous-Spanish relations were also recently determined ‘incorrect’, thus presenting us with redefined variables to explore, genetically.
    [Show full text]