CALIFORNIA STATE UNIVERSITY, NORTHRIDGE A PHONOLOGICAL DESCRIPTION OF HUASTECA NAHUATL FROM CHICONTEPEC, VERACRUZ A thesis submitted in partial fulfillment of the requirements For the degree of Master of Arts in Linguistics By Andrés Ehecatl Aguilar May 2013 The thesis of Andrés Ehecatl Aguilar is approved: _________________________________________________________ _____________________________ Professor Fermín Herrera Date _________________________________________________________ _____________________________ Professor Kie Zuraw Date _________________________________________________________ _____________________________ Professor Tineke Scholten, Chair Date California State University, Northridge ii ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS I would like to thank some of the people and organizations that helped make this thesis possible. First, I would like to thank CSUN Graduate Studies and the Association of Retired Faculty for their support in this project. I would like to thank the CSUN Department of Linguistics/TESL for providing a space for their students to flourish. Also, this thesis would not have been possible without collaboration with IDIEZ. I would like to thank my teachers Catalina Cruz de la Cruz, Sabina Cruz de la Cruz, Delfina de la Cruz de la Cruz, Eduardo de la Cruz Cruz, Ofelia Cruz Morales, and John Sullivan. I am eternally grateful to my committee members, professors Fermín Herrera, Kie Zuraw, and Tineke Scholten for their guidance, knowledge, and time. I would like further thank professor Tineke Scholten for her mentorship and tireless support during my time at the CSUN. Lastly, I would like to thank my family. To my parents and sister, thank you for teaching me so many things throughout my life that helped make me who I am. To my wife, thank you for your endless support, for always believing in me. To my son, thank you for your patience and for inspiring me each day to reach my goals. Tlazcamati. iii TABLE OF CONTENTS SIGNATURE PAGE.......................................................................................................ii ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS........................................................................................... iii LIST OF TABLES........................................................................................................vii LIST OF FIGURES .................................................................................................... viii ABSTRACT....................................................................................................................x 1. INTRODUCTION....................................................................................................1 1.1. Significance........................................................................................................4 1.2. Methodology ......................................................................................................5 1.3. Participants.........................................................................................................6 1.4. Procedure............................................................................................................6 2. PHONEMIC INVENTORY .....................................................................................8 2.1. Consonants .........................................................................................................8 2.2. Vowels .............................................................................................................13 2.3. Loan Words......................................................................................................16 3. PHONOLOGY .......................................................................................................22 3.1. Stress and Syllable Structure ............................................................................22 iv 3.1.1. Stress..........................................................................................................22 3.1.2. Syllable Structure .......................................................................................25 3.2. Syllable-Driven Allophonic Variation /w/, /kʷ/ and /ʃ/ .....................................28 3.2.1. /w/ ..............................................................................................................28 3.2.2. /kʷ/.............................................................................................................29 3.2.3. /j/ and /ʃ/.....................................................................................................31 3.3. Word and Utterance..........................................................................................32 3.3.1. Word-Final Plosive Stops...........................................................................32 3.3.2. Vowels and Glottal Stop Epenthesis...........................................................34 3.4. Word Final Nasals............................................................................................40 3.4.1. /n/...............................................................................................................40 3.4.2. Loan Words with Word-Final /n/ ...............................................................47 3.4.3. /m/..............................................................................................................48 3.4.4. Summary of Word-Final Nasal Sounds ......................................................50 3.5. Coda Lenition...................................................................................................50 3.6. Assimilation......................................................................................................55 3.6.1. /o/ Centralization ........................................................................................55 3.6.2. /h/ Assimilation ..........................................................................................59 3.6.3. /j/ Assimilation to /k/..................................................................................60 3.7. Deletion............................................................................................................62 3.7.1. /j/ Deletion .................................................................................................62 v 3.7.2. /t͡ɬ/ Deletion ................................................................................................64 3.7.3. /n/ Deletion.................................................................................................67 CONCLUSION.............................................................................................................69 WORKS CITED ...........................................................................................................73 APPENDIX...................................................................................................................76 vi LIST OF TABLES Table 2.1 Phonemic inventory of Consonant Sounds ......................................................8 Table 2.2 Near Minimal Pairs of Consonant Sounds (Words).......................................11 Table 2.3 Near Minimal Pairs of Consonant Sounds (Morphemes)...............................12 Table 2.4 Inventory of Vowel Sounds...........................................................................13 Table 2.5 Minimal Pairs of Vowel Sounds....................................................................15 Table 2.6 Minimal Pairs of Vowel Sounds: Length.......................................................16 Table 2.7 Loan Word Variation: Sierra de Puebla Nahuatl ...........................................18 Table 3.1 Stress in Nahuatl ...........................................................................................23 Table 3.2 Nahuatl Syllable Types..................................................................................25 Table 3.3 /w/ and /kʷ/ ...................................................................................................28 Table 3.4 Lenition of /k/ ...............................................................................................52 Table 3.5 Word-Final Velar Stops.................................................................................53 Table 3.6 Measurements of /o/ F2.................................................................................57 Table 3.7 /j/ Assimilation ..............................................................................................60 Table 3.8 Length of Morphologically /s/, [s] in Surface Form, in Seconds ...................63 Table 3.9 Length of Morphologically /sj/, [s] in Surface Form, in Seconds ..................63 Table 3.10 Length of Morphologically /l/, [l] in Surface Form, in Seconds ..................65 Table 3.11 Length of Morphologically /lt͡ɬ/, [l] in Surface Form, in Seconds................66 Table 4.1 /l/ devoicing ..................................................................................................70 vii LIST OF FIGURES Figure 2.1 Vowel Space (F2-F1)...................................................................................14 Figure 2.2 Formant Measurement .................................................................................15 Figure 2.3 'Orange'........................................................................................................17 Figure 3.1 [a:.ˈna:.li] (Tlamachtihquetl 2)......................................................................24 Figure 3.2 [a:.ˈma.na] (Tlamachtihquetl 2) ....................................................................24