Proto-Aztecan Vowels: Part I Author(s): Lyle Campbell and Ronald W. Langacker Source: International Journal of American Linguistics, Vol. 44, No. 2 (Apr., 1978), pp. 85-102 Published by: The University of Chicago Press Stable URL: http://www.jstor.org/stable/1264522 Accessed: 24/02/2010 19:51 Your use of the JSTOR archive indicates your acceptance of JSTOR's Terms and Conditions of Use, available at http://www.jstor.org/page/info/about/policies/terms.jsp. JSTOR's Terms and Conditions of Use provides, in part, that unless you have obtained prior permission, you may not download an entire issue of a journal or multiple copies of articles, and you may use content in the JSTOR archive only for your personal, non-commercial use. Please contact the publisher regarding any further use of this work. Publisher contact information may be obtained at http://www.jstor.org/action/showPublisher?publisherCode=ucpress. 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Residual patterns and problems The one exception to the relative uni- 3. Implications formity of the Aztecan vowel systems is Pochutec, once spoken in Pochutla, Oaxaca and now 0. At first the vowel systems of the extinct. Pochutec was on the Aztecan languages appear to offer little of verge of extinction when Boas did his interest to the comparative Uto-Aztecanist. salvage work in 1912, represented in his "El Dialecto Members of the Aztecan subfamily are paper Mexicano de Pochutla, the first very similar and seem to point to a recon- Oaxaca," article in the first issue of IJAL. This is the struction of *i, *e, *a, and *o (with only substantial source of information on distinctive length) for the vocalic system of Pochutec. Pochutec is Proto-Aztecan; this system predominates strikingly divergent from the rest of Aztec, even in the daughters and in no case is a compared to Pipil of Central America, which is often considered daughter system drastically different. The the most diver- The distinctness only notable aspect of this system with gent. of Pochutec is most respect to Uto-Aztecan as a whole is that probably notable in the vowel system, where three traits in Aztec *i apparently reflects both **i and particular stand out: **u of Proto-Uto-Aztecan (henceforth (1) distinctive vowel length has apparently been Pochutec PUA). The vowels *a and *o of Proto- lost;2 (2) o often corre- to i or e in the rest of Aztecan (henceforth PA) continue the sponds Aztec; and stress falls on the final PUA vowels of the same quality, and PA (3) vowel in in contrast to the has been assumed to agree with the other Pochutec, penultimate stress found in Classical Nahuatl southern Uto-Aztecan subfamilies (with and other modern dialects. the exception of Pimic) in having *e as the Our reflex of the fifth PUA vowel, whose purposes in this article are to recon- struct the vowel system of PA, taking the 1 Each of the authors claims responsibility for Pochutec evidence into account, and to the insights captured in this article and blames consider the implications of this recon- the other for errors or infelicities that any may struction for Aztecan and Uto-Aztecan remain. We wish to acknowledge helpful com- ments from William Bright, Una Canger, Karen subgrouping and reconstruction generally. Dakin, Kenneth Hale, and Thelma Sullivan. This The implications of Pochutec are substan- research was supported in part by NSF grant tial. For example, it is probable that #20-692-A. 2 "Creo que no hay vocales largasen Pochutla" [IJAL, vol. 44, no. 2, April 1978, pp. 85-102] "El Dialecto Mexicano de ? 1978 by The University of Chicago. (F. Boas, Pochutla, 0020-7071178/4402-0001 $01.51 Oaxaca," IJAL 1 [1917]: 9-44, esp. 10). 85 86 INTERNATIONALJOURNAL OF AMERICANLINGUISTICS VOL.44 Proto-Aztecan (PA) Pochutec (Po) General Aztec (GA) Classical Nahuatl Tetelcingo Zacapoaxtla Pipil (CN) (T) (Z) (Pi) FIG. 1 Pochutec is coordinate with all the other a task for which neither our energies nor members of the Aztecan subfamily, for available data are sufficient.4 which we adopt the term General Aztec 4 Our sources of data are: for Pochutec, Boas (GA) (for lack of a more imaginative label). (n. 2 above); for Pipil dialects of Cuisnahuatand The vowel system *i, *e, *a, *o, while Santo Domingo de Guzman, both in El Salvador, L. Vocabulario valid for GA, cannot be justified for PA as Campbell, Pipil (San Salvador: of for a for which we must reconstruct Ministry Education, forthcoming); whole, Tetelcingo, F. Brewerand J. G. Brewer, Vocabu- vowels not directly attested in any of the lario Mexicano de Tetelcingo, Morelos (Mexico Aztecan languages. The PA vowel system City: Instituto Lingiistico de Verano, 1962) and that we hypothesize bears importantly on R. S. Pittman, A Grammar of Tetelcingo (Morelos) the of reconstruction and sub- Nahuatl, supplement to Language 30 (1954), problem and "The Phonemes of in the Uto-Aztecan 'Tetelcingo (Morelos) grouping family. Nahuatl," in A William Cameron Townsend The languages and dialects that we will (1961), pp. 643-51; for Zacapoaxtla, D. F. consider are shown in figure 1. We choose Robinson, Aztec Studies II: Sierra Nahuat Word these both for availability of materials and Structure(Norman, Okla.: Summer Institute of for their inherent interest, and we Linguistics, 1970) and H. Key and M. Key, linguistic Vocabulario de la Sierra de confine our attention to them. With this Mejicano Zacapoaxtla, Puebla (Mexico City: Summer Institute of overall classification (we ignore possible Linguistics, 1953); for Classical Nahuatl, F. A. subgroupings within GA) we find our- de Molina, Vocabulario en Lengua Castellana y selves in considerable agreement with Mexicana (1571; reprint ed., Mexico City: Whorf and Lastra de but differ Editorial Porrua, 1970), H. Carochi, Compendio Suarez, del Arte de la Mexicana ed. I. de from Hasler.3 We believe our classification Lengua (1645), Paredes (Mexico: Imprenta de la Biblioteca and analysis of the PA vowel system to be Mexicana, 1759), R. Simdon, Dictionnairede la correct; however, we attempt no complete LangueNahuatl ou Mexicaine (Paris: Imprimerie resolution of all the loose ends and minor Nationale, 1885), M. Swadesh and M. Sancho, since that would involve us in the Los Mil Elementos del Mexicano Cldsico (Mexico details, Universidad Nacional Aut6noma de extreme of Aztec City: complexities dialectology, Mexico, 1966), and J. R. Andrews, Introduction 3 See B. L. Whorf, "The Milpa Alta Dialect of to Classical Nahuatl (Austin: University of Texas Aztec," in LinguisticStructures of NativeAmerica, Press, 1975). ed. H. Hoijer et al. (New York: Viking Fund, We purposely avoid the vexed question of 1946), pp. 367-97; Y. Lastrade Suarez,"Apuntes where the boundary between dialect differences sobre Dialectologia Nahuatl," Anales de Antro- and language differenceslies. We are certain that pologia 11 (1974): 383-98; and J. A. Hasler, Pochutec was a separatelanguage, quite different "Tetradialectologia Nahua," in A William from the others. It also seems that Pipil is a CameronTownsend en el VigesimoquintoAniver- separate language, though rather closely related sario del Instituto Lingiiistico de Verano,ed. B. to the rest of GA. We venture no guesses as to Elson and J. Comas (Mexico City, 1961), pp. the status of the other members of GA, though 455-64. in any event they are not very differentfrom one NO. 2 PROTO-AZTECANVOWELS 87 1. Previous attempts at stating the Pochutec but "do not attempt a detailed sound correspondences between Pochutec treatment." They note that PUA **u and GA have been brief and unsystematic. "remains as a back vowel" in Pochutec, Voegelin, Voegelin, and Hale5 (henceforth namely o, rather than being fronted to i as VVH) recognize the divergent character of in GA; this is an important point, par- ticularly with respect to the word "re- mains," as we will see. They also note the another. As for Pipil, though it is quite similar basic between GA oo and and to other there correspondence lexically phonologically GA, Po as well as the of **a to Po e are grammaticaldifferences of some significance. u, change Glottochronology (for whatever it may be in certain environments. However, they worth) suggests a time depth of fifteen minimum omit the crucial fact that GA e often centuries (or ca. A.D. 500) for PA, with Pochutec corresponds to Po o rather than Po e, and splitting off first. GA has a time depth of eleven for the most do not consider minimum centuries A.D. when part they (ca. 800), Pipil vowel since were "not as split off (see T. Kaufman, Idiomas de Meso- length, they yet america [Guatemala, 1974]). This time correlates able to reconstruct vocalic length for UA well with the ethnohistorical reconstruction of generally."6 Pipil migrations (see W. Jim6nez-Moreno, Being more concerned with relationships "Mesoamerica before the Toltecs," in Ancient within Aztecan than with those between Oaxaca, ed.