DigitalResources SIL eBook 37 ® A Phonological Grammar of Northern Pame Scott Charles Berthiaume A Phonological Grammar of Northern Pame Scott Charles Berthiaume SIL International® 2012 SIL e-Books 37 ©2012 SIL International® ISBN: 978-1-55671-307-1 ISSN: 1934-2470 Fair-Use Policy: Books published in the SIL e-Books (SILEB) series are intended for scholarly research and educational use. You may make copies of these publications for research or instructional purposes free of charge (within fair-use guidelines) and without further permission. Republication or commercial use of SILEB or the documents contained therein is expressly prohibited without the written consent of the copyright holder(s). Series Editor Mike Cahill Editor George Huttar Compositor Dennis Felkner iii ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS I would like to give special thanks to David Silva, my supervising professor and a simply awesome teacher. Thanks also to my other committee members Jerold Edmondson, Don Burquest, Ray Elliott and Robert Longacre Though not as famous as the Inklings of Lewis and Tolkien, I especially thank the guys from our L’Mad dinner outings, Pete Unseth, Ervin Starwalt, David Singleton and John Evans. Thanks to all my UTA classmates including Janet Wilson, Julie May-Kolgini, Coleen Anderson and Julia Dieterman. Special thanks are extended to my parents, Paul and Rayna, and Leon and Gloria for their love and support. Thanks to my in-laws, Andy and Dorciane, for providing me all the Sangría I wanted. I especially thank my wife, Tonia, who was incredibly patient during my many hours of study, and who always found ways to make me smile. I also thank my children, Nathan, Zachary, Mikael and Emma. I am ready to watch a video now! When I was first accepted to the graduate program in linguistics at UTA, some friends asked me why I wanted a Ph.D. I had to think about my answer for several days and finally concluded that I wanted to be the best I could possibly be, not for myself, but as a gift to God, who radically changed my life 20 years ago. Thank you, Ade and Frannie, for helping me see clearly the purpose for all of this. October 10, 2003 iv ABSTRACT A PHONOLOGICAL GRAMMAR OF NORTHERN PAME Publication No. ______ Scott Charles Berthiaume, Ph.D. The University of Texas at Arlington, 2003 Supervising Professor: David J. Silva The present research describes the phonology and morphology of Northern Pame, an Otomanguean language of Central Mexico. Furthermore, it explains the grammatical relationship of these domains from an Optimality Theoretic perspective. In terms of description, Northern Pame has a complex phonological inventory of 40 consonants, which distinguish among glottalized, aspirated, voiceless and voiced segments, as well as 6 vowels, which contrast for nasalization. In addition, a claim is made for two Northern Pame tones, in contrast to earlier suggestions of a three-tone system (Avelino 1997). Regarding Otomanguean laryngeally complex vowels (Silverman 1997b, Herrera 2000), this research provides phonological, as well as laryngoscopic evidence for the segmental, rather than a unit, interpretation in Northern Pame. Northern Pame allows for complex syllable margins, but these are severely constrained by the OCP. Syllable complex nuclei are completely forbidden, and epenthesis (*DEP) is the common strategy to resolve potential nuclei problems. Northern Pame is morphologically complex, marking nouns for class, possession, number including dual and plural, and association. Verbs fall into two classes, each of which is sub-divided based on transitivity. Verbs and nouns share the same suffix morphology for number. Northern Pame morphophonemics encompass processes that affect place or precedence (metathesis, palatalization), laryngealization and syllable well-formedness. Under such underlying circumstances, the constraints UNIFORMITY-IO and LINEARITY-IO are the common minimal violations. v TABLE OF CONTENTS ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS ABSTRACT TABLE OF CONTENTS LIST OF FIGURES LIST OF TABLES CHAPTER 1 1.1 Introduction 1.2 Location 1.3 Northern Pame language use 1.4 State of research 1.5 Research problem 1.6 Methodology 1.6.1 Data 1.6.2 Analysis 1.7 Conclusion and outline of the present research CHAPTER 2 2.1 Introduction 2.2 Early Pamean studies: Soustelle (1934[1993]), Manrique (1967) 2.3 Central Pame studies: Gibson (1956), Gibson and Bartholomew (1979) 2.4 Northern Pame studies: Avelino (1997, 2002). 2.5 Laryngeal theory: Silverman (1995 [1997], 1997) and Lombardi 1994. 2.6 Theory: Prince and Smolensky (1993), McCarthy and Prince (1995) 2.7 Conclusion CHAPTER 3 3.1 Introduction 3.2 Consonants 3.2.1 Obstruent voicing 3.2.2 Aspiration and glottalization of stops and affricates. 3.2.3 Fricatives 3.2.4 Nasals 3.2.5 Flaps 3.2.6 Laterals 3.2.7 Glides and laryngeals 3.3 Vowels 3.3.1 Nasal Vowels 3.4 Tone 3.5 Conclusion CHAPTER 4 4.1 Introduction 4.2 Segmentation of consonants 4.2.1 Complex segments versus complex sequences 4.2.2 Previous approach to segmentation (Avelino 1997). 4.2.3 Critique of previous approach 4.2.4 The non-segmental status of ambiguous sequences. 4.2.5 Additional evidence for true complex segments 4.3 Segmentation of vowels 4.3.1 Laryngeally ambiguous vowels 4.3.2 Critique of former approaches 4.3.3 Reanalysis of laryngeally ambiguous vowels 4.4 Conclusion vi CHAPTER 5 5.1 Introduction 5.2 Onsets 5.2.1 Onset complexity 5.2.2 /*pw/ clusters 5.2.3 /*tj/ clusters 5.2.4 Deletion versus coalescence 5.3 Nuclei 5.3.1 Nasal vowels 5.3.2 Denasalization 5.4 Codas 5.4.1 Nasal place assimilation 5.4.2 Nasal velarization 5.4.3 Devoicing of Stop codas 5.4.4 Intrusive stop formation 5.4.5 /*wp, *jt/ but /jk/ clusters 5.5 Conclusion CHAPTER 6 6.1 Introduction 6.1.1 Anatomical overview 6.2 Northern Pame laryngeal segment production 6.2.1 Vowel initial laryngeal consonants 6.2.2 Vowel medial laryngeal consonants 6.2.3 Vowel final laryngeal consonants 6.3 Conclusion CHAPTER 7 7.1 Introduction 7.2 Noun morphology 7.2.1 Classification 7.2.2 Possession 7.2.3 Number 7.3 Verb morphology 7.3.1 Verb classes 7.3.2 Additional verbal morphology 7.4 Conclusion CHAPTER 8 8.1 Introduction 8.2 Palatalization 8.2.1 Glide Metathesis 8.2.2 Glide-consonant coalescence 8.2.3 Glide-Vowel Coalescence 8.3 Buccalization and voicing of the feature [sg] 8.3.1 Lateral buccalization of [sg] 8.3.2 Voicing of [sg] 8.4 Coronal lateralization 8.5 Glottal buccalization 8.6 Consonant delaryngealization 8.6.1 Deaspiration 8.6.2 Deglottalization 8.6.3 Deglottalization-devoicing 8.6.4 Glottal stop voicing 8.7 Conclusion CHAPTER 9 vii 9.1 Introduction 9.2 Results of the research 9.3 Residual issues REFERENCES BIOGRAPHICAL INFORMATION viii LIST OF FIGURES Figure 3-1 Spectrogram of a voiceless bilabial stop in ‘cow’ ............................................................... 22 Figure 3-2 Spectrogram of a voiced bilabial stop in ‘ears of corn’ ...................................................... 22 Figure 3-3 Voiceless velar stop in ‘crow’. ............................................................................................ 24 Figure 3-4 Aspirated velar stop in ‘they reject him’ ............................................................................ 24 Figure 3-5 Glottalized velar stop in ‘piece of paper’ ............................................................................ 25 Figure 3-6 Plain alveolar nasal in ‘he runs’ ......................................................................................... 26 Figure 3-7 Post-aspirated alveolar nasal in ‘he enters’ ........................................................................ 27 Figure 3-8 Post-glottalized alveolar nasal in ‘my lice’ ......................................................................... 27 Figure 3-9 Alveolar flap in ‘my bloods’................................................................................................ 28 Figure 3-10 Plain lateral in ‘he learns’ ................................................................................................. 29 Figure 3-11 Glottalized lateral in ‘human, man’ .................................................................................. 30 Figure 3-12 Aspirated lateral in ‘they care’ ......................................................................................... 30 Figure 3-13. Spectrogram of an oral vowel in ‘influenza’ .................................................................. 32 Figure 3-14. Spectrogram of a nasal vowel in ‘tamale’....................................................................... 33 Figure 3-15. Waveform and pitch track for a high tone on ‘your orange’. ......................................... 34 Figure 3-16. Waveform and pitch track for a low (rising) tone in ‘my orange’. ............................... 35 Figure 3-17. Waveform and pitch contour for ‘my chair ‘. ................................................................. 36 Figure 3-18. Waveform and pitch contour for ‘your chair’. ............................................................... 36 Figure 4-1. Contrast of oppositions (Avelino 1997:80) ...................................................................... 42 Figure 4-2. Bilabial oppositions (Avelino 1997: 82) ........................................................................... 42 Figure 4-3. Spectrogram of a simple /ɑ/ vowel in ‘cow’ .................................................................... 46 Figure 4-4. Spectrogram of a laryngeally ambiguous /u/ vowel for breathy voice in ‘his chair’ ...... 47 Figure 4-5. Spectrogram of a laryngeally ambiguous /ɑ/ vowel