Tabasco Chontal

Last updated: 2020-06-26

COMPROMISED: Conflation between stop-glottal stop sequences and ejectives

Background

Language Family: Mayan / Cholan-Tzeltalan / Cholan / Chol-Chontal

• Tabasco Chontal is spoken in the state of Tabasco, located in southern Mexico.

Phonology

Consonants

• /f/, /ɡ/, /v/, /z/, /ɲ/ and /r/ appear in Spanish loanwords (Keller and Luciano G. 1997, 420; Keller 1959, 47).

	Place of Articulation
Manner of Articulation	Bilabial	Dental	Alveolar	Postalveolar	Palatal	Velar	Glottal
Stops (plain)	p b	t̪ d̪				k	ʔ
Stops (ejective)	pʼ	t̪ʼ				kʼ
Affricates (plain)			ts	tʃ
Affricates (ejective)			tsʼ	tʃʼ
Fricatives			s	ʃ			h
Nasals	m		n
Flaps			ɾ
Approximants	w		l		j
Note: For phonemes that share a cell, those on the left are voiceless and those on the right are voiced.

Vowels

• Keller (1959) as well as Keller and Luciano G. (1997) indicate a central vowel in Tabasco Chontal; however, Keller (1959) uses /ə/ whereas Keller and Luciano G. (1997) use the equivalent of /ɨ/ (p. 44; p. 419). Keller (1959) doesn’t give the impression that this central vowel is truly reduced or of the same quality as schwa, stating that it is slightly lower than the high vowels. Therefore, I’ve opted to use /ɘ/.

	Front	Central	Back
High	i		u
Mid	e	ɘ	o
Low		a

Alphabet

• It appears that there is some contrast between ejectives and stop-glottal stop sequences, which is indistinguishable orthographically, compromising the language (Keller 1959, 46). In the rules, I have opted to prioritize ejectives, that is e.g. ⟨t’⟩ transcribes to /t̪ʼ/ rather than /t̪ʔ/.

Grapheme	Phoneme	Comment
a	/a/
ä	/ɘ/
b	/b/
c	/k/
c’	/kʼ/
d	/d̪/
e	/e/
i	/i/
j	/h/
l	/l/
m	/m/
n	/n/
o	/o/
p	/p/
p’	/pʼ/
r	/ɾ/
s	/s/
t	/t̪/
t’	/t̪ʼ/
u	/u/
w	/w/
x	/ʃ/
y	/j/
’	/ʔ/
Digraph
ch	/tʃ/
ch’	/tʃʼ/
qu	/k/	preceding front vowels
q’u	/kʼ/	preceding front vowels
tz	/ts/
tz’	/tsʼ/

Syllable Structure

• Syllables in Tabasco Chontal follow the order of CV(C) (Delgado Galvan 2013, 16).

Lenition Rules

• Syllable-finally, /b/ is realized as [ʔ] (Keller 1959, 46).
• Duplicate consonants are generally avoided, with the first consonant being realized as [h] (Keller and Luciano G. 1997, 421).
  • ⟨bb⟩ is realized as [ʔb].
• Ejectives occurring as the first consonant in a cluster may be realized as a glottal stop (Keller and Luciano G. 1997, 421–22).

Misc. Rules

• /k/ is realized as more fronted when adjacent to front vowels (Keller 1959, 45).
• Plain stops are often realized with varying amounts of aspiration (ibid.).
• /h/ may be realized as [x] (Keller 1959, 47).
• /w/ may be realized as [v] (ibid.).
• /n/ assimilates in place preceding velar stops (Keller 1959, 47–48).
  • In fast speech /n/ is realized as [m] preceding bilabial stops.
• Vowels tend to become nasalized and lengthened preceding /n/ (Keller 1959, 48).
• Words written with initial vowels have glottal stops predictably preceding them (Delgado Galvan 2013, 16).
• /h/ is often elided preceding a glottal stop (Keller and Luciano G. 1997, 421).
• ⟨eu⟩ and ⟨au⟩ generally coalesce into [o] (Keller and Luciano G. 1997, 423).
• One vowel in a vowel sequence is often elided; generally it’s the first (ibid.).

References

Delgado Galvan, Amanda. 2013. “Topological Expressions in Yokot’an (Chontal de Tabasco), Nacajuca Dialect.” Master’s thesis, Leiden University.

Keller, Kathryn C. 1959. “The Phonemes of Chontal (Mayan).” International Journal of American Linguistics 25 (1): 44–53.

Keller, Kathryn C., and Plácido Luciano G. 1997. Diccionario Chontal de Tabasco. Serie de Vocabularios Y Diccionarios Indígenas Mariano Silva Y Aceves. Tucson, Ariz.: Tucson, Arizona: SIL.