Last updated: 2020-02-07
SLIGHTLY COMPROMISED: suspect marking of vowel length
Background
Language Family: Totonacan / Tepehua
- Pisaflores Tepehua is spoken in the Veracruz state in eastern Mexico.
Phonology
Consonants
- Gemination of consonants does not occur in this language (MacKay and Trechsel 2013, 194).
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Place of Articulation
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Manner of Articulation
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Labial
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Alveolar
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Alveopalatal
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Palatal
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Velar
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Glottal
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Stops
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p pʼ
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t tʼ
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k kʼ
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ʔ
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Affricates
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ts tsʼ
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tɕ tɕʼ
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Fricatives
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s ɬ
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ɕ
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h
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Nasals
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m
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n
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Approximants
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w
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l
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j
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Note: For phonemes that share a cell, those on the left are plain and those on the right are ejectives. The alveolar fricative on the right is lateral.
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Vowels
- Although Proto-Totonac-Tepehua only consists of a three vowel contrast, with /e/ and /o/ occurring in loanwords (MacKay and Trechsel 2013, 203; Kryder 1978, 46), MacKay and Trechsel (2013) state that Pisaflores Tepehua, in particular, has a five vowel contrast. This being said, the frequency of /e/ and /o/ are vastly reduced compared to the other vowels, which is very apparent in the Crúbadán corpus.
- Vowel length is a contrastive feature in this language (MacKay and Trechsel 2013, 203); however, it seems rather marginal based on the Crúbadán corpus output. This is consistent with the explanations given by Kryder (1978) and Watters (2017):
- Kryder (1978) (a source on Tepehua as a whole) was only able to find few minimal pairs (pp. 51-52).
- Watters (2017) states that vowel length affecting comprehension is quite subtle (p. 44).
- That being said, Watters (2017) explains that those proficient in the language don’t agree with marking vowel length, only doing so when there’s ambiguity. Given this, there is some skepticism in terms of how reliably vowel length is marked, compromising the language to some degree.
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Front
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Central
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Back
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High
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i
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u
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Mid
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e
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o
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Low
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a
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Alphabet
- Like other Totonac-Tepehua languages, it is common for ⟨r⟩, ⟨b⟩, ⟨d⟩, and ⟨g⟩ to appear in Spanish loanwords (Kryder 1978, 45, 156–65; O’Meara, Kung, and Majid 2019, 179).
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Grapheme
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Phoneme
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a
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/a/
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e
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/e/
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i
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/i/
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j
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/h/
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k
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/k/
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l
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/l/
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m
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/m/
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n
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/n/
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o
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/o/
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p
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/p/
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s
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/s/
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t
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/t/
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u
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/u/
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w
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/w/
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x
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/ɕ/
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y
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/j/
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’
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/ʔ/
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Digraph
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ch
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/tɕ/
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lh
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/ɬ/
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ts
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/ts/
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Syllable Structure
- Syllables in Pisaflores Tepehua follow the order of (C)CV(V)(C)(C) (MacKay and Trechsel 2013, 197, 211).
- A phonetic glottal stop is inserted syllable-initially when a vowel lacks an onset.
Lenition Rules
- Voiceless ejectives may be realized as implosives syllable-initially (MacKay and Trechsel 2013, 191–93).
Misc. Rules
- /n/ assimilates in place to the following consonants (MacKay and Trechsel 2013, 202).
References
Kryder, Nancy J. 1978. “A Phonological and Morphological Sketch of Tepehua.” PhD thesis, University of Montana.
MacKay, Carolyn J., and Frank R. Trechsel. 2013. “A Sketch of Pisaflores Tepehua Phonology.” International Journal of American Linguistics, no. 2: 189–218.
O’Meara, Carolyn, Susan Smythe Kung, and Asifa Majid. 2019. “The Challenge of Olfactory Ideophones: Reconsidering Ineffability from the Totonac-Tepehua Perspective.” International Journal of American Linguistics. University of Chicago Press.
Watters, James K. 2017. “Language Contact and Change in Mesoamerica and Beyond (Studies in Language Companion Series).” In, edited by Karen Dakin, Claudia Parodi, and Natalie Operstein, 29–54. John Benjamins Publishing Company.