Mazatecan languages

Lowland dialects then split into Valley dialects and the dialect of San Miguel Huautla. The dialect of San Miguel Huautla underwent the same sound change of /*tʲ/ to /ʃ/ before /*k/, which had already happened in the highland dialects, but in San Miguel Huautla, the shift happened after the merger of /*tʲ/ with /*t/ before /*i/ and /*e/. The Valley dialects underwent a change of /*n/ to /ɲ/ in sequences with a /vowel-hn-a/ or /vowel-hn-u/.[2]

The Valley dialects then separated into Southern (Mazatlán and Jalapa) and Northern (Soyaltepec and Ixcatlán) valley dialects. The Southern dialects changed /*tʲ/ to /t/ before /*k/ (later changing *tk to /hk/ in Mazatlán and simplifying to /k/ in Jalapa), and the Northern dialects changed /t͡ʃ/ to /t͡ʂ/ before /*/a. The dialect of Ixcatlán then separated from the one of Soyaltepec by changing sequences of /*tʲk/ and /*tk/ to /tik/ and /tuk/, respectively.[2]

The Highland dialects split into Western and Eastern (Huautla de Jiménez and Jiotes) groups; in the Western dialects the sequence /*ʃk/ changed to /sk/, but the Eastern ones changed it to /hk/. The dialect of Huautla de Jiménez then changed sequences of /*tʲh/ to *ʃ before short vowels, and the dialect of Santa Maria Jiotes merged the labialized velar stop kʷ to k.[2]

The Mazatecan variety with the most thoroughly described phonology is that of Jalapa de Díaz, which has been described in two publications by Silverman, Blankenship, Kirk and Ladefoged (1994 and 1995). The description is based on acoustic analysis and contemporary forms of phonological analysis. To give an overview of the phonological variety among Mazatecan languages, it is presented here and compared to the earlier description of Chiquihuitlán Mazatec published by the SIL linguist A. R. Jamieson, in 1977, which is not based on modern acoustic analysis and relies on a much more dated phonological theory and so it should be regarded as a tentative account. One fundamental distinction between the analyses is that Silverman et al. analyze distinctions between aspirated and nasalized consonants, but Jamieson analyzes them as sequences of two or more phonemes, arriving therefore at a much smaller number of consonants.

There is considerable differences in the number of vowels in different Mazatec varieties. Huautla de Jíménez Mazatec has only four contrasting vowel qualities /i e a o/, and Chiquihuitlán has six.[8]

Jalapa Mazatec has a basic five vowel system contrasting back and front vowels and closed and open vowel height, with an additional mid high back vowel [o]. Additional vowels distinguish oral, nasal, breathy and creaky phonation types. There is some evidence that there are also ballistic syllables contrasting with non-ballistic ones.

Chiquihuitlán Mazatec on the other hand is described as having 6 vowels and a nasal distinction. Jamieson does not describe a creaky/breathy phonation distinction but instead describes vowels interrupted by glottal stop or aspiration corresponding to creakiness and breathiness respectively.[9]

Tone systems differ markedly between varieties. Jalapa Mazatec has three level tones (high, mid, low) and at least 6 contour tones (high-mid, low-mid, mid-low, mid-high, low-high, high-low-high).[10] Chiquihuitlán Mazatec has a more complex tone system with four level tones (high, midhigh, midlow, low) and 13 different contour tones (high-low, midhigh-low, midlow-low, high-high (longer than a single high), midhigh-high, midlow-high, low-high, high-high-low, midhigh-high-low, midlow-high-low, low-high-low, low-midhigh-low, low-midhigh).[9]

Mazatec of Huautla de Jiménez´ has distinctive tones on every syllable,[11] and the same seems to be the case in Chiquihuitlán. Mazatec distinguishes tone only for certain syllables.[9] Huautla Mazatec has no system of tonal sandhi,[12] but the Chiquihuitlán variety has complex sandhi rules.[13][14]

Jalapa Mazatec has a three-way contrast between aspirated/voiceless, voiced, and nasalized articulation for all plosives, nasals and approximants. The lateral [l] occurs only in loanwords, and the tap [ɾ] occurs in only one morpheme, the clitic ɾa "probably". The bilabial aspirated and plain stops are also marginal phonemes. [15]

/b/ may also be heard as a fricative [β]. Sounds [p, r] are from Spanish loanwords.[16][17]

In Chiquihutlán Mazatec, verb stems are of the shape CV (consonant+vowel) and are always inflected with a stem-forming prefix marking person and number of the subject and aspect. In addition, verbs always carry a suffix that marks the person and number of the subject. The vowel of the suffix fuses with the vowel of the verb stem.[18]

There are 18 verb classes distinguished by the shape of their stem-forming prefixes. Classes 1, 2, 7, 10 and 15 cover intransitive verbs, and the rest of the classes involve transitive verbs. Transitive verbs have two prefix forms, one used for third person and first person singular and another used for the other persons (2nd person plural and singular and first person plural inclusive and exclusive). Clusivity distinctions as well as the distinction between second and first person is marked by the tonal pattern across the word (morphemes and stem do not have inherent lexical tone).[18][19]

Chiquihuitlán Mazatec distinguishes between three person categories (first, second, and third) and two numbers (singular, plural), and for the first person plural, it distinguishes between inclusive and exclusive categories. In the third person, number is not specified but only definiteness (definite or indefinite). Number is not expressed by free pronouns or noun phrases if it is directly retrievable from context.[18]

Chiquihuitlán Mazatec inflects for four aspects: completive, continuative, incompletive, as well as a neutral or unmarked aspect. Completive aspect is formed by prefixing /ka-/ to the neutral verb form, continuative is formed by prefixing /ti-/. The incompletive aspect has a distinct set of stem forming prefixes as well as distinct tone patterns. In incompletive transitive verbs, only the first-person singular and the third-person prefixes vary from the corresponding neutral forms; the first-person plural and the second-person forms are identical to the corresponding neutral forms.[18]