Phonetic structures in Jalapa Mazatec
1995; Volume: 37; Issue: 1 Linguagem: Inglês
ISSN
1944-6527
AutoresDaniel Silverman, Barbara Blankenship, P H Sullivan Kirk, Peter Ladefoged,
Tópico(s)Linguistic Studies and Language Acquisition
ResumoThis paper describes the phonetic inventory of the San Felipe Jalapa de Diaz dialect of Mazatec (Jalapa Mazatec). The sound system of Jalapa Mazatec is unusual in possessing a great number of linguistically signi- ficant laryngeal contrasts in both its consonant and vowel inventories. We focus on instrumental analyses of breathy vowels, creaky vowels, and so-called ballistic syllables, as well as glottalized and voiceless sonorant consonants. 1. Introduction. Mazatecan belongs to the Popolocan branch of the Oto- manguean language family (Gudschinsky 1958; Grimes 1988). It is composed of twenty-three speech communities in Mexico and is spoken by approximately 125,000 people in the northeastern section of the State of Oaxaca, as well as in southern Puebla and western Veracruz. This paper describes the phonetic inventory of the dialect spoken in the vicinity of San Felipe Jalapa de Diaz (henceforth Jalapa Mazatec), in the District of Tuxtepec, by 6,000-8,000 people, many of whom are also fluent in Spanish. A practical orthography has been developed for Jalapa Mazatec, and some Christian texts and native folk tales have been published. Both Mazatec and Spanish reading are taught in local schools. Data for this study were.collected in March and April 1993, in Jalapa de Diaz. The speech of six male and six female native speaking adults was re- corded. The primary corpus was a list of 335 words spoken in isolation. Two of the male speakers recorded the complete set on two occasions, giving us fourteen sets of recordings in all. Additionally, palatographic data were collected from one speaker. Airflow data for selected phonemes were also re- corded.
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