Dissimilation: kk> hk

Fri Jul 31 12:57:16 UTC 2009

Dear David and all,

In Balsas Nahuatl from Oapan to the east (and including Tula del Rio, an
offshoot of Oapan from mid-nineteenth century) generally one finds

C1C1 > hC1   where C1 is C and the subscript number 1

Actually, the rule applies to any homorganic consonants, so that from 
tsakwa one
has o:kitsahkeh, etc.

A morphologically conditioned exception concerns nasals, which act differently
depending on the morpheme, but note that with object deletion:

o:niknek  (Ameyaltepec) o:nihnek  (Oapan, where k > h / ____ C) one 
often finds

o:hnek  (which I write o:h'nek)

Or, o:tiktek (Am) o:tihtek (Oapan) can be o:h'tek

Thus one finds, from the C1C1 > hC1 change

kahli
nihkaki

Surface [h] in Oapan and Ameyaltepec is representative, usually, of 
underlying w
or k.

o:toma:hkeh   'they got fat' (Oapan and Ameyaltepec)
kichi:htok    'they are doing it' (Oapan)

Anyway, starting in San Miguel Tecuiciapan and spreading east, kk > k

ni-k-kaki is realized as nikaki, etc.
This does not affect double /l/, which is still hl, as in kahli. k or 
kw initial
verbs with 3sgS and 3sgO are sometimes realized without the overt 
expression of
the object: 'kwa:s   for kikwa:s. This deletion is optional, unlike the form
nikwa:s, which is not.

At some point east of San Miguel and west of Tlapa, the double /l/ is also
degeminated to /l/, thus kali 'house' (Note that in Oapan, Ameyaltepec and
neighboring villages kali is 'inside the house', prob. from kalitik 
(kalihtik).
Tlapa area also has tlakwali, etc.

Now, in the Sierra Norte de Puebla we have forms such as
kali
The -li absolutive is retained only with monomoraic stems: kali, pili, but not
with longer stems, thus ta:l, mo:l, tapalo:l, etc.

For kk, usually degeminated to k as in nikaki, etc. Also mika:ka:wal 'orphan'.
But, before aspectual markers -keh, -ka, etc. one gets a double kk

mikik  'he died'  mikkeh 'they died' (in one group of villages mi:k he 
died and
mikkeh 'they died', note the vowel lengthening to maintain a minimum
well-formed word.

There are also double /tt/ as in kimattok 'he knows it' (mati and 
durative -tok)

As to double nasals, speakers I work with tend to want to write nn, e.g.,
kininneki 'he wants them'  I don't really hear much difference in other
speakers, where it sounds more like kinineki. I'll need to research 
this double
nasal.

Cheers, Jonathan

Quoting David Wright <dcwright at prodigy.net.mx>:

> Antonio del Rincón (1998 [1595]) wasn't supposed to be in the list of
> references in my last post. I was considering mentioning his phonological
> discussion on the saltillo, which I think means that he was hearing two
> allophones, probably [?] and [h], of the phoneme /?/. This has some bearing
> on the examples of kk > hk that I cited, but I left it out in an attempt to
> keep thinks as simple as possible.
>
> Since I mentioned it, here's the quote, respecting the original spelling and
> punctuation except for restoring the letter 'n' when it has been replaced by
> a diacritic over the preceding vowel, changing the letter 'u' to a 'v' when
> it's used as a consonant, and writing the cedilla as a z to avoid web
> transmission problems. The quote is on folios 63v and 64r (book 5, chapter
> 1):
>
>  "[...] Accento del saltillo es, quando la syllaba breve se pronuncia con
> alguna aspereza como, tlazolli.
>  "Esta aspereza no es del todo .H. hablando propriamente porque en la
> provincia de Tlaxcalla, y en algunas otras apartadas de Mexico pronuncian
> con este Spiritu aspero muy affectadamente de manera que no solo es .H. mas
> aun pronunciada con mucha aspereza y fuerza verbi gracia, tlacohtli,
> tlahtoani, y por esta causa con mucha razon algunos han llamado, a este
> espiritu aspero el saltillo, porque ni del todo a de ser .H. como en
> Tlaxcala ni suspension de la syllaba, como algunos han dicho.
>  "Accento suspenso: porque ese es oficio del accento agudo que es largo y
> suspende la syllaba, y assi no es mas de una manera de salto, o singulto,
> que se haze en la syllaba, y esto solamente se halla en la syllaba breve.
> [...]
>  "Ultimo nota los caracteres con que conoceremos estos accentos en este
> arte, el accento agudo desta manera ´ el grave ` el moderado ^ el saltillo
> [mutilated letter 'o' forming an arc like a letter 'u'] el breve tiene por
> señal el no tenerla".
>
> The printer was unable to include the "accents" or diacritical marks that
> Rincón originally used in his manuscript to mark vowel length and glottal
> stops, except in the last sentence of the quote, so we read tlazolli without
> the saltillo at the end of the first syllable, and we're missing some long
> vowels in his examples.
>
> Rincón's use of the letter 'h' should be seen in the light of 16th and early
> 17th century Spanish phonology, in which it still represented an aspiration
> (Cobarruvias, 1611: f. 459r), unlike today, although some speakers in New
> Spain during the first decades of the colonial period already pronounced it
> without aspiration, as revealed by a careful analysis of spelling
> conventions (Arias, 1997: 29-31).
>
> The phrase "y esto solamente se halla en la syllaba breve" lends support to
> the rule that long vowels shorten before a saltillo in early colonial
> central Mexican Nahuatl. As a native speaker of náhuatl, Rincón had a better
> grasp of phonetics than the Spanish grammarians that preceded him, like
> Olmos and Molina, and his attempt to set the phonological record straight is
> a watershed in the history of Nahuatl studies.
>
> Referencias
>
> Arias Álvarez, Beatriz, El español de México en el siglo XVI (estudio
> filológico de quince documentos), Mexico, Instituto de Investigaciones
> Filológicas, Universidad Nacional Autónoma de México, 1997.
>
> Cobarruvias Orozco, Sebastián, Tesoro de la lengua castellana, o española,
> facsimile of the 1611 ed., in Lexicografía española peninsular, diccionarios
> clásicos, digital ed., Pedro Álvarez de Miranda, editor, Madrid, Fundación
> Histórica Tavera/Mapfre Mutualidad/Digibis, 1998.
>
> Rincón, Antonio del, Arte mexicana, facsimile of the 1595 ed., in Obras
> clásicas sobre la lengua náhuatl, digital ed., Ascensión Hernández de
> León-Portilla, editor, Madrid, Fundación Histórica Tavera/Mapfre
> Mutualidad/Digibis, 1998.
>
>
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>

-- 
Jonathan D. Amith
Director: Mexico-North Program on Indigenous Languages
Research Affiliate: Gettysburg College; Yale University; University of Chicago
(O) 717-337-6795
(H) 717-338-1255
Mail to:
Dept. of Sociology and Anthropology
Gettysburg College
Campus Box 412
300 N. Washington Street
Gettysburg, PA  17325

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