Pronunciation Questions

[John Sullivan, Ph.D.]

Hi Doug,
	I don`t know anything about number 2. And I don't understand number  
3. The example seems to suggest that he is saying that all word final  
-n's were originally -m's. That doesn't sound right.
	On number 1. In Huastecan Nahuatl, at least, syllable final -l's are  
devoiced. Here is a fun example. In Older Central Nahuatl you have  
elnamiqui, niqu, "to remember s.t." In Modern Huastecan Nahuatl you  
would have ilnamiqui, but since the -l is devoiced, it then  
assimilates the following -n and produces a double devoiced l. So you  
get illamiqui, nic. Then you can add the tla- non-specific non-human  
object which bumps out the weak initial i- of the verb, giving  
tlallamiqui, ni. "to be intelligent". But, last of all, the initial  
tl- also becomes a devoiced l, so you get lallamiqui, ni. "to be  
intelligent".
John

John Sullivan, Ph.D.
Profesor de lengua y cultura nahua
Universidad Autónoma de Zacatecas
Instituto de Docencia e Investigación Etnológica de Zacatecas, A.C.
Tacuba 152, int. 47
Centro Histórico
Zacatecas, Zac. 98000
México
Oficina: +52 (492) 925-3415
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Domicilio: +52 (492) 768-6048
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idiez at mac.com
www.idiez.org.mx



On Feb 20, 2007, at 12:51 PM, Doug Barr wrote:

> Hello, all -
>
> I was so good and saved all my grammar questions until my copy of
> "Introduction to Classical Nahuatl" showed up, but now I have some
> pronunciation questions which Andrews doesn't answer (and in one
> case, raises).
>
> 1. He talks about 'n' and 'w' becoming unvoiced at the end of
> syllables, but not about 'l'. I've seen elsewhere (on the Net) a
> statement that 'l' also becomes devoiced, which I gather would sound
> like the release of 'tl,' i.e. an unvoiced lateral fricative. Is this
> common? And I assume 'm' at the end of syllables in words like
> *ipampa* would do the same?
>
> 2. Secondary stress, especially in compound words: does stress simply
> proceed back every second syllable from the penultimate, or does the
> normally stressed syllable of each component other than the last
> receive secondary stress? For example, "nixochitemoa," "I seek
> flowers." Would that be - using capital letters for stressed
> syllables - NIxoChIteMOa with regular alternation of stressed and
> unstressed syllables, or niXOchiteMOa, putting secondary stress on
> the XO of XOchi(tl) as would be done if it were an independent word?
> I'm guessing the latter, since he says that there is a point of
> 'internal open transition' - i.e. slight but audible pause - between
> the constituents of a compound, which is sometimes recognized in the
> traditional spelling, but confirmation or denial would be helpful...
>
> 3. Andrews says, "a ([voiceless n]) phone resulting from this change
> (of -m at the end of a word to voiceless n) reverts to the original /
> m/ sound when the following vocable of the stress group begins with a
> vowel. For example, *in i:i:xpan* is  pronounced ([phonetic
> transcription of *im i:i:xpan*]) and in some texts is written *im
> i:i:xpan*." OK, so is 'in' always pronounced as 'im' before words
> beginning with a vowel, or at least words it's linked to? Why then
> the classical transcription *ini:n* rather than *imi:n*, etc.?
> Confused...
>
> Tlazohcamati!
> _______________________________________________
> Nahuatl mailing list
> Nahuatl at lists.famsi.org
> http://www.famsi.org/mailman/listinfo/nahuatl








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