final n

[jonathan.amith at yale.edu]

Joe,

Oapan does have some interesting things going on with final /n/ and 
vowel-final
words.

In phrase-final position word-final /n/ is often a light aspiration that to me
seems indistinguishable from final /h/. Thus xo:tlan 'it wasn't finished' is
indistinguisable from xo:tlah 'they get red hot'. This is not the case 
with all
speakers, though.

Some speakers might have final /n/ going to a velarized /n/, as occurs in some
neighboring villages. These seem to be the older speakers. Others have neither
the aspiration nor the velarized nasal, but simply a final vowel. However,
unlike the case with "real" vowel-final phrases in which there is a
phrase-final glottal stop, in these cases there is simply a final vowel.

Within a phrase I have noticed that word-final /n/ deletes before a
vowel-initial word. Thus i:pan asi 's/he arrives there to where s/he is' is
pronounced as [i:pa asi] (actually with the Oapan pitch accent, [i:pá así])

On the other hand, there is often an /n/ inserted when a word-final vowel is
followed by a consonant-initial word. Thus kiteki xo:chitl is sometimes
realized as [kitekin xo:chitl] (with the introduced /n/ slightly velarized)

This is confusing as some speakers also realize word-final phrase-internal /h/
as /n/, thus kitekih xo:chitl is realized also as [kitekin xo:chitl]. 
The major
difference between singular and plural is the prosody, therefore
[kiteki xó:chitl] or [kitekin xó:chitl] he cuts flowers (the accent indicates
phrasal intonation)

[kitéki xó:chitl] or [kitékin xó:chitl] they cut flowers

best, jda


Quoting "Campbell,  R Joe" <campbel at indiana.edu>:

> John,
>
>   Your questions have sent me back to listening to field recordings to
> assure myself of what I  1) thought I  2) remembered hearing  (in some
> cases, not a few
> years ago).  But I have now realized that it may take me weeks, so I
> wanted to get back to you with some thoughts (although based on stale
> memories).
>
>   In the speech of someone from San Agustin Oapa, Guerrero, where you
> can frequently anticipate that people are "n droppers" just by hearing
> their Spanish (i.e., my friend says "ellos toca"), I hear no trace of
> nasality in the final vowel.  In fact, the final vowels of much of
> highland Mexican Spanish trail off in voicing (visible in a sound
> spectrogram), matching the description of what an [h] is and is
> perceived by people not accustomed to Mexican Spanish as actually
> *being* an [h], which for people from /s/ aspirating dialects can be
> perceived as being intended as an /s/.
>
>   As I said, I don't hear a voiceless nasal as the result of what I am
> calling "nasal dropping".  Some years ago, I recorded some Tarascan
> speech.  The Tarascan voiceless nasals practically jump off the tape at
> you (I was going to say  "literally", but we overuse that enough
> already), so there is no doubt in my mind or ear what a *voiceless
> nasal* sounds like.
>
>   I would like to separate some of the issues in our cracker barrel
> discussion, so I'll continue in a separate message.
>
> Iztayohmeh,
>
> Joe
>
>
> Quoting "John Sullivan, Ph.D." <idiez at mac.com>:
>
>> Joe,
>> 	What have you heard then in these cases? If nican, for example,
>> doesn't end in a voiceless nasal, are you saying that it ends in a
>> non-nasal aspiration? Or have you heard a voiced n in this position?
>> The native speakers I work with can distinguish between the sound of
>> the final n in nican and the final h in oncah.
>>  John
>
>
>
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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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