Synchronic and diachronic Matlatzinkan phonology.

This study presents a reconstruction of the phonological system of the Matlatzinkan branch of Oto-Pamean (a branch of Oto-Manguean), which contains the present-day languages Matlatzinka and Tlawika, both spoken in the State of Mexico. Very little work has been done on the reconstruction of Oto-Pamean and even less has been done on the Matlatzinkan branch. The first chapter of this work gives a brief outline of the current Matlatzinka and Tlawika speakers and their history. In addition, previous descriptive and historical works that have focused on the language family are introduced and discussed. Chapters 2 and 3 provide descriptions of the synchronic phonology of Matlatzinka and Tlawika, respectively. These chapters describe the characteristic coalescence of consonant clusters that appears to have been present since Proto-Oto-Pamean. Although the languages have phonetic aspirated and ejective obstruent series, morphophonemic variants show these consonants to be underlyingly sequences of an obstruent and a glottal consonant. The apparent series of voiceless sonorants is likewise formed from sequences of a sonorant plus /h/, or /h/ plus a sonorant. Unfortunately, the tonal systems of the languages are not understood well enough to be described in much detail here. The comparative phonological reconstruction of the two languages shows coda consonant loss in each language through different deletion processes with varying conditioning environments. The consonant deletion triggered compensatory vowel lengthening in both languages. There is also likely another source of long vowels, with prosody expected to have played a role in the development of both long vowels and glottal stop in coda position, absence of sufficient reliable data on tones prevented comparative analyses of tonal structures. Although closely related languages, comparison yielded a fair amount of unanalyzable data. Future research into tone patterns, morphology, language contact, and other Oto-Pamean languages is needed to provide an account of these forms.PhDLanguage, Literature and LinguisticsLinguisticsNative American studiesSocial SciencesUniversity of Michigan, Horace H. Rackham School of Graduate Studieshttp://deepblue.lib.umich.edu/bitstream/2027.42/126959/2/3287608.pd