Nahuatl Nasals

Author(s): Frances Karttunen and James Lockhart

Source: Linguistic Inquiry , Spring, 1976, Vol. 7, No. 2 (Spring, 1976), pp. 380-383
Published by: The MIT Press

Stable URL: https://www.jstor.org/stable/4177929

JSTOR is a not-for-profit service that helps scholars, researchers, and students discover, use, and build upon a wide
range of content in a trusted digital archive. We use information technology and tools to increase productivity and
facilitate new forms of scholarship. For more information about JSTOR, please contact support@jstor.org.

Your use of the JSTOR archive indicates your acceptance of the Terms & Conditions of Use, available at
https://about.jstor.org/terms

The MIT Press is collaborating with JSTOR to digitize, preserve and extend access to Linguistic
Inquiry

This content downloaded from

163.178.101.95 on Fri, 03 Dec 2021 04:14:12 UTC
All use subject to https://about.jstor.org/terms
 380 SQUIBS AND DISCUSSION

Kuno, S. (I975) "Three Perspectives in the Functional

Approach to Syntax," in R. E. Grossman, L. J. San,
and T. J. Vance, eds., Functionalism, Chicago Linguis-
tic Society, University of Chicago, Chicago, Illinois,
276-336.
Ross, J. R. (I967) Constraints on Variables in Syntax, un-
published Doctoral dissertation, MIT, Cambridge,
Massachusetts.
Ross, J. R. (I969) "Guess Who," in R. I. Binnick, A.
Davison, G. Green, and J. Morgan, eds., Papers from
the Fifth Regional Meeting of the Chicago Linguistic
Society, University of Chicago, Chicago, Illinois,
252-286.

NAHUATL NASALS One of the most striking features of written Nahuatl (Aztec)
Frances Karttunen, texts, which exist in abundance from the mid-i6th century
The University of Texas at through the i8th, is the high frequency of omission of
Austin written syllable-final nasals. Ipilhuan 'his children' is often
James Lockhart, written ipilhua, onpa 'there' as opa, etc. Just as striking is the
UCLA intrusion of written nasals where there are no underlying
nasal segments: nehuantl for nehuatl 'I', itechconpa for itechcopa
'concerning', caten for cate [kate?] 'they are'. In a manu-
script of the i8th century, the writer has omitted I67 of the
428 syllable-final nasals called for by dictionary standards
(Molina (i97i)) and intruded I37 such segments. This
suggests a high degree of uncertainty on the part of native
speakers as to whether any given syllable ends in a nasal
segment or not.
Examining contexts, we find that within a phonological
phrase, a syllable-final nasal is most often missing:

a. when two nasals are adjacent

in nehuatl '(article) + I' > inehuatl
b. phrase-finally
c. before nonnasal resonants
quinualuica [kinwalwika] 'he brings them back' >
quiualuica
d. with considerably less frequency before consonants
in general.

However, syllable-final nasals are generally not missing

within a phonological phrase when the next syllable begins
with a vowel. On the contrary, this is a context in which we
often find the nasal written double:

tlen otechtlaocoli 'which he granted us' > tlennotechtlao-

colli
fan ixquich 'only' > fannixquich

This content downloaded from

163.178.101.95 on Fri, 03 Dec 2021 04:14:12 UTC
All use subject to https://about.jstor.org/terms
 SQUIBS AND DISCUSSION

This is probably a reflection of resyllabification, carrying

the nasal over to syllable-initial position.
Turning to modern Nahuatl, we find that underlying
syllable-final nasals are weakened in various ways. Accord-
ing to descriptions of the dialects of Veracruz (Wolgemuth
(I969)), Puebla (Robinson (I969)), and Milpa Alta (Whorf
(I 946)), such nasals are generally devoiced. In the Veracruz
dialects, which maintain vowel length distinctions, a syl-
lable-final nasal segment after a long vowel is realized as
nasalization of the vowel. In fast speech, this nasalization
tends to disappear, as do the devoiced nasals in all three of
these dialect groups. This agrees well with the early texts,
reinforcing the notion that weakening of syllable-final nasals
is a longstanding feature of Nahuatl phonology.
Weakening and loss of underlying syllable-final nasal
segments would not per se lead to any phonological insta-
bility in Nahuatl, since the underlying segments would
often turn up intervocalically and in derived forms.
But combined with nasal intrusion, the situation appears
chaotic, in that in many texts there is a great lack of
correlation between underlying syllable-final nasals and
those represented in the orthography.
The contexts for intrusion are numerous and diverse,
but they fall into two classes. First, written syllable-final
nasals appear where there are no underlying nasals:

a. when an adjacent syllable contains a nasal

quimatican 'let them know' > quimatincan
palpan tlaca 'Palpan people' > palpan tlanca
b. metathesized from another syllable
ypan 'on it' > ynpa
Teohuacan (name) > Teohuanca
c. in the segmental position of underlying glottal stop
quitos [ki?tos] 'he will say' > quintos
cate [kate?] 'they are' > caten

And second, intrusion is found in the same set of contexts

as omission:

d. before nonnasal resonants

mayor (Spanish) 'greater' > manyor
chicuepohualli [cikwepowalli] 'i 6o' > chicueponhualli
onpohualli '40' > onpohuanlli
e. finally
niquitohua 'I say' > niquitohuan
f. with somewhat lesser frequency before nonnasal
consonants in general
ytoca 'his name' > yntonca
sitio (Spanish) 'site' > sintiyon

This content downloaded from

163.178.101.95 on Fri, 03 Dec 2021 04:14:12 UTC
All use subject to https://about.jstor.org/terms
382 SQUIBS AND DISCUSSION

In these contexts one also finds some intrusion of I and uh

[w]. Yet nasal intrusion far exceeds any other kind in the
texts, and nasals are omitted far more often than any other
regularly represented segment. While the weakening of
syllable-final nasals easily accounts for their random
appearance where there really are underlying nasal seg-
ments, and the similar weakening of other syllable-final
resonants in Nahuatl leads one to expect instability and
hypercorrection among them too, hypercorrection cannot
be made solely responsible for the remaining nasal intrusion,
since it would apply equally to the other resonants as well.
In any case, only in the glottal stop context is there specific
historical and phonological motivation for hypercorrection
with a nasal.
From the pervasiveness of nasal intrusion, we are led
to hypothesize the existence of two kinds of nasality in
Nahuatl: one from underlying nasal segments, and the
other a constant suprasegmental feature of all vowels
stemming from nondistinctive leakage of air through the
velum. This notion is based on several recent phonetic
studies of nonnasal contexts that apparently promote (or
fail to constrain) nasal coarticulation.
In a study of prevoicing in English, Smith and West-
bury (I975) found leakage of air from the supraglottal
cavity via a partially open velum necessary to maintain
voicing up to release of the consonant. This in turn gives
prevoiced stops a perceptible nasal onset and presumably
would nasalize a preceding vowel. In extreme cases, the
prevoicing is heard as an intrusive nasal consonant. Ohala
(I973) discusses the nasalization of vowels adjacent to
glottal and pharyngeal consonants. The fact that elevation of
the soft palate is not involved in control of air pressure for
articulations so far back in the vocal tract "permits" nasal
coarticulation in the sense that the velic leakage does not
distort the acoustic quality of such consonants. F. Karttunen
and M. Laferriere (I973) found similar nasalization of non-
high front vowels adjacent to velar consonants in Boston-area
English. Finally, in Hindi-a language with contrasting oral
and nasal vowels as well as nasal consonants-Dixit and
MacNeilage (I 972) have found nondistinctive velic leakage
across as many as four segments, unrestricted by syllable or
word boundary. On the evidence from recordings made with
nasal and oral microphones, they conclude that in Hindi all
voiced sounds and, to a lesser degree, voiceless sounds as
well, show some velic leakage. This in a language that has a
four-way contrast of oral and nasal vowels and consonants.
In view of this, we find it plausible that incomplete
closure of the velum has been a constant feature of Nahuatl,

This content downloaded from

163.178.101.95 on Fri, 03 Dec 2021 04:14:12 UTC
All use subject to https://about.jstor.org/terms

ON MIRROR-IMAGE RULES
D. Gary Miller,
University of Florida
163.178.101.95 on Fri, 03 Dec 2021 04:14:12 UTC
All use subject to https://about.jstor.org/terms
SQUIBS AND DISCUSSION
and it is this that has led to considerable instability of
syllable-final nasals. In the contexts in which true under-
lying nasals are greatly reduced in audibility, the two types
of nasality would be indistinguishable, leading the Nahuatl
speakers who produced the texts to sometimes write them
in and sometimes leave them out without regard to under-
lying forms.
References
Dixit, R. P. and P. F. MacNeilage (I972) "Coarticulation
of Nasality: Evidence from Hindi," paper read at the
83rd Meeting of the Acoustical Society of America.
Karttunen, F. and M. Laferriere (I973) Boston-Area Dialect
Project, unpublished material, MIT, Cambridge,
Massachusetts.
Molina, A. de (I571) Vocabulario en lengua castellanay mexi-
cana, Mexico. (Facsimile edition, Mexico City, 1970).
Ohala, J. J. (1973) "Experimental Historical Phonology,"
paper read at the Ist International Congress on His-
torical Linguistics, Edinburgh.
Osgood, C., ed. (I 946) Linguistic Structures of Native American,
New York.
Robinson, D. F., ed. (I969) Aztec Studies I: Phonological and
Grammatical Studies in Modern Nahuatl Dialects, Nor-
man, Oklahoma.
Robinson, D. F. (i 969) "Puebla (Sierra) Nahuat Prosodies,"
in D. F. Robinson, ed. (I969).
Smith, B. and J. Westbury (I975) "Temporal Control of
Voicing Occlusion in Plosives," paper read at the
86th Meeting of the Acoustical Society of America,
Austin, Texas.
Whorf B. E. (I946) 'The Milpa Alta Dialect olTztec,- iin
C. Osgood, ed. (1946).
Wolgemuth, C. (i969) "Isthmus Veracruz (Mecayapan)
Nahuat Laryngeals," in D. F. Robinson, ed. (I 946).
Anderson (I974, chapter 8) has an excellent discussion of
mirror-image rules, but his notational convention (X
Y %7 A B) predicts that the entire environment will
always be mirror-image; and this, unfortunately, does not
seem to be the case. Consider, for instance, the Grass-
mann's Law subrule for dentals (Miller (1974, 226f.)),
in which the aorist passive morpheme the may not be
deaspirated:
/e + the + then/ -* etethen 'was placed'
/sa + the + thi/ -- sdthJti 'be rescued'
This content downloaded from