Purepecha Aspirated Consonants and Their Phonetic Variants

Author

Lluvia Camacho Cervantes, The Graduate Center, City University of New YorkFollow

Date of Degree

5-2018

Document Type

Thesis

Degree Name

M.A.

Program

Linguistics

Advisor

Juliette Blevins

Subject Categories

Language Description and Documentation | Phonetics and Phonology

Keywords

Purepecha, Endangered Language, Aspirated Consonants, Preaspiration

Abstract

This study describes phonetic realizations of aspirated phonemes in Purepecha [pua] from Azajo. The distribution of aspiration in Purepecha is limited to roots, a small number of spatial suffixes, one argument structure changing suffix, and clitics. Aspiration is never contrastive for inflexional suffixes, which occur in word final position. There are three basic allophones of aspirated segments: (i) post-aspirated; (ii) unaspirated, (iii) pre-aspirated, with pre-aspiration showing 4 distinct phonetic forms, depending on dialect, and phonetic context. Strengthening of pre-aspiration has been documented in the Lake and Sierra dialects as well as vowel lengthening in the Lake dialect. In Azajo Purepecha there are no documented variants of pre-aspiration.

Recommended Citation

Camacho Cervantes, Lluvia, "Purepecha Aspirated Consonants and Their Phonetic Variants" (2018). CUNY Academic Works.
https://academicworks.cuny.edu/gc_etds/2719