A typology of stops in South American Indian Languages

GONZÁLEZ, HEBE

http://www.ailla.utexas.org/site/cilla1_toc.html

University of Texas at Austin

Lugar: Austin; Año: 2004 p. 111 - 111

This paper will present the first results of an ongoing research intended to examine the main ways in which the phonological systems of South American Indian Languages (SAIL) differ from each other. Specifically, it focus on the subsystem of both stops and affricates, as they are analyzed in regard to (i) their overall number within a phonological system, (ii) their series (e.g., voiceless, voiced, aspirated, ejectives, and so on), (iii) the number of places of articulation where they are produced as well as the most common ones, (iv) the interaction between the preferred places and the manners of articulation, and (v) their phonemic opposition. The dynamic of the interaction between different series of stops and affricates is analyzed as well as the systematic gaps within a particular subsystem (e.g., lack of palatal stops within the subsystem of stops). Finally, this paper discusses the most relevant allophonic variations that may give an indication of pervasive phonetic features found in languages belonging to different genetic units.The database is composed of 139 languages that belong to 59 genetic units as identified by Kaufman (1994). Languages are grouped according to two criteria: their genetic affiliation (i.e. linguistic family) and their geographic location, (following Kaufman’s division of South America into 12 cultural and ecological regions). The presence or absence of phonetic features (e.g., common allophonic variation of a particular phoneme) and phonemic oppositions between stops and affricates is studied for each language. The outcome is a picture of the genetic and geographic distribution of the features under investigation. Several maps of South American Indian Tribes taken from Rowe (1974) are displayed that present the totality of languages surveyed as well as the geographic areas with common phonetic or phonological characteristics.