B. Dobui (Paris Sorbonne): Implications of Nasalization Blocking Strategies in Xochistlahuaca Amuzgo

Nasalization, both progressive and regressive, is an important phenomenon in the Amuzgo spoken in Xochistlahuaca in Mexico. However, on a reduced syllabic form of CCV, identity is easily lost. This presentation looks at different blocking strategies employed to block nasalization at the lexical and morphological levels and their implications.

Paralleling Stephen Marlett’s observation on Mixtec in his 1992 work, *NV and *LVⁿ do not occur in Amuzgo (N being a nasal sonorant, L a non-nasal sonorant, V a vowel and Vⁿ a nasal vowel). This attests to both progressive and regressive nasalization. On the other hand, and as may be expected, LV and NVⁿ do occur.

What is particular to Amuzgo, however, is the template NTV, better analyzed as N^TV given that N^T becomes N when V is nasalized, e.g. by the 3SGHUM marker, as in examples 4 to 6. The difference between the template NTV, which also exists, is seen when the latter is nasalized without loss of the stop, as in example 7.

On the morphological level, nasal blocking is also carried by allomorphy in plurals and future markers, though of a different form. In the former, the nasal morpheme /n/ denasalizes as [l] (examples 8 and 9) where in the future marker, also /n/, an N^T type is recalled, though a velar stop rather than an alveolar, [ŋ̩́k] (examples 10 and 11).

These strategies seem to imply a balancing of concerns against preventing identity loss through nasalization by maintaining what may appear to be an array of nasal allophones and allomorphs, but that actually form a strictly dedicated set that works to preserve identity.