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Nasality and Nasal Prosody in ChimilaReview by: Terry MaloneInternational Journal of American Linguistics, Vol. 76, No. 1 (January 2010), pp. 1-41Published by: The University of Chicago PressStable URL: http://www.jstor.org/stable/10.1086/652753.

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1

[

IJAL

, vol. 76, no. 1, January 2010, pp. 141]

2010 by The University of Chicago. All rights reserved.00207071/2010/76010001$10.0

NASALITY AND NASAL PROSODY IN CHIMILA

1

Terry Malone

Latin American Mission/FUSBC Medelln

In Chimila, nasal consonants contrast with voiced stops at the same point of articu-

lation and no surface phonetic contrast occurs between nasalized and oral vowels in

core lexemes. Nevertheless, several lines of evidence indicate that the Chimila lexicon

includes nasal morphemes in contrast with oral morphemes. Evidence for this contrast

includes morphophonemic alternations of stem-forming verb suffixes, appearance of a

glottal glide following intransitive verb roots that have been transitivized, allomorphs

of the intransitive imperative, and a restricted alternation between word-initial voiced

stops and nasal consonants in roots and some suffixes. A constraint requiring lexical

nasality to attach to consonants in core lexemes and the interaction of this constraintwith the prosodic system, lexical tone, syllable structure, and the morphology account

for the varied manifestations of lexical nasality.

[

Keywords

: Chimila, subsegments, nasality, nasal prosody, nasal vowels]

1. Introduction.

Chimila is a Chibchan language spoken in northern

Colombia within a community of 1,600 persons. Most published works on

Chimila phonology and grammar (Trillos 1997 and Malone 2000; 2001;

2004) do not mention the existence of nasal prosody or phonetically nasal-

ized vowels in interjections and onomatopoeia; another paper (Malone

2006:24, 26) barely mentions the existence of nasal prosody and nasal lexi-cal roots in two footnotes. Nevertheless, evidence exists indicating that na-

sality is present, and that nasal prosody operates within lexical stems.

In this paper, I review the evidence and argue that nasality is present in the

Chimila lexicon, although no phonemic surface contrast exists between oral

and nasalized vowels, except that of some interjections and onomatopoeia.

I first present necessary information concerning Chimila phonology (

2

) and

then describe manifestations of phonetic nasality in core lexemes, interjec-

tions, and onomatopoeia (

3

). 4

presents evidence for lexical nasality, includ-

ing morphophonemic alternations (

4.1

), insertion of syllable-final /h/ (

4.2

),

1 I would like to express special appreciation to Margrit Hotz, who has provided much logis-

tical support and thus has made it possible to conduct this analysis and write this paper. The

Chimila data in this paper come entirely from my field notes. I am grateful to many Chimila

friends who have generously shared their language; unfortunately, names cannot be mentioned

here due to political conditions in their homeland. I am grateful to the editors and three referees

for comments on an earlier draft which have considerably improved this paper. Of course, any

defects are mine.


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international journal of american linguistics

2

and insertion of consonants /t/ and /k/ in the intransitive imperative (

4.3

). 5

presents a unified analysis accounting for these phenomena. In 5.1

I argue

that lexical nasality must attach to consonants in core lexemes and that the

interaction of this constraint with lexical tone, prosody, syllable structure,and the morphology accounts for the phenomena of 4, whereas in onomato-

poeia and interjections lexical nasality must attach to vowels

(5.2

). In 5.3

I

account for the variation in realization between voiced stops and nasals, by

proposing optional nasalization of the root-initial consonant; this allows one

to determine underlying forms of suffixes that show this variation. Section

6

presents conclusions based on the proposed analysis.

2. An overview of Chimila phonology.

This overview is based on the

analysis presented in Malone (2001; 2006); more detailed information is pre-sented concerning segments and clusters crucial for understanding how lexi-

cal nasality functions. The inventory of Chimila consonant phonemes is as

follows:

(1) Bilabial Coronal Velar Glottal

Voiceless

p t k

?

Stops

Voiced stops

b d g

Nasals

m n

N

Fricatives

s h

Lateral

l

Flap

\

Glides

w y

Voiceless stops are nonaspirated. All voiced stops are prenasalized. All coro-

nal segments are dental, except for the flap and the glide. The labial glide is

preceded by a light nonprenasalized velar voiced stop; the alveopalatal glide

is preceded by a light nonprenasalized alveopalatal stop. Consonants occurwith three phonetic lengths: short, medium long, and long. Consonant length

is not phonemic: some cases are analyzed as heteromorphemic geminates,

some occur in order to fulfill a minimal bimoraic trochaic foot requirement,

and most occur as the result of the interaction of lexical tone with the met-

rical system (syllables bearing lexical tone must be bimoraic, i.e., heavy).

(See Malone 2006 for more details on lexical tone, parsing constraints, and

their relationship to consonant length and syllable structure.)

The glottal fricative /h/ occurs in word-initial position in Chimila; it does

not occur word-medially except in interjections (see 6 in 3.2

), compoundwords ([k

a

h

hk

\

a

b

\

] tree trunk (

ka

h

tree, ha

k

\

a

?

head, -b

\i

chunk),

and loanwords ([h

u

h] needle, from Spanish aguja

). In all such words it oc-

curs in the syllable onset. Preceding the vowels /o, a/ the fricative exhibits


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nasal prosody in chimila

3

the allophone [h]; preceding the vowels /e, i, u/ the stricture of the glottal fri-

cative narrows, so that it tends to vary freely with a velar fricative [x].

A glottal off-glide occurs word-finally in verb roots of the syllable struc-

ture /(C)(C)V/. Its stricture in this position is highly variable from word toword but constant for each word; in syllable-final position the stricture can-

not be predicted from the height of the preceding vowel. For instance, the

stricture of the off-glide in [wi

h

~ wi] know, be able to is considerably less

than that of [si

h

] black or [i

h

] be hard. It is often inaudible and, unlike the

off-glide of [si

h

] and [i

h

], disappears in compound words or when the root is

suffixed. Further, light stricture, as in [o

h

~ o] do, contrasts with heavy

stricture, as in [o

h

] roast.

The distribution of this off-glide is restricted in syllable-final position,

much more so than any other consonant occurring in the syllable coda (see

4.2.2

). There is some question about whether it should be analyzed as a syl-

lable-final occurrence of the phoneme /h/; in fact, Trillos (1997) analyzes it

as an articulatory modification of the preceding vowel (1997:66), i.e., as

breathy vowels (/Vh/ in contrast with /V/). Because the glottal off-glide in

syllable-final position is restricted in distribution, does not behave the same

as syllable-initial /h/ with respect to stricture, and is associated with lexical

nasality (

4.2

), the term glottal off-glide ([

h

]) is used here, in order to dis-

tinguish it from the syllable-initial glottal fricative. Its distribution and pho-

nemic status is further considered in 4.2

and 5.1

, where I conclude that it isbest analyzed as a syllable-final occurrence of the phoneme /h/.

The following monosyllabic consonant clusters occur in syllable-onset

position: /p

\

/, /b

\

/, /k

\

/, /g

\

/, /kw/, /gw/, /kw

\

/, /gw

\

/, /w

\

/, /ty/, /dy/, and

/ny/. In syllable-initial position, the last three clusters are manifested respec-

tively as an alveopalatal affricate preceded by a light voiceless dental stop

[

t

c

], a prenasalized alveopalatal glide in which a light alveopalatal stop in-

tervenes between the dental prenasalization and the glide /

nd

y], and an al-

veopalatal nasal [].

2

Articulatory, acoustic, and morphophonemic evidence support this analy-sis of these clusters. The palatalization associated with the phonetic reali-

zation of the clusters /ty/, /dy/, /ny/ is longer than one would expect for

palatalization as an articulatory modificationin fact, three times as long

(Malone 2000:7677). When a CV syllable bearing lexical tone occurs pre-

ceding the clusters /ty/ and /dy/ in word-medial position, the clusters split

into a dental syllable coda and an alveopalatal syllable onset:

(2

a

) [

n

dt.

c

ata] go in!

(2

b

) [kn.a] field

2 I do not reproduce predictable phonetic details in the data of this paper unless they are

germane to the discussion at hand.


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international journal of american linguistics

4

In (2

b

) the dental nasal is especially audible and shows clearly in acoustic

diagrams (Malone 2000:7375). /ty/ occurs in contexts where one must con-

clude that two segments have combined. For example, the intransitive im-

perative morpheme [-ya] has the allomorph [-

c

a] in contexts where a glottalstop is part of the preceding monosyllabic verb root (3

c

) (note that in 3

b

the

glottal stop occurs at the end of the stem).

(3

a

) [saa

\

a.

d

ya] sleep! (/saa

\

a/ sleep)

(3

b

) [kita

?

.

d

ya] sing! (/k-ta

?

/ sing)

(3

c

) [yut.

c

a] go! (/yu

?

/ go)

Shortened forms in fast speech also suggest that [

c

] represents two com-

bined segments, for instance, [h

c

] house instead of [ht

ak] and [Ng\u

ckw] instead of [Ng\takkw] elders, older person, where two syllablesfuse to form the syllable [ca].

Lexical syllable structure is summarized by the formulas (X)V (C2),

(X)V(C2), and (X)VV(C3), where X can be /p/, /t/, /k/, /b/, /d/, /g/, /m/, /n/,

/N/, /h/, /s /, / l/, /\/, /w/, /y/, or the clusters /p\/, /k\/, /b\/, /g\/, /w\/, /ty/, /dy/,

/kw/, /gw/, /kw\/, /gw\/; in word-medial position, /?/ can occur as X. C2is

filled by /m/, /N/, /?/, and in word-medial position /n / also occurs in this set.

Only /?/ occurs as C3.

Chimila vowel phonemes are given below (from Malone 2006):

(4) i u

e o

a

Vowels occur with three contrastive phonetic lengths: short, medium long,

and long. Medium long vowels are analyzed as canonically long vowels

(monosyllabic, bearing one single phonetic tone), and long vowels as gem-

inate vowels (disyllabic, bearing rising or falling phonetic tone) (see Malone

2001 for details). High tone contrasts with its absence on monosyllabic long

vowels, as in /k?/ to buy vs. /ki?/ to receive. On disyllabic vowels afour-way contrast occurs, as in /too?/ maraca, /to?/ heart, /t?/ gourd,

/tii\i/ thin, /ti\o?/ hawk. Canonically long and geminate vowels contrast,

as in /to?/ to observe, look vs. /too?/ maraca or /k?/ to buy vs. /ki?/

sap. On CV syllables high tone contrasts with its absence, as in /\ku?/

species of owl vs. /\uku \uku/ rub, or /ska / ([saka]) someone ground

vs. /sAka/ ([saka]) someone tamped down earth; in these cases a require-

ment that syllables bearing lexical tone be heavy results in the lengthening

of the consonant immediately following the vowel bearing high tone.3

3 According to the analysis presented in this paper, the vowels of the verb roots grind and

tamp down earth are lexically nasal. Phonetic nasality is not present in their phonetic forms,

so I use them here to illustrate the tone contrast. Finding contrasts that do not involve at least


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nasal prosody in chimila 5

Word-level phonetic stress is predictable: it always occurs on the leftmost

syllable of the word and therefore is not marked in this paper. One default

phonetic high tone occurs per word. The syllable locus for the default high

tone depends on the number of syllables in the word, and whether or not thesyllable bears lexical tone. The leftmost syllable is the unmarked position for

word-level high tone; in this paper I do not mark default word-level high

tone. Words parse from left to right into bimoraic trochaic feet, in accor-

dance with proposals in Hayes (1995); see Malone (2006) for further details

regarding foot structure and parsing.

3. Phonetic nasality: an overview.

3.1. Conditioned nasal vowels. In core lexical vocabulary, phonetic vowelnasalization is conditioned by the presence of contiguous nasal consonants.

Vowels are nasalized immediately preceding nasal consonants and immedi-

ately following word-medial nasal consonants. Nasalization varies consider-

ably preceding nasal consonants; it is most audible on back vowels and less

audible or inaudible on front vowels. As might be expected, it is heavier in syl-

lables with nasals in both the onset and the coda, and is usually heavy fol-

lowing nasal consonants in word-final syllables of the form CV(?). Nasal

consonants following a glottal off-glide are often partially and sometimes

completely devoiced, with concomitant heavy nasalization of the immediatelyfollowing vowel; the preceding vowel is nasal, but not as heavy. If the nasal

consonant devoices completely, as in (5), the preceding vowel is nasalized:4

(5)

/ahNa-ta-ke?e-de/

bring-toward-fut.d.o.-1ev

Ill bring it back.

4 Because phonetic devoicing in this environment and nasalization of vowels contiguous to

nasal consonants are predictable, I do not indicate them elsewhere in this paper, unless germane

to the discussion. The following abbreviations are used in the glosses of this paper: 1 = first

person; 2 = second person; 3 = third person; sg = singular; pl = plural; d.o. = direct object; adj

adjective; benbenefactive; causcausative; condconditional; conjconjunction; contcontin-uative; evevidential; futfuture; gengenitive; impimperative; intinterrogative; invinverse;

itr intransitive; mid middle voice; neg negative; nomz nominalizer; obj direct or indirect

object; pl plural; ser serial verb linker; stem transitive stem-forming suffix; pas past; pat

semantic patient; posspossessive; sg singular; statstative; toptopic.

[?hN6takE?Ente]

one lexically nasal vowel (such as /u$ka/ [uka] to drink and /kwa/ [uk

w

a] to cut) is diffi-cult. A possibility is /taka?/ with force and /tka?/ turn sour. Speakers perceive the velar

stop of turn sour as longer than that of with force; acoustic measurements (two tokens of

each) have been inconclusive. The acute accent indicates lexical tone; I mark phonetic high

( ! ), mid (-), and low ( ~) tone on phonetic data where it is pertinent to the discussion. Phonetic

mid and low tone are inserted by default after the high tone representing word-level tone has

been assigned and the phonological word has been footed.


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international journal of american linguistics6

Vowel nasalization preceding voiceless nasal consonants in this position is

not attributable to the off-glide: no nasalization can be heard in vowels pre-

ceding the off-glide in words such as [kah] tree, stick, [kah mb\nta] piece

of wood. [ah] hair/to go, or [sihtu?] its black.

3.2. Oralnasal vowel contrast in interjections and onomatopoeia.

Nonallophonic nasalized vowels are found in some interjections and ono-

matopoeia. (6) lists interjections containing nasalized vowels:

(6) [?], [?h] yes!

[h ~ hoh] here it is (take it)!

[h?h?~ h?] right here! (pointing and touching place)

[hh] no!

[?E$hE$?E$] ok![h] huh?

[?ehnI] ok, agreed!

[ayo] expression of pity

[mISu] kitty, kitty!

Note that the nasalization is not likely due to rhinoglottophilia (spontaneous

nasalization occurring after the phoneme /h/) as described for Iapari

(Arawakan) in Parker (1999). For one thing, two interjections occur contain-

ing two oral vowels and one nasal vowel: [?oho?oh] hi!; [?Ehe$e$I] eek!(reaction at being startled). If nasalization were due to rhinoglottophilia,

one would expect all the vowels to be nasalized in these interjections. Sec-

ond, other interjections occur in which oral vowels occur contiguous to /h,

?/ and which contrast with nasal vowels in the interjections above, for in-

stance, [?ee] well, well!,5[?ookya] well, ok then!, [ha??] ok!, [hoo\i]

of course!, [ha?\iyu\i] you bet!. In addition, numerous words beginning

with /h/ occur in the core lexicon whose vowels are not phonetically nasal-

ized and which contrast with the nasalized vowels of the interjections in (6)

above:(7) /oo?/ [?oo?] ax /e/ [?e] to be at

/h?o/ [ho?o] scrape it! /h?/ [he?] to toast

/hk\u?/ [hok\u?] housefly /haa ?/ [haa?] shelf

/hoowa/ [hoowa] to bathe

Nasalized vowels also occur in onomatopoeia:

(8a) [isa Ngo$ki Ngki ni huu\a mbuu\u sawi\i]

3.conj heehaw heehaw ser shout donkey male

The jack brays heehaw heehaw .

5 Older speakers pronounce this as [?e$e$e$], with rising intonation.


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(8b) [isa noNwa we$e$? we$e$? ni noNwa]6

3.conj hear ribbet ribbet ser hear-mid

One hears them (frogs), one hears ribbet ribbet .

(8c) [isa niti? tu\uku]

3.conj grunt itr hog

The hog grunts.

In these and other examples, nasalized vowels can occur following a stop,

a semivowel, the flap, the liquid, and the sibilant. They contrast with oral

vowels in other onomatopoeia:

(9a) [isa niya]

3.conj clonk clonk say

It clonks lightly. (dog gnawing a bone)

(9b) [isa kwe?kwe? niti ni tutikwi tu\uku]

3.conj squeal itr its little (pl) pig

Piglets squeal.

(9c) [isa \u\u? \u\u? niya pek \u isa suh]

3.conj grrr grrr say dog 3.conj angry

The dog growls when it is mad.

As in the case of interjections, the nasalized vowels contrast with oral vow-

els in core lexemes, for example, /wee?/ be hot, /gota/ to get dressed, and

/\oo\o/ sp. anteater. In lexemes that are not onomatopoeia or interjections,

nasalized vowels only occur contiguous to nasal consonants.7

In spite of this and other phonological differences, onomatopoeia in (8)

(and elsewhere in the language) behave as normal intransitive verbs: the

serial verb marker /ni/ follows the onomatopoeia of (8a) and (8b), as if the

animal sounds were the first verb in a serial verb construction; and in (8c)the intransitive verb suffix /ni?ti?/ is used to indicate sounds or involuntary

actions, for example, /gim gim ni?ti?/ to blink on and off or /ansi ansi

ni?ti?/ to sneeze. In other words, the onomatopoeia are inflected as if they

6 This speaker alternatively pronounces ribbet ribbet as [Nwe$e$?Nwe$e$?], i.e., she optionally

nasalizes the glide.7 The phonology of onomatopoeia differs in two other respects from that of core lexemes:

(1) voiced and voiceless stops can appear in syllable-final position, in contrast with nasal con-

sonants and the glottal stop: [p\?p\?] noise of soldiers marching, [p\k p\k] noise of cartires clicking, [k\?k\?] or [k\?k\?] noise of joints cracking, [sk sk] noise of clock tick-

ing; [gwp gwp] swish of tail wagging, [k\g ndy] to make a snapping or creaking noise

(tree branches); and (2) word-final glottal stop does not delete in phrase-internal position.

\h\h

Ngoi Ngoi


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were regular verb stems in the language. Furthermore, onomatopoeia and

other verbs exhibit derivational relationships, for example, [tontn] sound

of dripping water [tnt nt:?] to drip and [tntoNka] put drops in or

[tUtUtU] sound of knocking and [tuntntuhNt:i?] to knock on door (eachset of words is from speakers of a distinct dialect).8

Other evidence suggests that onomatopoeia function as part of the Chim-

ila lexicon, even if they are phonetically and semantically marked in the

sense of Klamer (2002). In Chimila onomatopoeia are often a source of lexi-

cal referents (or vice versa), as we saw with sound of dripping water and

to knock on door. Other examples abound; a sampling includes [k\m], a

species of owl that says [k\u\N k\u\N], [gwp gwp] swish of tail wagging,

and [gwp gwp] to wag tail; the woodpecker makes the sound [ta?ta?ta?

ta?] and [ta?tahnitaka] means to thunder; a species of crane [k\eu?] calls[k\eu? k\eu? k\eu?], [loN loN] sound of banging on hollow object and

[lhlond?~ hohllond?] hollow, [k\k k\k niy?] to squeak or make

a cracking sound (pack saddle) and [k\?k\?] snapping or popping sound

( joints). To some degree interjections also appear to migrate back and forth

between the core and the margins of the lexicon, for instance, [hohkwa] take

it! ([h ~ hoh] take it! [-kwa] pat) or [ookya] ah, yes! ([oo] ah [-kiya]

then, consequently). These observations suggest that, just as Klamer (2002)

assumes for Dutch and Kambera, onomatopoeia and interjections are part of

the Chimila lexicon, and even though their phonology (and semantics) iscomplex, they must be taken into consideration if one is to adequately

describe Chimila phonology.

The most obvious hypothesis to account for this data would be to propose

that a contrast between nasal and nonnasal vowels existed at one time in core

lexemes and was manifested by a phonetically audible contrast between oral

and nasal vowels; synchronically these contrasts have only been preserved

in interjections and in onomatopoeia.

3.3. Variation in realization between voiced stops and nasals. As in-dicated in the consonant chart in 2above, nasal consonants and voiced stops

contrast at the same point of articulation. Examples of these contrasts are:

(10) /bne?/ [mbn?] lots (mass)

/mne?e?/ [mne??] to want

/do/ [nd] it is bad

/n/ [n] to hear

8

The last pair of words suggests that the phonological markedness of onomatopoeia cannotextend to regularly inflected verbs, and that at some point the phonological restrictions typical

of core lexemes begin to operate on lexical roots derived from onomatopoeia. In fact, speakers

of another dialect represent the sound of knocking as [tuN tuN].


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/dyO?/ [ndy?] hot pepper

/nyoo/ [] cheek (buttock)

/g?/ [Ng?] to grind again

/No?/ [N?] to make

In spite of these contrasts, free variation occurs in some words between

voiced stops and nasals at the same point of articulation in both word-initial

and word-medial positions (11). For each word I have listed the preferred or

more frequent variant first.

(11a) /b/ ~ /m/

[mbee ~ mee] where?

[masu?~m

basu?] nearby[mbenta tu?~ menta tu?] to reject

[me ?a\i?~ mbe?a\i?] to give birth

[munti?~ mbunti?] sp. rodent

[miniki ~ mbiniki] how?

[\aamb\a?~ \aam\a?] mountain lion (archaic)

(11b) /d/ ~ /n/

[ndah~ nah] nose

[ndap\i ~ nap\i] coffee (archaic)

[nek\u?~ ndek\u?] dog (archaic)[tulunda?~ tuluna?] cut off (adj)

(11c) /g/ ~ / N/

[Naa\i ~ Ngaa\i] long

[Nata?~ Ngata?] pulp

[Ngatika?~ Natika?] to desert

[Ngakwta ~ Nakwta] answer!

[No?~ Ngo?] to make

The alternation occurs between the consonant cluster /dy/ and the alveopal-

atal nasal //, which in some word-initial occurrences represents the under-

lying cluster /ny/; the semiconsonant /w/ and the word-medial cluster /Nw/

also vary freely in some words:

(12) [ndyaNNg\a?~ aNNg\a?] join of torso with thighs (in front)

[ooni?~ ndyooni?] twisted

[tii\igwa?~ tii\iNwa?] fruit of plane tree

Speakers who admit this free variation are rarely able to distinguish betweenthe oral segment and its nasal counterpart; they are usually not even con-

scious that this variation exists in their speech. At the same time many words


11/42


12/42


carry), are suffixed by a limited set of suffixes to form lexical stems. Most

of these suffixes indicate direction of movement or location. Their function

in stem formation is illustrated in (14) for the following: /-Na/ stem, /-ka/

away, out, /-k\i/ elevated, /-mta/ inside, /-ta/ up, toward, and /-t?/down, away:

(14a) [sa ?ndi?] /sa ?-t?/ get down (off donkey)

[sa?Nati?] /sa ?-Na-t?/ took (child) down (off donkey)

[sa?Ng\i] /sa ?-k\i/ impale (with something long)

[sa?ndka] /sa ?-ta-ka/ slip out (something long)

(14b) [uuk \i] /u-k \i/ sit on chair

[uuti?] /u-t ?/ sit down on ground[uumata] /u-mta/ sit inside something

(14c) [moota] /mo-ta/ carry upslope

[moomata] /mo-mta/ carry below

[mootak\i] /mo-ta-k \i/ carry from below to an elevated

position

Examples of an alternation which must be triggered by lexical nasality

appear in (15) (intransitive verb) and (16) (transitive verb), where [-ta] up,toward occurs in alternation with [-na] up, toward. These allomorphs

occur when the suffix [-ta] is affixed to a verbal root in order to form a verb

stem. The lexical form for [-na] appears when the stem is inflected to form

the imperative in (15c), because the imperative morpheme /-ya/ (here with

the allomorph [ca]; see 4.3) interposes itself between the verb root [hi] and

the suffix [-ta]. It also appears in (16b), where the stem-forming morpheme

[-ko] interposes itself between the verb root and the suffix [-ta]:

(15a) [h] /hY/ to creep along

(15b) [hnak\]

/hY-ta-k\i/

creep-up-elevated

to go up a slope

(15c) [htyatk\]

/hY-tya-ta-k\i/creep-impsg-up-elevated

go up!


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(16a) [tn] /t-ta/ shuck corn

(16b) [tk ot]

/t-ko-ta/shuck-stem-toward

shuck corn!

This alternation cannot be attributed to lexical tone, because the syllable

preceding [-ta] in (16a) does not bear lexical tone (see also 20 and 21 be-

low). In the case of a handful of morphemes, tone does condition alterna-

tions between voiceless stops and nasal consonants. For example, [-nta]

negative (conditional) occurs immediately following high tone (17a) and

[-na] occurs elsewhere (17band 17c). Note that the consonant variant imme-diately following high tone is always a cluster composed of a nasal conso-

nant and a voiceless stop, in obedience to the requirement that CV syllables

bearing lexical tone must be heavy (i.e., bimoraic):

(17a) [mk a\t hti\ htaNnt]

/ma-uka-\a-ti hti\a hta-Ne-t/

if.fut-2-pl-cont this.way do-cond-neg

If you (pl) dont do it this way . . .

(17b) [mk at be nyan kumya\ yNen]

/maka-ti be neya-ni kumiya-\i

since.3fut-cont where still-3sg.gen food-top

yA-Ne-t/

be-cond-neg

Since there wont be food anywhere . . .

(17c) [s-t NapNa\ kken?win ki\?]

/isa-ti NaapNa-\i k-ke-t-?wi-na ki\o?/if.3-cont wildcat-top eat-cond-neg-inv-1sggen chicken(s)

If the wildcat hadnt eaten my chickens . . .

Examples (18)(21) illustrate the variation between [-na] and [-ta] up,

toward for verb roots beginning with voiceless stops (18), voiced stops (19),

vowel-initial roots (20), and semiconsonants (21).

(18) [c?-mi-k \esak u-n]

/tya?-mi-ka \eesa k VU

-ta/why-not-2int cow milk-toward

why dont you (sg) do the milking?


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[c?-mi-k \esak u-kwi-t]

/tya?-mi-ka \esa k VU-wi-ta/

why-not-2int cow milk-inv-toward

why dont you (sg) milk the cow?

(19) [ndn]

/dO-ta/

enter-toward

to enter

[ndcat]

/dO-ya-ta/enter-imp-toward

enter!

(20) [n]

/U-ta/

drink-toward

to drink (through a straw)

[kat]/U-ka-ta/

drink-stem-toward

sip (through a straw)!

(21) [wn] /wI-ta/ pour out liquid

[wkothnin]

/wI-ko-ta-ni-nu/

pour-stem-out-ben-1sgpour it out for me!

This class of verb roots contrasts with other roots for which the nasal variant

[-na] never occurs and which have identical phonetic tone patterns, as illus-

trated in (22a) and (22b):

(22a) [ku-ta-k-nt]

/k-ta-ka-de/

go.up-up-stem-1ev

Im getting up


15/42


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(23b) [u-t] to sit up /uta/

[u-ke-w\a?y-t]

/u-ke-wa\a?ya-ta/

sit-pl-imppl-up

sit up! (pl)

(24a) [uku] drink! / U-ko/

[una]

/U-ta/

drink-toward

to drink with a straw

[u-ku-ta]/U-ko-ta/

drink-stem-up

drink with (the) straw!

[kape uNwa-?a]

/kpe U-wa-a/

coffee drinking-is

its time to drink coffee

(24b) [ndina] remove hair from goat carcass /dY-ta/

[ndi-ko-ta]

/dY-ko-ta/

cut-stem-up

take the hair off!

[ni ndi-Nwa-?a-k\i]

/ni dY-wa-a-k\i/

gencutting-nom-is-elevated

what was trimmed off

Compare the nominalized forms in (24a) and (24b) with the corresponding

forms of (25a) and (25b).

(25a) [kii?\o] to work /ki?\/

[kii?\-wa] work (noun) /ki?\wa/

(25b) [kake?] to be named /kke?/

[kake-wa?] name11 /kke?wa/

11 Word-final glottal is always present for some words. For other words there is considerable

variation between speakers as to whether the word-final glottal is present or not.


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Further, verbs requiring the [-na] allomorph of the directional morpheme

up, toward also require the [-Na] allomorph of the directional morpheme

[-ka]:

(26a) [aNa] go away / A-ka/

[acaka]

/A-ya-ka/

go-2impsg-away

go away!

(26b) [ndiNa] cut off a piece /dY-ka/

[ndi-ko-ka]

/dY-ko-ka/cut-stem-away

cut off a piece!

Other verbs show analogous variants for the following stem-forming suffixes:

/-ta/ ([-na]) up, toward; /-t?/ ([-ne?]) distributed; /-ka/ ([-Na]) away, out;

/-\e/ ([-ne]) pl (subject); /-ke/ ([-Ne]) pl subject); /-wa/ ([-Nwa]) mid/nomz;

and possibly /-\i/ ([-ni]) adjective. Verbs with roots that trigger nasal variants

of one or more of these suffixes are listed in Appendix A; out of approximately590 verbs appearing so far in the data, 77 (13%) have occurred in morpho-

phonemic contexts indicating that the lexical root must be nasal.

4.2. The glottal off-glide.

4.2.1. The intransitive causative. The same roots that require [NV] al-

lomorphs of certain suffixes also require the insertion of a glottal off-glide

([h]) immediately preceding the transitivizing or transitive causative suffixes

/Na/ and /No?/. When transitivized by the suffixes /-No?/ or /-Na/, verb roots

requiring the [-na] form of the directional morpheme change their phonetic

form from [(C)V(V)] to [(C)V(V)h]in other words, the root is immediatelyfollowed by a glottal off-glide. This alternation is illustrated below for the

verb stems /A-ta/ to return (27a), /dO-ta/ to enter (27b), and /mA-ta/ to

go by (27c).

(27a) [

go-stem-toward

bring (it) back!

(27b) enter-stem-toward

put in, cause to enter

ah-Na-ta]

[n

doh

-No?-ta]


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(27c) ni yu?u]

pass-stem-toward ser go.2impsg

keep passing it on!The behavior of these verbs contrasts with the behavior of verbs for which

the morpheme /-ta/ appears suffixed to the root, such as /kta/ to go out:

when these latter verbs occur with /-No?/ or /-Na/ transitive stem the glottal

off-glide does not appear. In (28) the morpheme /-ta/ occurs following the

verb root /k/, the same allomorph of the verb root occurs preceding the

stem-forming suffix /-Na/, and the same allomorph of the directional mor-

pheme /-ta/ follows:

(28) /k-ta/open-toward

go out (through a door)

[ka-Na-ta]

open-stem-toward

open the gate!

Thus the glottal off-glide alternation before verbs analogous to /A-ta/ re-

turn appears to be triggered by the same factor triggering the variation be-tween [-ta] and [-na]the verb root is marked for nasality in the lexicon.

Tone cannot be triggering the glottal off-glide: note that the phonetic and

lexical tone patterns of the lexical root and the whole word cross a street

(29a) and pass on (29b) are the same:

(29a) [manak]

/mA-ta-ka/

pass-toward-out

cross a street(29b) [mahNat]

/mA-Na-ta/

pass-stem-toward

pass (something) on

Equally, forms such as (29b) preclude one from arguing that the off-glide is

inserted to provide a mora in obedience to the requirement that a syllable

containing a vowel with lexical tone be heavy. In fact, the interaction of lexi-

cal tone with the metrical system for CV syllables, in which the onset of thefollowing syllable lengthens in order to provide an extra mora, is blocked

precisely in this causative (see 27aand 27b). This indicates that the insertion

[maah-Na-ta


19/42


of the off-glide is triggered by the morphology; otherwise this blocking

should not occur.12Contrasts such as (30a) and (30b) confirm the morpho-

logical function of the off-glide: in these examples it refers to an unspecified

causative agent.

(30a) [n Ag\i]

/nA-k\i/

be vertical-elevated

come from (higher elevation)

[nAhg\i]

/nA-h-k\i/

be vertical-caus-elevatedbe set upright, set upright

(30b) [kug\i]

/kVV-k\i/

be.burned-elevated

be burned and stuck on

[kuhg\i]

/kVV

-h-k\i/be.burned-caus-elevated

be deliberately burned, and stuck on, deliberately burn and stick on

The only viable alternative way to account for the insertion of the glottal off-

glide, other than specifying nasality in the lexicon, is to establish verb

classesand exactly the same arguments apply as in the case of the allo-

morph [-na] of /-ta/.

4.2.2. Isolated verb roots and compound words. The connection of the

off-glide with nasality is not as exotic as first appears, when acoustic factsare taken into consideration: Blevins and Garrett (1992:14) note work by

previous investigators indicating that phonation effects associated with [h]

or breathy voice and vowel nasalization affect vowel spectra identically.

This indicates that a natural acoustic and articulatory relationship exists be-

tween [h] or breathy voice and vowel nasalization. Beddor (1993:184) fur-

ther notes that breathy voicing mimics certain of the effects of nasalization

on the low-frequency spectrum. The connection can be seen in the Chimila

data, not only in the case of the intransitive causative but also when nasal

verb roots of the form CV occur alone (31a) or in aspectual or serial verbconstructions (31b), in that the isolated verb root always has the form

12 In CV roots the morphologically triggered glottal off-glide does provide the second mora,

fulfilling the requirement that syllables bearing lexical tone must be heavy (27aand 27b).


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[(C)Vh]. In these cases the stricture of the off-glide is heavy. (31c) shows that

the off-glide is not inserted due to the serial verb linker /ni/:

(31a) [isa sah]/isa s/

3.conj grind

its ground/it was ground

(31b) [isa bihni tekwa]

/isa bY ni

3.conj roll.up.in.ball ser

te-kwa/position (round object)-extended surface

it rolls up in a ball (centipede)

(31c) [isa ana ni yu?u]

/isa A-ta ni yu?-a/

conj go-toward ser go-cont

its returning (toward speaker)

The connection between the off-glide and lexical nasality can also accountfor the puzzling but consistent difference in stricture noted in 2above. Upon

suffixation isolated roots with heavier stricture turn out to be marked for

nasality, and those with little or no stricture are oral. The stricture functions

as a mora inserted to form a bimoraic foot, as stipulated by the minimal word

constraint; light stricture disappears when the root is incorporated into a

compound word ([witu?] be acquainted), whereas heavier stricture does

not ([sihtu?] be black). In be acquainted the first syllable forms a defec-

tive foot, but the bimoraic foot of the second member fulfills the minimal

word constraint, so that one must conclude that the off-glide of be blackhas not been inserted in order to fulfill the minimal word constraint.

The distribution of the glottal off-glide in nouns and adjectives also re-

veals a close association with nasality: in the vast majority of cases it occurs

in stem-internal position preceding nasal consonants, the lateral sonorant /l/,

or voiced stops (always prenasalized). In syllable-final position its stricture

does not vary according to the preceding vowel, in contrast to word-initial

occurrences. In syllable-final position it tends to blend with immediately

following nasals, so that the nasal devoices to varying degrees;13following

13 For some speakers the syllable /NV/, when immediately preceded by the glottal off-glide,

takes the form [Hv$]; in other words a nasalized glottal fricative replaces the nasalized consonant

and the following vowel is heavily nasalized. See (5) in 2above.


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bimoraic vowels, it tends to blend with immediately following nasal conso-

nants. In words of tone pattern HML it occurs exclusively preceding nasal

consonants or the lateral /l/:

(32) [khmet] thin, delicate [\hNak?] brush

[thnidy?] skunk [mbhlady?] bow (weapon)

[shnak] night [lhlond?] hollow (adj)

In words of tone pattern HL the glottal off-glide occurs preceding nasal con-

sonants or voiced stops:

(33) [khm?] a little bit [ndhN?] dough

[mbhn?] two [ndhb\] lazy

In words of phonetic tone pattern MHL the glottal off-glide occurs in the

coda of the leftmost syllable preceding stops, nasals, or the liquid /l/:

(34) [ehmt] go on an outing [k ahns] root

[hohllond?] hollow (adj.) [gwahNt] clear! (a field)

[kahmb\nt] piece of wood [ndihtnt?] shine

Words in which the off-glide immediately precedes oral stops are always

nouns and adjectives formed by compounding a nominal root with an adjec-

tive (piece of wood), or they are compound verbs (lazy), or reduplicatedforms (shine). Only in words of three or more syllables with initial tone

pattern MH do voiceless stops appear following the glottal off-glide, and all

the examples in the data involve reduplication.14

In contrast to verbs, there is less morphological evidence associating the

glottal off-glide and nasality in nouns and adjectives. First, only seven

monosyllabic noun roots of the form [(C)Vh] occur in the data:

(35) [a h] hair [ga h] wing

[boh

] manure [ka h

] tree[dah] nose [ma h] sweet potato

[dih] tooth

Of these, three occur with classifier suffixes:

(36) [ NNgu\]

/A-gw\a/

hair-branch

body hair

14 See Malone (2004) for details on noun morphology, where I argue that all multisyllabic

nouns are the result of word compounding or the addition of classifier suffixes.


22/42


(37a) [NgNNgu\]

/gA-gw\a/

feather-branch

arm

(37b) [NgaNNk\?]

/gA-kik\a?/

feather-bone

wing

(38) [k NNg\?]

/kA-g\a?/

wood-border.of

arrow

Nasal prosody has occurred in (37b), where the first syllable of the classifier

suffix /-kik\a?/ bone has nasalized.15According to the analysis of Malone

(2006) one must further conclude that feather bears lexical tone, because

the onset of the following syllable lengthens, in response to the requirement

that CV syllables in which the vowel bears tone must be heavy. In addition,

the leftmost syllables of (36), (37a), and (38) all sport nasal consonant codas;

according to the analysis of Malone (2006) the vowels of these syllables bearlexical tone, and the consonant has been inserted in order to provide the

required second mora. Thus the nasal consonant represents the inserted mora

in syllables when the lexical root containing the tone-bearing vowel is

lexically nasal.

Note that the behaviors described here exclude an analysis of the off-glide

as a breathy or voiceless vowel. This would result in an unnecessary prolif-

eration of phonemic vowel contrasts,16when an entity already demonstrated

to exist in the lexicon (nasality) can account for the same data. Also, it ignores

the limited distribution of the glottal off-glide, its close relationship withnasal consonants and roots independently demonstrated to be nasal, and the

morphophonemic data of (36)(38).

4.2.3. Other occurrences of the glottal off-glide. The following verbal

suffixes can trigger a glottal off-glide when occurring on the right of the

word: [-No?] transitive stem; [-Noye?] transitive causative; [-mata] inside

15 The suffix originates from the lexical root /kik\a?/ bone. This suggests that some lexical

roots might be unmarked for nasality. At present this is the only potentially unmarked root that

has appeared in the data.16 Cho (1993:64) argues that the so-called voiceless vowels found in some languages have

to be represented phonologically as aspirates; the Chimila data would appear to lend support

to her proposal.


23/42


container; [-me] want; be able; [-mesa] purpose; [-na] 1.sg.poss; [-na\a]

1.pl.poss; [-ne] pl; [-ne?] pas; [-ni] 3.sg.poss; [-ni] ben; [-nine]

3.pl.poss; [-nu?] 1sg.obj; [-nu\a?] 1.pl.obj. The glottal off-glide is in-

serted immediately preceding the initial consonant of the suffix. All of thesesuffixes begin with a nasal consonant, and the vowel following the nasal con-

sonant is heavily nasalized, whether or not the off-glide precedes itin con-

trast to the lighter nasalization on the vowels of syllables headed by nasal

consonants in words such as [kene?] eat or [ndanu] be afraid. At first

glance one might suppose that the off-glide is inserted in order to prevent the

occurrence of unfooted syllables (39), and this is often the case. However, it

occurs in environments where if it were not inserted, no unfooted syllables

would occur (40). Its insertion can result in unfooted syllables not only in the

stem (always footed separately before suffixing) but also when it immediate-ly precedes a disyllabic suffix (41).

(39) [i sa ta a \ah ne]

| | | | | | |

(mm) (mm) (mm)

/isa taa\a-ne$/

conj talk-pl

they are talking(40) [i h ne anawah ne]

| | | | | | | | |

(mm)(mm)m(mm)

/inE? A-ta-wa-ne$/

conj.pas go-toward-pat-pl

they returned it

(41) [maka wesa ooniwah

nine og

we?] | | | | | | | | | | | | | | |

(m m) (mm)m(mm)m(mm)m(mm)

/maka wesa oni-wa-nIne$ owe/

conj.fut really cry-pat-their child

they will really mourn for their son/daughter

In 4.1we saw that suffixes exist which must be marked [-nasal] in the

lexicon, and others which must be unmarked for nasality; one is tempted to

conclude that the set of suffixes behaving analogous to [-ne] in (39)(41) is[+nasal]. This occurrence of the off-glide also raises the question of whether

nasal prosody could be operating from right to left. Some evidence exists,


24/42


for example (42a), where the voiced stop of [mbhn?] becomes a nasal con-

sonant at the same point of articulation when prefixed; (42b), with the same

classifier prefixed to three, is included for comparison.

(42a) two (people) [ti-mhn?] two (birds)

(42b) [m ahn?] three (people) [ti-mahn?] three (birds)

Another possible example is (43), where the dental stop of the suffix /-ta/

becomes a nasal consonant at the same point of articulation when suffixed by

/-mta /:

(43) [ihne ha\u p\antamata haatakanamata]

/inE? ha\u p\-ta-mta haataka-ta-mta/ conj.pas all fall (drops)-toward-inside house-toward-inside

The (rain) got into everything in the house.

The evidence is, however, ambiguous. Regarding (42), numerical classifiers

are the only prefixes occurring in the data, and whether or not nasal prosody

has occurred, voiced stops do not occur stem-internally in core lexemes in

intervocalic position. In (43), the suffix /-namta/ could also originate from

/nA/ be vertical and /-mta / inside. If right-to-left nasal prosody can be

unambiguously shown to occur, there are restrictions, depending on whetherit originates with a lexically nasal root (42a) or a suffix (39, 40, 41, and 43):

nasal prosody originating from suffixes cannot nasalize consonants, whereas

nasal prosody originating from roots can.

4.3. Allomorphs of the intransitive imperative. If roots analogous to

/A/ to go are lexically nasal, the insertion of the voiceless stops [t] and [k]

in the imperative forms for roots containing bimoraic vowels such as /A-ta/

to return (44), /dO-ta/ to enter (45), and /mA-ta/ to go by (46) must be

explained: one does not expect voiceless stops to be inserted after nasal mor-phemes in a language allowing nasal prosody. These stops occur in the coda

of the syllable containing CV verb roots (44 and 45), whereas they occur in

the onset of the imperative morpheme for CV and CVV verb roots (46):

(44) [a t-ya-ta]

go-2impsg-toward

return! (sg)

[ak-wa?\e-ta]go-2imppl-toward

return! (pl)

[mbhn?]


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(45) [ndot-ya-ta]

enter-2impsg-toward

enter! (sg)[ndok-wa?\e-ta]

enter-2imppl-toward

enter! (pl)

(46) [ma-tya-t]

pass-2impsg-toward

pass by, go on! (sg)

[maa-kwa?\e-ta]pass-2imppl-toward

pass by, go on! (pl)

The root /mA-/ already constitutes a minimal foot (thus fulfilling the mini-

mal word requirement), so that inserted consonants (especially in the following

syllable onset) would seem superfluous.17Nevertheless, all intransitive verbs

which can independently be shown to have nasal roots insert [t] in the

singular and [k] in the plural imperative, no matter what their syllable struc-

ture is.18

In contrast, most intransitive imperatives inflect as in (47) below. Conso-

nants other than the glottal stop do not appear between the verb root and the

imperative morphemes in the singular and plural imperatives; note that the

occurrence of the glottal stop is not predictable for disyllabic verbs. Further-

17 Only four CVV verb roots with /aa/ occur so far in my data: /gw/ be positioned (some-

thing flat, wide and floppy), /mA-/ pass by, /nA-/ be vertical, and /NA/ lie in hammock.

/mA-/, /gw/, and /NA-/ condition nasal allophones. /nA-/ requires the plural morpheme [-\e]

(instead of [-ne]) but otherwise behaves identically to /mA/ and /NA/. The occurrence of[na\] instead of *[nn] is the only exception I have been able to find with respect to the con-

ditioning of nasal allomorphs reported in this paper.18 Consonants are also inserted immediately following nasal roots for the following suffixes:

/-wi/ [-wi ~ -kwi] inv(compare 17 to 48c); /ya/ [-ya ~ -tca] cond; /-wa/ [-wa ~ -kwa] pat; and

the transitive plural imperative /-waro/ [-waro ~ -kwaro]. Malone (2006) represents the under-

lying form for the allomorph [-kwi] as /-kawi/. This representation fails to account for the fact

that /-kawi/ would only be suffixed to verbs with nasal roots (i ), whereas when [-wi] does not

appear [-ka] is suffixed to both nasal and nonnasal roots (ii ).

(i ) [owi] s/he did it /o-wi/ [uk wi] s/he drank it / U-wi/

(ii ) [oka] someone did it /o-ka/ [uka] someone drank it / U-ka/

The representation /-kawi/ also obscures the analogy of the [k] insertion for /-wi/ with other

morphemes where the presence of /-ka/ cannot be justified, as well as the analogy with [t]

insertion: a generalization is lost.


26/42


more, in the phonetic forms for the singular and plural imperatives, the light

stops preceding the glides /y/ and /w/ are voiced instead of voiceless. No

verbs independently shown to have nasal roots inflect the imperative in this

manner.

(47a) /kta/ [kata] to go out

/k-ya-ta / [kadyata] get out! (sg)

/k-wa?\e-ta/ [kagwa?\eta] get out! (pl)

(47b) /h-ta/ [hata] to come

/h-ta-ya/ [hatadya] come! (sg)

/hta-?wa\a-ya/ [hata ?gwa\adya] come! (pl)

(47c) /k-ta ?/ [kita?] to sing/k-ta-?ya/ [kita ?dya] sing! (sg)

/kta-wa\a-?ya/ [kita gwa\a?dya] sing! (pl)

At the same time, roots showing no evidence elsewhere in the language for

lexical nasality require the insertion of the voiceless stops in the imperative,

as in (48) with a disyllabic root ending in a syllable bearing lexical high tone.

In all these cases a CV syllable with lexical tone immediately precedes the

imperative morpheme, and the CV syllable is always the rightmost syllable

in a multisyllabic stem:

(48) /ki ?\/ to work

[kii?\tya] work! (sg) /ki?\-ya/

[kii?\kwa\a?ya] work! (pl) /ki?\-wa\a-?ya/

[kii?\gwa] work (noun) /ki?\-wa/

CV syllables bearing high tone must form a bimoraic foot when suffixed; the

resulting metrical structure is illustrated in (49) for the singular imperative

of to work.

(49) [kii?\ t.y a]| | | | |

(mm)(mm)

work! (sg)

One cannot attribute the inserted consonants to tone in lexically nasal roots,

because not all lexically nasal roots bear lexical tone (/gw-ya/ [gwaaca]

lay an egg!). One is tempted to assume that syllables with lexically nasal

vowels must also be heavy. Although there is evidence to support this as-

sumption,19and it accounts for the behavior of monosyllabic nasal roots, it

19 Stems such as /t-ta / shuck corn, /u$-ka/ drink, and /w$-ta/ pour out water vary with respect

to the length of the suffix-initial consonant: sometimes it is single and sometimes it is bimoraic.


27/42


does not account for bimoraic roots such as /jY/ creep, /gw-/ be posi-

tioned (flat, floppy object), and /mA-/ pass by. Instead, the inserted voice-

less stop for the imperatives of roots analogous to /A/ and /mA-/ appears to

block nasal prosody (15c, 19, 26a, 44, 45, and 46); the voiced transitionstops do not, as is clear from (24a) and (24b) above.

The constraints for apparent blocking appear to be related to the boundary

between derivation and inflection: nominalization and suffixation of direc-

tional/location morphemes create stems which in turn are a modification of

inherent meanings of roots, whereas imperatives do not affect the inherent

meaning of the root (or, for that matter, the stem). When imperatives are

formed from stems, the stem-forming suffixes must separate themselves

from the root, the inflectional morpheme is suffixed to the root, and the stem-

forming morpheme is suffixed to the inflectional morpheme. When bareroots function as stems (/gw-ya/ [gwaaca] lay an egg!), the relationship

between inflection and derivation is clear, whereas it is not as clear for de-

rived stems. Thus nasal prosody operates within a stem, but not outside the

stem, and the voiceless stop occurs at the root boundary; in the case of non-

nasal verb stems analogous to /ki?\/ the voiceless stop occurs at the stem

boundary. Transitive imperatives such as [kwakata] pour! and [ukuta]

drink with (the) straw! demonstrate what is to be expected if nasal prosody

is indeed in operation: the voiceless stop in the onset of the transitive stem-

forming morphemes /-ka/ and /-ko/ blocks nasal prosody, as is the case forother languages in which nasal prosody is known to operate (see Barnes

1996 for an example). Here one can assume that the transitive stem-forming

morphemes /-ko/ and /-ka/ and the singular imperative /-ya/ and the plural

/-wa\a/ are specified as [-nasal], whereas the directional morpheme /-ka/ is

unmarked for nasality. Thus the inserted stops signal the root boundary; they

also indicate that the preceding root is nasal andthe immediately following

suffix is oral, i.e., they signal a transition from nasality to orality.

One might ask if the transition from orality to nasality is also signaled.

Under certain conditions this seems to be the case, for morphemes of theform /-NV(CV)(?)/ at the right edge of the phonological word, as described

in 4.2.3. However, a comparison of (50a)(50c) indicates that this is not the

primary function of the inserted off-glide: in (50b) an alveopalatal affricate

[c] (/ty/) appears instead of the expected glide [dy] (compare to 50c).

Speakers tend to lengthen stem-internal nasals; they also tend to lengthen the suffix-initial

consonant following CV rootsas if the minimal word constraint were in the process of be-

ing reinterpreted as a minimal root constraint. Comparison with suffix-initial consonants in

words such as /-kwa/ (cut-extended surface), whose roots are independently known to bearlexical tone, suggests that stems whose suffix-initial consonants vary in length are unmarked

for lexical tone. Nasal vowels are not mentioned as instantiating syllable weight in the com-

prehensive survey of Gordon (2002).


28/42


(50a) [maka ooniwa hnu]

/maka oni-wa-nU/

conj.fut cry-pat-1objsg

s/he will mourn for me

(50b) [maka ooniwa tcu]

/maka oni-wa-yu/

conj.fut cry-pat-2objsg

s/he will mourn for you

(50c) [maka wiwidyu]

/maka wi-wi-yu/conj.fut send-inv-2objsg

s/he will send you

/-wa/ pat is lexically oral, so the inserted stop in (50b) must instead signal

the stem boundary when the stem is suffixed by an oral morpheme, much as

the inserted stops of the intransitive imperatives indicate the root boundary

of nasal roots followed by oral inflectional morphemes.

5. Analysis. In this paper I have described phonetic and morphological

behaviors pointing to the existence of lexical nasality or associated with

nasality in Chimila. In this section I tie together loose ends of the analysis

and demonstrate that a relationship exists between these seemingly disparate

phenomena, using the proposal of Zoll (1996), who argues that subsegments

such as nasality can express themselves as latent segments (inserted seg-

ments), attach to an already present segment as a feature ([+nasal]), or float

(remain unexpressed phonetically).

5.1. Lexical nasality in core lexemes. The nasal allomorphs docu-mented in 4.1leave little doubt that nasality is operating in the Chimila lexi-

con. There we saw that there must be verb roots marked [+nasal] in the

lexicon; there must also be suffixes marked [-nasal] and [0nasal]. A curious

gap in the inventory of suffixes (none were marked [+nasal]) was resolved,

once it was demonstrated in 4.2that the glottal off-glide is intimately related

to nasality. If, as proposed in 4.2.3and 4.3, its insertion and the insertion of

the stops [t] and [k] in the intransitive imperative signal a transition between

roots and suffixes differing with respect to their lexical specifications for

nasality ([h] signals a transition to a [+nasal] suffix and the stops signal atransition to an oral suffix), then [+nasal] suffixes must also exist. Thus the

insertion of these transitional segments is controlled by lexical specifications


29/42


for nasality, in interaction with morpheme class (root or suffix), position in

the phonological word, and lexical tone.

The assumption that morphemes in the core lexicon are marked for nasal-

ity avoids the theoretically awkward, ad hoc specification of some suffix-initial stops (for instance, the velar stops of /-ka/ stem or /-ke?/ aside) as

blockers of nasal prosody, and others as unmarked for nasality (for in-

stance, the velar stops of /-ka/ out, away or /-ke/ pl). Under this analysis

the feature [+/-nasal] spreads onto root nodes dominated by the morpheme

in question, in interaction with language-specific constraints on feature spec-

ification. This analysis is different from that of Walker (1998) (inter alia),

who attributes the phenomena of blocking and transparent consonants to

opacity effects. Her analysis calls on a phonological representation that

may never surface because it cannot be physically implemented (Walker1998:100), i.e., nasalized voiceless stops cannot be phonetically imple-

mented. Nevertheless, in Chimila voiceless nasalized stops are phonetically

implementedas nasal consonants at the same point of articulation.

This (along with other data presented in this paper) indicates that lexical

nasality in Chimila is not expressed phonetically on vowels in core lexemes

unless they are contiguous to a nasal consonanta unique trait, judging

by the comprehensive surveys of languages with nasal prosody in Piggott

(1992) and Walker (1998). Lexical nasality is also unique in that it expresses

itself as syllable-final nasal consonants in non-word-final syllables bearinghigh tone, as the glottal off-glide in roots functioning as isolated words, or

word-finally in isolated verb and noun roots or in the first member of com-

pound words, and it indirectly manifests its presence through consonantal

transitions between roots and suffixes ([h], [t], and [k]). The data force the

conclusion that lexical nasality must be expressed as a nonvocalic subseg-

mental feature: it can only dock on consonants or, alternatively, it can only

dock on syllable margins. It either expresses itself as a latent segment (in-

serted nasal consonants or the glottal off-glide, depending on its position in

the word), attaches to an already present segment as the feature [+nasal], orfloats (remains unexpressed phonetically), as is the case with /U-ka/ [uka]

drink (compare /o-ka/ [oka] do).20

Regarding the representation of lexical nasality, mora insertion has been

independently documented for Chimila in Malone (2006), in response to the

requirement that syllables bearing lexical tone be heavy; this involves the

insertion of a timing unit in CV syllables bearing lexical tone, whether or

not a vowel is lexically nasal. In these cases, place features are copied

from the following syllable onset; place features are also copied when nasal

20 Terminology is from Zoll (1996). I am grateful to an anonymous referee for referring me

to Zolls work.


30/42


consonants are inserted. This is suggested by a variation which occurs be-

tween nasal consonants with place features and a nasal consonant [N] in syl-

lable-final position, as in [k\iNk\initi?~ k\iNk\initi?] stay (pl), [kantawa?

~ kaNtawa?] jungle, or [p\omp\oni?~ p\oNp\oni?] be face down (pl),

where [N] is articulated in the boundary area at the rear of the alveopal-

atal region and the front edge of the velar region; it is further back than

the alveolaralveopalatal glide [dy] but not as far back as the velar nasal

[N].21If a CV verb root is marked [+nasal], nasality attaches to the inserted

(righthand) node, as in figure 1, for the leftmost syllable of /p\Op\OnI?/

[p\omp\oni?] (only mora-bearing root nodes are shown in figure 1).

In fact, the requirement that syllables bearing lexical tone be heavy may

have motivated the requirement that lexical nasality can only be expressed

as a consonantal feature. One sees this in the case of morphemes which block

the insertion of the glottal off-glide when they immediately precede suffixes

which otherwise would trigger it (51a, where the suffix /-wi/ immediately

21 By implication, [N] cannot have place features, whereas other nasals (including the coro-

nal nasal) in Chimila must have place features. This nasal, preceded by a phonetically nasal

vowel, also appears as a cross-generational equivalent for nasal vowels in lexemes originating

from onomatopoeia: compare [s?sa s?sa s?] stinging sensation, as pronounced by an olderspeaker, and the pronunciation of the same word by her daughter (also a fluent, competent

speaker): [sNksa sNksa sNk]. (The velar stop is fronted and unreleased; it appears to be tran-

sitional between the nasal consonant and the voiceless fricative.)

Morpheme tier M

| \

Moraic tier m | \ m

| \

Root nodes \

/ | [+nasal] / |

[-cons] / | / |

Laryngeal node | [+cons] |

/ | |

[tone] | |

| |

[pr o m pr o n i ?]

Fig. 1


31/42


precedes the suffix /-ne$/), and in the case of verbs which bear lexical tone on

the second syllable of the stem (51b, where the stem /wiwakwa/ immedi-

ately precedes the suffix /-ne$/). In (51b) the deletion of a morpheme triggers

a tone shift (Malone 2006).22This in turn triggers lengthening of the follow-ing consonant, in contrast to (51c), where the glottal off-glide occurs:

(51a) [gwah Nowin e]

| | | | | |

(mm)m(m m)

/gw-NO?-w-ne$/

kill-stem-inv-pl

they killed it

(51b) [wik w an e]

| | | | |

(m m)(mm)

/wi-wa-kwa-ne$/

command-mid-extended-pl

they sold (him/her/it)

(51c) [wik w ahne]

| | | | |(m m)(mm)

/wi-kwa-ne$/

command-extended-pl

they sent (him/her/it)

The following morphemes block the insertion of the glottal off-glide in this

environment: [-No?~ -ko] transitive stem; [-ne?] pas; [-ti] cont; [-ti?]

down, away; [-wi] inv; [-ya?] fut; [-e?~ -ye?] affected pat; [-yo?]transitive stem. All these suffixes bear lexical tone and therefore trigger

doubling of the immediately following syllable onset (including nasal con-

sonants), in obedience to the requirement that syllables bearing lexical tone

must be heavy.

The proposed representation suggests that the mysterious glottal off-glide

[h] in root-final position is best considered to be an allophone of the glottal

fricative /h/, in spite of its phonetic differences and restricted distribution; in

word-final position (in isolated and in compound words) it functions as do

nasal consonants inserted in word-medial position. The inventory of seg-ments in word-final position is more severely restricted than that of stem-

22/-wa/ mid is included in the lexical form of (51b), on the basis of the meaning. The exact

identity of the omitted syllable is uncertain: /-ya/ dative obj is another possibility.


32/42


medial, syllable-final segments: it is limited to [?], [h], [m], and [N]. The

word-final nasal consonants occur only in lexemes originating from loans or

onomatopoeia that are in the process of migrating into the core lexicon, so

that one can safely conclude that segments with place features are generallynot allowed in word-final position in core lexemes, i.e., only laryngeal con-

sonants can occur in syllable codas in word-final position.

The observed relationship between the glottal off-glide and nasality suggests

that the off-glide must be a sonorant; Hall (2000) proposes this represen-

tation for /h/ and /?/ in general, and Um (1996) argues that the representation

of laryngeals with respect to [sonorant] depends on their behavior in the lan-

guage in question. Obviously, the off-glide must bear the feature [+nasal],

even though one hears no phonetic nasalization when a nasal consonant is

not present.The representation in figure 1 accounts for the inserted glottal off-glide in

words such as /kA/ [kah] tree, where the insertion of a nasal consonant is

blocked in word-final position because there is no way for it to acquire place

features. Figure 1 also accounts for the insertion of [t] and [k] in the codas

of CV verb roots for the intransitive imperative and the glottal off-glide; the

constraint [-nasal] [-sonorant] accounts for the voicing specification of

the inserted stops. In the case of CV and CVV verb roots, a representation

such as that proposed in Steriade (1994) for Mazatec consonant clusters ac-

counts for the phonetic association with the onset of the immediately fol-lowing syllable. (52a) below gives representations for the stop /t/ and the

glide /y/ [dy], where A0represents the closure phase of the segment and Amaxrepresents the release phase (Steriade 1994); the two phases are dominated

by a single node.23 (52b) represents the cluster /ty/ [c]: The A0 and Amaxphases of the onset stop have merged with the respective A0 and Amaxphases of the glide, and the result is a single segment (dominated by one

node). Place assimilation (both segments are coronal) triggers the merger.

(52a) td

y| | |

A0Amax A0 Amax

(52b) t y

| |

A0Amax

The inserted stop of the singular imperative /mA-ya-ta/ [maacata] pass

by! can be represented as in figure 2; the representation for the inserted stop

in the plural imperative /mA-wa?\e-ta/ [ma-kwa?\-t] is analogous (see

23 Steriade (1994:207) represents glides as only having Amax. The light stops preceding the

Chimila labial and coronal glides suggest that they also have an A0phase. For /y/, [+coronal],

and for /w/, [+velar] associate to the A0phase.


33/42


figure 3). Again, the respective A0 and Amaxphases of the stop and glidemerge. The merger occurs in the onset of an oral morpheme, so the associ-

ation with the nasal morpheme is deleted (M represents the morpheme

tier). The representation in figure 4 accounts for cases such as /Uka/ [uka] to

drink; note that [+nasal] floats, because there is nowhere it can dock within

the verb stem (root nodes not bearing moras are omitted).

5.2. Lexical nasality in interjections and onomatopoeia. A referee has

proposed that there could be a contrast between oral and nasal /h/ in inter-

jections. However, in core lexemes and onomatopoeia, nasal morphemes can

be shown independently to exist; thus there is no justification for proposingan additional nasal segmental phoneme which would only be found in nasal

morphemes in interjections. An alternate analysis is available: one only has

to specify that lexical nasality associates to vowels, instead of consonants,

in interjections. There is little or no evidence for nasal prosody in interjec-

tions and onomatopoeia (once they are suffixed they enter into the realm of

core lexemes), so that one must also specify that vowels are marked nasal or

unmarked for nasality. In the case of onomatopoeia one can either specify

vowels as nasal, or whole morphemes; the latter is preferable, given the

close relationship of onomatopoeia to the core lexicon. Thus the differencebetween noncore lexemes and core lexemes with respect to lexical nasality

is manifested as a difference in its segmental manifestation; no other expla-

nation is necessary.

M M

/ | | \

[+nasal] | | [-nasal]

| |t y

| |

A Amax

Fig. 2

M M

/ | | \[+nasal] | | [-nasal]

| |

k w

| |

A0 Amax

Fig. 3


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5.3. Variation in realization between voiced stops and nasals. Where

does this variation fit in the general picture of lexical nasality in Chimila?

Some roots which undergo this alternation, such as /d/ pull toward

(something long) and /gA/ of /gA-t?-ka/ abandon can be independently

shown to be nasal. Walker (1998) states that languages in which both /t/ and/d/ [are] realized as [n] under nasalization are unattested and suggests that

this can be understood as a consequence of the highly neutralizing effect of

such an outcome (1998:116, n. 15). The alternation may indeed be a syn-

chronic remnant from a time when voiced stops in roots were realized as

nasal consonants at the same point of articulation when undergoing nasal

prosody. The synchronic occurrence of the alternation shows that the pros-

ody is now optional morpheme-internally and occurs only in contexts where

the voicing (i.e., phonemic contrast) of the underlying stop is recoverable.

This is certainly the case for suffix allomorphs where nasals alternate withvoiced stops within stems. In fact, the ternary specification of nasalization at

the morpheme level accounts for patterns of suffix variation within stems

and allows one to determine underlying lexical forms. In addition to phono-

logical factors (lexical tone and nasality), the specification of the root with

regard to transitivity controls allomorphs. When suffixes such as /-ta/ [-ta ~

-nta ~ -nda ~ -na] up, toward or /-t?/ [-te?~ -nte?~ -ne?] distributed (both

[0nasal]) form stems with roots unspecified for transitivity, allomorphs anal-

ogous to [-nta] occur following vowels bearing high tone (53a), and those

analogous to [-nda] occur following oral syllables bearing nonhigh tone(53b). Those analogous to [-na] occur following nasal roots specified for

transitivity, either transitive (53c) or intransitive (53d), and alternatives anal-

ogous to [-ta] occur elsewhere for all roots (53a53d):

Morpheme tier M M

| \ |

Moraic tier m | \ m |

| \ | [-nasal]

Root nodes [+nasal]

/ | / |

[-cons] | [-cons] |

| |

[u -k a]

Fig. 4


35/42


(53a) /pta/ [pnt] to shed skin (snake)

/pNata/ [pNat] pull (it) out! (blade of grass from

sheath)

(53b) /tyi?da/ [c? be gutted

/tyi?Nata/ [c?Nat] to gut

(53c) /wIta/ [wn] to pour out

/wIta ditake/ [wk otnin] pour out (water) for me!

(53d) /wY-ta/ [wn] be wild, untamed

/wY-Na-ta/ [w hNat] scare, make wild

Some nasal suffixes have allomorphs analogous to (53a) if lexical tone im-

mediately precedes them, such as /-t/ [-nta~ -na] neg (see 17) or /-d?/[-nta?~ -nda?~ -na?] adj (see 11b; note also /-b\d?/ [-mb\inta?] piece vs.

/-b\b\id?/ [-mb\imb\ida?] pieces). Some do not, such as /-nE?/ [-ne?] re-

mote past. Oral suffixes, such as /-t?/ [-nti?~ -ti?~ -ndi?] down, away, up,

toward, demonstrate variants typical of unmarked suffixes, except that they

block nasal prosody: [-nti?] occurs following vowels bearing high tone,

[-ndi?] within stems following a root-final glottal stop, and [-ti?] elsewhere.

Allomorphs such as [-nta], [-nta?], [-nte?], and [-nti?] are ambiguous with

respect to indicating nasality of the lexical root to which they are affixed.

Verb roots occur with these allomorphs where one cannot be sure regardingthe specification of the root for nasality (54a); others occur where one can

be reasonably sure that the root is nasal (see 54b):

(54a) [ponte?]

/p-t?/

/be.lit-dispersed/

be lit

[poNote?]

/p-No-t?/

/light-stem-dispersed/

to light

(54b) [ginti?]

/gY-ti?/

/extinguished-away/

be extinguished

[gih

Na?a]/gY-Na-a/

/extinguish-stem-cont/

calm down a crying child

nd]


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An alternative occurs for (54b) be extinguished, in which the root is

specified for transitivity (in this case, [-transitive]): [gti?] (/gY-t?/) be

extinguished. In this root lexical nasality is unexpressed phonetically, be-

cause of the interaction of the specification [-transitive] and the requirementthat CV syllables bearing lexical tone must be heavy. One cannot escape the

conclusion that the suffix allomorphs not only signal phonological informa-

tion concerning the root and root boundaries but also lexico-morphological

information concerning the root itself.

6. Conclusions. The existence of nasality in the Chimila lexicon has

implications with respect to morphological analysis. First, it casts consider-

able light on the verb morphology; in fact, it has led to a breakthrough in

determining the inventory of verb suffixes and their phonetic forms, also indistinguishing between similar morphemes, for instance, /-Na/ [-Na] stem

(root unmarked for transitivity), /-ka/ stem (inherently transitive root) and

/-ka/ [-ka ~ -Na] out, away, or /-wa/ [-wa ~ -Nwa] mid/nomz ([0nasal]) and

/-wa/ [-wa ~ -kwa] pat ([-nasal]). Second, the phenomena reported to be

associated with nasality (variation in realization between voiced stops and

nasals, morphophonemic alternations, the glottal off-glide, and insertion of

[t] or [k]) provide dependable diagnostics for recognizing nasal roots: in all

cases where one of these occurs with respect to a given verb root, one or

more of the other phenomena have eventually appeared in the data.24

The proposed analysis also has theoretical implications. In order to pro-

vide a unified account of the behavior of nasality and nasal prosody, I have

assumed a ternary distinction for marking lexical nasality ([+nasal], [-na-

sal], [0nasal]); a ternary distinction is also useful in explaining some occur-

rences of the glottal off-glide, as well as the insertion of [t] and [k] in verb

root margins, and morphological variants of verb suffixes. The issue of ternary

features is under debate and bears on current debates concerning opacity, lo-

cality, feature specification, the nature of feature geometry, the structure of the

lexicon, and interactions between phonology and morphologyall crucialin dealing with harmony systems and none of which I can explore in detail

here.

When one looks at other languages within the Chibchan language fam-

ily, the presence of nasality in the Chimila lexicon comes as no surprise.

Even though no contrast between nasalized and nonnasalized vowels ap-

pears in two related languages spoken in northern Colombia, Ika (Landaburu

2000, Tracy and Tracy 1973; 1976, and Frank 1990) and Tunebo (Headland

24 At this stage of the analysis, using one or more of the other criteria for identifying nasal

roots and stems would add at least 20 verb roots to the list in Appendix A; see (30b) and (54b)

for examples.


37/42


and Headland 1976 and Headland 1997),25 in three other northern Colom-

bian Chibchan languages nasalized and nonnasalized vowels contrast: Bar

(Mogolln Prez 2000), Damana (Williams 1997), and Kogi (Gawthorne

and Hensarling 1984).26Constenla (1981) reports nasal vowels in contrast tooral vowels for the following Central American Chibchan languages: Cab-

car (also Margary Pea 1982 and Jones 1983:154), Bribri (also Schlabach

1974), and Terraba. A contrast between oral and nasal vowels is reported by

other researchers for the additional languages Bocot de Chiriqu (Gunn and

Gunn 1974 and Margary Pea 1988), Guaym Movere (Kopesec and Kope-

sec 1974 and Abarca Gonzlez 1985), Teribe (according to Quesada 2000

and others, best considered to be the same language as Terraba) (Koontz and

Anderson 1974 and Oakes 2001), and Rama (Holt 1986).27The analysis pro-

posed here locates Chimila with other Chibchan languages in which nasalvowels contrast with oral vowels. At the same time the behavior of nasality

and nasal prosody in Chimila is unarguably unique, even though it exhibits

characteristics typical of well-known phonological systems which include

nasality and nasal prosody. Its uniqueness is found in the constraints on the

segmental manifestation of nasality in core lexemes, and the interaction of

these constraints with the prosodic system, lexical tone, syllable structure,

and the morphology.

APPENDIX ALexically Nasal Verb Roots and Stems

The phonetic form is as pronounced phrase-internally. The following lexical stem-

forming morphemes occur with the verbs listed below:

/-Na/ alongside, parallel to /-kwa/ extended area

/-No?/ transitive stem /-o/ transitivizer

/-ka/ away, out /-ta/ up, toward

25 Tunebo contrasts an oral bilabial glide and a nasalized bilabial glide (Headland and Head-

land 1976).26 For Damana, Trillos (2000) reports /u/ in contrast with /u$/ but no contrasts for other vow-

els; she observes that /i,a,o,u/ nasalize contiguous to nasals and when they bear stress

(2000:752). For Kogi, Ortiz Ricaurte (2000) reports no vowel contrasts but hypothesizes that

nasality functions as a suprasegmental.27 Wheeler (1972), Levinsohn (1975), and Frank (1988) do not reconstruct this contrast for

the proto-language giving rise to northern Colombian Chibchan languages, although Frank ob-

serves that the proto-language most likely had nasalization as a suprasegmental feature oper-

ating on the word level (1988:18). Another investigator suggests proto-nasalized vowels as a

possible motivation for some of the reflexes of *min Kogi (Jackson 1990). In his reconstruction

of Proto-Chibchan, Constenla (1981) includes nasality as a suprasegmental phoneme. Althoughthe data available to him were not nearly as reliable as that available to more recent researchers,

he includes all the northern Colombian Chibchan languages mentioned above in his reconstruc-

tion and proposes possible reflexes for nasalization in these languages, including Chimila.


38/42


/-ka/ transitive stem /-t?/ distributed

/-ke?/ aside /-t?/ down, away from

/-kri/ elevated /-wa/ middle voice (mid)

Lexical Root or Stem Phonetic Realization Gloss

a ?ah go

a-ta ?ana return

a-ka ?aNa leave, go away

by mbih roll into a ball

by-ta mbina cut head of grain off stem

by-t?-k\i mbitik\i wind string in ball

by-t?-kwa mbitikwa throw/shoot into the

ground

b\a

m

b\ah

beginb\a-ta mb\ana wake up

de mdeh say, mention

de-ta ndena get out of harms way

d$-ta ndina to skin

d$-ka ndiNa cut off a piece from

do-ta ndona enter

do ndoh swallow

ekuna d ?Ekuna ndo stretch ones self

d-ta ndona pull toward (something

long)ka ga-t?-No?-ka aka ganeNoka get divorced (two people)

ga-t?-ka Ngatika abandon

ga-t?-o Ngato abandon

g()-wa Nga()Nwa be lying down; be

(something big)

gv-ka gguNa fetch water

gv-ta Nguna take off clothes

g\v-ka Ng\uNa step aside

gw Ngwaa be brooding (hen)

Na Naa be hanging (somethinglong)

y-t? ?ine? ascend vertically

ha-ta-ka hanaka leak, escape (liquid)

ha-ka haNa get away, escape (animate)

jy hi creep

jy-ta hina creep along

j hoh smoke (cigarette)

j-ta hona eat with a stick (thick

liquid)

ka-ka-t? kakati? grab, catch

ka-ta kana grasp with hands

ka-t? kane? be bright, lit up, blond


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kNo ha-wa koNo haNwa fetch water, arrive at

arroyo

kvu$-ta kuuna to milk

kw-ta k w

ana approachkw k wah be on, at (mass or group)

kw k wah to pour

kw-ta k wana pour into; to bud out

(tree)

kw-ta-ka k wanaka pour onto ground

kwa-ka k waNa throw into stack

(wNa) ly-ta (waNa) lina wash clothes

ma-ta maana pass by

mo moh carry hanging

mo-ta-k\i monak\i carry crossways onna-k\i naaNg\i originate from; be vertical

na-ta-k\i naanak\i originate from (higher

elevation)

n no hear

o ?oh roast

o-ta ?ona fry

\-ta-ka \anaka slide toward

\u$ \uh be unkempt, ruffled

s sah grind

sa- sa- pound earth firmsa-ta sana pound on

sy-ke? sike? tie

sy-ta-kwa sinak wa be blindfolded

sv-Na suNa cook, boil

t-ta tona shuck corn

tv-wa tuNwa be alive

tv-ta tuna sprout

tu$-wa tuNwa see

u$-ka(root-stem) uka drink

u$-ta una drink through straw

wa wah be there

wa-ta wana be abundant

w-ka waNa throw out

w$-ta wina pour out water

w$-ta-ka winaka pull out of

wy-ta wina be wild, untamed

ya yah exist; live

ya-ta yana be born

yv

yu

h

look foryv-ta yuna insert horizontally


40/42


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