PERSPECTIVES ON THE QUECHUA–AYMARA CONTACT RELATIONSHIP AND THE LEXICON AND PHONOLOGY OF PRE- PROTO-AYMARA

The complex, multilayered contact between the Quechuan and Aymaran languages is a central but still poorly understood issue in Andean prehistory. This paper proposes a periodization of that relationship and characterizes some aspects of the languages as they might have existed prior to their first c...

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Bibliographic Details
Published in:International journal of American linguistics 2017-04, Vol.83 (2), p.307-340
Main Author: Emlen, Nicholas Q.
Format: Article
Language:English
Subjects:
Andean languages
Aspiration
Fricatives
Glottalization
Language contact
Language reconstruction
Lexicon
Linguistics
Native languages
Phonetics
Phonology
Phonotactics
Prehistory
Proto languages
Quechua
Roots (Morphology)
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Summary:The complex, multilayered contact between the Quechuan and Aymaran languages is a central but still poorly understood issue in Andean prehistory. This paper proposes a periodization of that relationship and characterizes some aspects of the languages as they might have existed prior to their first contact. After disentangling the linguistic lineages on the basis of a large corpus of lexical data, the paper makes some observations about the phonology of Pre-Proto-Aymara: first, about aspiration and glottalization; second, about the glottal fricative *h; and third, about the phonotactic structure of lexical roots. The paper also presents lexical reconstructions of Proto-Aymara and Proto-Quechua and proposes provenances for several hundred roots. More than a third of the reconstructed Proto-Aymara lexicon may originate in Proto-Quechua. A method like the one presented here is a prerequisite for testing a hypothesis of genetic relatedness between the two families (and others in the region).
ISSN:0020-7071
1545-7001
DOI:10.1086/689911