Clusters vs. units in Otomanguean: the cases of Tlapanec (Mè’phàà) and Zapotec (Dixsa:)

Abstract Since the pioneering work of Trubetzkoy (1939), there have been various proposals as to how to distinguish consonant clusters and units in individual languages. In this paper, I will look at the cases of Malinaltepec Tlapanec (Mè’phàà) and Teotitlán del Valle Zapotec (Dixsa:), two Otomangue...

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Bibliographic Details
Published in:Cuadernos de lingüística de el colegio de México 2021-12, Vol.8
Main Author: Uchihara, Hiroto
Format: Article
Language:Portuguese
Subjects:
Language & Linguistics
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Summary:Abstract Since the pioneering work of Trubetzkoy (1939), there have been various proposals as to how to distinguish consonant clusters and units in individual languages. In this paper, I will look at the cases of Malinaltepec Tlapanec (Mè’phàà) and Teotitlán del Valle Zapotec (Dixsa:), two Otomanguean languages. I will look at general and language-particular criteria to distinguish clusters and units in these languages. I will show that in both cases the criteria do not always converge: some sequences are judged to be clusters by certain criteria but as units by others. Based on these observations, and drawing insights from Canonical Typology (Brown et al. 2012), I argue that the distinction between clusters and units is not dichotomous, but multidimensional: individual cases may simultaneously resemble clusters in some aspects but units in others, thus the typology of behaviors is richer than a simple binary opposition.
ISSN:2007-736X
2007-736X
DOI:10.24201/clecm.v8i0.224