The tones of Yucatec Maya

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The tones of Yucatec Maya

• Carlos Gussenhoven
• Radboud University Nijmegen

Fonología instrumental Patrones fónicos y
variación El Colegio de México 12 baktun 19
 katun 13 tun 13 uinal 9 kin - 12 baktun 19
 katun 13 tun 13 uinal 13 kin 23 - 27 October
2006
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Word Accents and Tones in Sentence PerspectiveA
symposium in conjunction with the 60th birthday
of Professor Gösta Bruce

• Carlos Gussenhoven
• Radboud University Nijmegen

Lund UniversityJanuary 10, 2007
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Outline

• Phonological sketch
• Prosodic syllable types
• A corpus à la Bruce 1977
• Positional allophony
• Tone sandhi
• Prosodic expression of focus

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Segments and syllables
p p b t t k k ? i u ts ts
t? t? e o s ? h
a m n ? w l
j
CV(V)(C) V Short VV
Long Glottalized Plain VV VV
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Words
l kaj fish h kaan snake h
h mu.kuj turtle dove l h su.kuun older
brother h l tsíi.min horse (h h síi.naan
scorpion) h lh júu.ka.taan Yucatan h l h
l káas.ta.jaa.noh Spanish C?
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Word prosody

• Short ?ek wasp
• Long High ?áak turtle
• Long Low koot wall
• Glottalized kuuk squirrel

High tone is a fall finally and a high in
penultimate position (Blair
Vermont-Salas) There is no tone really
(Archibald) F0 contours (Fischer)
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Word prosody - stress

• h is stressed (tsíi.min, su.kuun)
• word-initial l is stressed (kaj, mu.kuj)
• stressed syllables are tone bearers
• function words have no stress (kin 1SG)

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Glottal closures
?eel egg kiik blood tsuuts
kiss páa? open slightly ?i? hawk
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Glottalized

• CVCVC vowels tends to be the same
• CV?VC
• 1. Morphological process treat CV(V)(C) as
  monosyllabic root imperfective
• ?ah - ?a.hal wake
  up
• ?éem - ?ée.mel descend
• heel - hee.lel rest
  (Bricker 344)
• 2. CV?V would be tonally restricted to H-toned,
  CVCV to L-toned. No other ? has this restriction.
  (But ? CVV?V)

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Research questions

• How are the four tones pronounced?
• What is their phonology?
• How does sentence phonology affect the
  pronunciation of the tones?
• Tone sandhi
• Information structure

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Four male speakers in the Bay Area, aged
24-45 From Santa Elena, Uxbal, Oxkutzkab Scripted
speech (Thanks to Lisa Bennet)
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SANTA ELENA
?OXKUZKAB
?

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A corpus
kaj fish us gnat káan, páay hammock
míis broom kaan snake miis
cat kaan sky meex beard sak
white jáax first boox dark,
dirty jaax green wilik see tsíitik
write meentik manufacture,
do chaantk look at
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A corpus
Adjective Adj Noun 32 Basic VP Kin Verb
Noun 32 Penultimate Kin Verb le
Noun-o? 32 Initial Noun kin
Verb 32 New Ma kin Verb X, kin Verb
Y 32 Old Ma kin Verb X, kin Verb X 32
192
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• 15

Yaax míis.
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• 16

Kin meentik le kàano.
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• 17

Má kin dzíitik tsuutsuy, kin dzíitik kay.
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• 18

Má kin wu'uyik us, kin wilik us.
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Positional variation

• Final vs Initial
• Final vs Penultimate

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Allophonic variation for Long High and Glottalized
Short Long High
Long Low Glottalized
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Split TBUsLexical H
s s s s µ µµ µµ µ µ H H kay paa
y kaan kaan
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Split TBUsLexical H
s s s s µ µµ µµ µ µ L H L
H kay paay kaan kaan
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Final occurrence
s s s s µ µµ µµ µ µ L L H L L
L H L kay paay kaan kaan
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Initial occurrence
s s s s µ µµ µµ µ µ L L L H
L L L H L kay paay kaan kaan
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Medial occurrence
s s s s µ µµ µµ µ µ L H L
H L kay paay kaan kaan
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Gussenhoven 1983, 1991

• John will know better
• HL HL L
• Thatll be John there
• HL HL L
• Thatll be John
• HL HL L

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ToBI as an allophonic transcription

• John will know better
• LH LH L-L
• Thatll be John there
• LH H L-L
• Thatll be John
• LH H L-L

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ToBI as an allophonic transcription

• John will know better
• LH LH L-L
• Thatll be John there
• LH H L-L
• Thatll be John
• LH H L-L

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Tone Sandhi

• Downtrend may be sensitive to preceding or
  following tone
• This may depend on phrase-type
• It may apply to H or L or both
• There may be anticipatory effects

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Trigger Pool across H-tones, across
L-tonesTarget Separate on the basis of L-tone,
H-tone
Are L-toned nouns and H-tones nouns equall
affected?
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No anticipatory effect in Noun kin Verb
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YUCATEC MAYA DOWNSTEP

• T ? !T / .... H --- ....

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Expressing information structure

• Types of focus
• informational focus Answer to WH-question
• corrective focus Not X, but Y
  (contrastive focus)
• re-activating focus As for X
• Size of focus constituent
• What happened? Mary lost her VISA credit
  card
• What did Mary lose? Mary lost her VISA credit
  card
• What credit card did Mary lose? Mary lost her
  VISA credit card

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Ways of expressing information structure

• Syntax
• obligatory position in S
• Focus particles
• Morphology
• Verbal affixes
• Phonology
• Phrasing
• Deaccenting for outside focus
• Type of pitch accent
• Phonetics
• Hyperarticulation
• pitch range
• canonical pitch shapes
• Nowhere

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Informational focus in English obligatory pitch
accents

• Size of focus constituent
• What happened? Mary lost her VISA credit card
• What did Mary lose? Mary lost her VISA credit
  card
• What credit card did Mary lose? Mary lost her
  VISA credit card
• Did Mary lose her VISA credit card? (Yes)
  Mary polarity lost her VISA credit card

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Corrective Focus in English
I dont write piano, I say piano I dont
write piano, I write violin
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I write violin FOC
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I say FOC piano
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kin chaantik FOC ?us
I dont hear a gnat, Im looking at a gnat
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kin wilik meex FOC
I dont see hair, I see a beard
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kin chaantik ?us FOC
Im not looking at a wasp, Im looking at a gnat
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kin wilik FOC káan
I dont hear a hammock, I see a hammock
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Oscar
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Figure 9. Mean f0 tracks for us, míis, miis and
meex for speaker O under Corrective and Given
focus. N4.
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L-insertion

• Insert L / H --- H
• assuming there is a potential TBU

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• a. jáax míis b. jaax míis
• Li H H Li Li H L H Li
• first broom green broom

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• Archibald, John (1996) The acquisition of Yucatec
  Maya prosody. UC Berkeley International
  Conference of Phonological Acquisition. Berkeley,
  CA. 99-112.
• Bricker, Victoria B., Po?ot Yah, Eleuteria
  Dzul de Po?ot, Ofelia (1998) A dictionary of the
  Maya language as spoken in Hocabá, Yucatán. Salt
  Lake City, University of Utah Press.
• Blair, Robert W. Vermont-Salas, Refugio (1965)
  Spoken Yucatec Maya. Book 1 Lessons 1-12. Chapel
  Hill, NC Duke University-University of North
  Carolina, Program in Latin American Studies.
• Fisher, William M. (1976) On tonal features in
  the Yucatan dialects. Mayan Linguistics 1, 29-43.