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 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.
| Main Author: | |
|---|---|
| Format: | Digital revista |
| Language: | English |
| Published: |
El Colegio de México A.C.
2021
|
| Online Access: | http://www.scielo.org.mx/scielo.php?script=sci_arttext&pid=S2007-736X2021000100303 |
| Tags: |
Add Tag
No Tags, Be the first to tag this record!
|