The phonology and morphology of Filomeno Mata Totonac

Chapter 1 Introduction
1.1 Introduction. This dissertation constitutes a descriptive grammar of the phonology and
morphology of Filomeno Mata Totonac that highlights typologically unusual phenomena of
theoretical interest. Filomeno Mata (FM) Totonac is a member of the Totonac-Tepehua family
(eastern Mexico), spoken in and around the municipality whose name it borrows in the state of
Veracruz, on the border with Puebla (see Map 1.1). It is a polysynthetic, highly agglutinating,
head-marking variety with complex verbal morphology that has not previously been described by
linguists. This grammar is based on fieldwork conducted by the author between 2003 and 2009.
Map 1.1 Filomeno Mata, Mexico
1.2 Totonac-Tepehua family. The Totonac-Tepehua language family has the third largest
speaker population of the indigenous languages of Mexico, after Uto-Aztecan and Mayan.
Languages of this understudied family are currently estimated to be spoken by over 200,000
people in the states of Veracruz, Puebla and Hidalgo in eastern Mexico (Kondrak et al 2007).
The Totonac-Tepehua family is now widely considered to have no genetic affiliation with any
other language family, although Greenberg (1987) proposed classifying it with Penutian, and it
was earlier thought to be related to Mayan (see Campbell & Kaufman 1980 for the history and
debunking of this hypothesis). It is divided into two main branches. The Tepehua branch
! "!