The phonology and morphology of Filomeno Mata Totonac

seem to be mutually necessary for perceptibility. The process of prosodic boundary marking is
discussed in §2.6.5.3, and is the basis of the spread or contricted glottal features marked on final
consonants in the citation forms given throughout this thesis.
2.3 Consonant phonemes and allophones. This section provides information on the consonant
phonemes of FM Totonac, their allophones, and their distribution within words and syllables. It
begins with the various categories of obstruent—stops, affricates and fricatives, followed by the
nasal and approximant sonorants. It should be noted that the obstruent and sonorant classes differ
systematically in two ways not associated with [±sonorant]. First, the obstruents are all [-voice],
the sonorants [+voice]. Also, the obstruents have a much greater ability to form initial and final
consonant clusters, while the sonorants have a more limited occurrence, especially in coda
clusters.
2.3.1 Stops. All the plain supralaryngeal stops in FM Totonaco can occur syllable-initially. They
also occur syllable-finally, with the caveat that in this position they are followed by voiceless
vowel features in their release when they are prosodically aspirated or glottalized (see §2.2.3).
Final stops are generally aspirated in citation form and prepausally (see §2.6.5.3 for details). The
plain supralaryngeal stops can appear with fricatives in initial and final consonant clusters as
detailed in §2.5.1-2. Optionally, all are occasionally voiced between voiced segments. The
phoneme $ behaves differently from any of the other stops and is described at the end of this subsection.
The dorsal stops, along with the coronal fricatives, are the primary sound symbolic
segments in the language (see §2.8). The following sections decribe each phoneme and provide
examples showing the phoneme in different possible positions within the syllable and word.
These examples show full phonetic detail.
2.3.1.1 /p/. The phoneme /p/ is a voiceless bilabial stop that is lightly aspirated word-initially,
and optionally voiced between voiced segments. It is prosodically glottalized or heavily aspirated
prepausally.
1) Examples of /p/
[p%ás"n&i&] ‘pig’ [p%is"lóqot h i]& ‘throat’
[p%uskáat h i&] ‘woman’ [níps"i&] ‘squash’
[snapáp h a&] ‘white’ [kápsnat h i]& ‘paper’
[spun] ‘bird’ [s"patá] ‘s/he mashes it’
[#paw’] ‘type of avocado’ [c"imps"] ‘s/he blinks’
[maqlíbn&i&] ‘lightning’ [katap'a&] ‘lie down!’
2.3.1.2 /t/. The voiceless dental stop, /t/, is lightly aspirated word-initially, optionally voiced
between voiced segments. It is prosodically glottalized or heavily aspirated prepausally. It
occasionally participates in sound symbolic series (see §2.8).
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