The phonology and morphology of Filomeno Mata Totonac

[támpaat%i&] [kwaaya(kutún] [keNqáwit%i&]
‘you are coming’ ‘I want to eat’ ‘my nixtamal’
As noted in §2.5.5, m is limited in its distribution within morphemes, able to precede only a
vowel, a labial stop, or a word boundary. Given the inventory of morphemes in FM Totonac,
morpheme-final m comes into contact with a consonant-initial morpheme in only one case, with
the adjectivizing clitic =w&a&, as in spim’w&a& ‘agile’ and pam’w&a& ‘thick’. This acceptance of a nasal-
(homorganic) sonorant sequence may be permissible because of the clitic boundary that
intervenes, or it may be that m is allowed preceding homorganic sonorants. No other languageinternal
evidence allows us to decide between these options.
2.6.1.1.3 Final nasal deletion. Lexically stressed words may end in unstressed n-final syllables
such as túmin ‘money’, and tsulúlun ‘spring, water source’. But n-final words that undergo a
construction associated with a leftward stress shift lose the final n. These processes include the
perfective aspect construction and interrogative stress shift, which are discussed in greater detail
in §2.7.2.1.4 and §2.7.3.
44) /c"iwii-nan/ 45) /c"iwii-nan/
speak-HAB speak-HAB
[c"iwiinán] [c"iwíina]
‘s/he speaks’ ‘s/he spoke’
46) /kii-skin/ 47) /kii-skin/
RT-request RT-request
[kiiskín] [kíiski]
‘s/he goes to request it’ ‘s/he went to request it’
48) /wis"-nan/ 49) /wis"-nan/
you-PL you-PL
[wis"i-nán] [wis"í-na]
‘you plural’ (declarative) ‘you plural’ (interrogative)
50)/c"a-‘an/ 51) /c"a-‘an/
THERE-go THERE-go
[c"a‘án] [c"á‘a]
‘s/he arrives there’ ‘s/he arrived there’
! '.!