The phonology and morphology of Filomeno Mata Totonac

Generally, word-final obstruents are aspirated and sonorants are glottalized phrase-finally before
a pause. Only a consonant with a latent vowel in its release (see §2.2.3) is susceptible to the
attachment of the spread or constricted glottis features; the vocalic features appear to be
necessary for the perceptibility of the glottal features. Latent vowels are often deleted in rapid
speech, most often following a sonorant or fricative, and this deletion entails the loss of the
spread glottis feature as well. Long vowels in this prosodic context have their moras separated by
a glottal stop, that is, -VV becomes -V’V. The details of glottal feature epenthesis are given
below.
2.6.5.3.1 Final vowels. Aside from the reduced or latent final vowels which fail to protect the
preceding consonant from prosodic spread/constricted glottis features, final short vowels are
unmarked by glottal features prepausally.
166) Examples of non-glottalized final short vowels
túwa ‘difficult’ nakú ‘heart’
munú ‘he waters it’ c%ipá ‘s/he grabs it’
Final long vowels are glottalized, with the second mora of the vowel devoiced. It should be noted
that in verbal suffixes, the final mora of an unstressed long vowel is deleted by lexical rule wordfinally;
therefore final long Vs are found only in verbal or nominal roots.
167) Examples of glottalized final long vowels
c%ís%kú’u& ‘man’ stá’a& ‘s/he sells it’
nána’a& ‘mother’ tant"í’i& ‘s/he dances’
qoolú’u& ‘old man’ pu’u& ‘it’s in the fire’
2.6.5.3.2 Final sonorants. Prepausally, final sonorants with vocalic release features are
glottalized:
168) Examples of glottalized final sonorants
kiw’i& ‘tree’ stay’a& ‘squirrel’
qam’a& ‘tasty’ "tantal*a& ‘naked’
c%uun’i& ‘vulture’ wámpar’ ‘he spoke again’
No verbal examples exist for two reasons. Verb roots in FM Totonac do not end in sonorants
other than n, and the final -n in verb roots does not have associated latent vowel features. Also,
verb stems with final sonorants only occur when sonorant-vowel suffixes have their final vowel
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