The phonology and morphology of Filomeno Mata Totonac

likely to show stress shift are the verb 69% of the time, the direct object 12%, the subject 6%,
and the indirect object 5% of the time. The direction and number of syllables of stress shift can
differ on the various constituents within a question.
Due to the frequent simplification of the stress-assigning aspect suffixes (see §2.6.4.4 for
simplification processes and §2.7.2.1 for suffix related stress), stress is often the only way to
distinguish imperfective and perfective aspect. Imperfective aspect is associated with final stress,
and perfective aspect with antepenult or (on the surface) penult stress. Interrogative stress shift
affects these two aspects somewhat differently: in perfective aspect, a leftward shift occurs
approximately 62% of the time, a rightward shift 28% of the time, with no shift in about 10% of
the cases. In the imperfective aspect, normally associated with final stress, a leftward shift is
usually the only possibility and occurs in 80% of cases, while 8% of examples show a rightward
shift, and 12% no shift. The interrogative stress shift may thus create ambiguity as to aspect
when the aspect markers are not present. This is resolved by the presence of temporal
expressions or by context. Examples of various kinds of stress shift are exemplified in the
following subsections.
2.7.3.1 Questions with verbal stress shift.
203) Examples with stress shifted one syllable left
/tuu #aa=ta-lii-ta-qa#uu-kutun-aa/
what NEG-3SUB.pl-INST-INC-descend-DES-IMPF
[túu #aataliitaqa#uukútu]
‘Why don’t they want to descend?’
Declarative:
[#aatataqa#uukutún]
‘They don’t want to descend.’
/suuqi-ta-kii-aa ana/
early-INC-upright-IMPF ana
[sooqentáakii ‘ána]
Does Ana get up early?
Declarative:
[sooqentakií ‘ána]
Ana gets up early.
! )-!