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Taos phonology
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Taos phonology
Taos is a Tanoan language spoken by several hundred people in New Mexico, in the United States. The main description of its phonology was contributed by George L. Trager in a (pre-generative) structuralist framework. Earlier considerations of the phonetics-phonology were by John P. Harrington and Jaime de Angulo. Trager's first account was in Trager (1946) based on fieldwork 1935-1937, which was then substantially revised in Trager (1948) (due in part to the inclusion of juncture phonemes and newly collected data in 1947 in the analysis). The description below takes Trager (1946) as the main point of departure and notes where this differs from the analysis of Trager (1948). Harrington's description (although from a different period) is more similar to Trager (1946). Certain comments from a generative perspective are noted in a comparative work Hale (1967).
The two following sections detail phonetic information about Taos phonological segments (i.e., consonants and vowels), as well as their phonological patterning in morphophonemic alternations.
Trager (1946) lists 27 consonants (25 native) for Taos, although in his later analysis he posited 18 consonants.
Words exemplifying Taos consonants are in the table below:
The stem-initial consonant in many verb stems has alternates (i.e. shows consonantal ablaut) between two different forms in what Trager calls the "basic" stem and the "stative" stem. The "basic" stem is used for the preterit active verb form while the "stative" stem is used for the resultative stative verb-forms and deverbal nouns.
A different set of alternations are what Trager calls "internal" ablaut. The last consonant of the verb stem alternates between two different consonants in the basic stem form and the negative stem form.
Taos has six vowels with three contrastive vowel heights and two degrees of vowel backness.
Five of the vowels have an oral-nasal contrast, which persists even before a nasal consonant coda (i.e. the syllables CVN and CṼN contrast, where C = any consonant, V = any vowel, N = any nasal consonant). For example, the Taos has a /ju/ syllable before /n/ as well as /jũ/ syllable before /n/ as in the words /ˌkæˈjūnæ/ ('maternal aunt') and /ˈjũ̄næ/ ('this').
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Taos phonology
Taos is a Tanoan language spoken by several hundred people in New Mexico, in the United States. The main description of its phonology was contributed by George L. Trager in a (pre-generative) structuralist framework. Earlier considerations of the phonetics-phonology were by John P. Harrington and Jaime de Angulo. Trager's first account was in Trager (1946) based on fieldwork 1935-1937, which was then substantially revised in Trager (1948) (due in part to the inclusion of juncture phonemes and newly collected data in 1947 in the analysis). The description below takes Trager (1946) as the main point of departure and notes where this differs from the analysis of Trager (1948). Harrington's description (although from a different period) is more similar to Trager (1946). Certain comments from a generative perspective are noted in a comparative work Hale (1967).
The two following sections detail phonetic information about Taos phonological segments (i.e., consonants and vowels), as well as their phonological patterning in morphophonemic alternations.
Trager (1946) lists 27 consonants (25 native) for Taos, although in his later analysis he posited 18 consonants.
Words exemplifying Taos consonants are in the table below:
The stem-initial consonant in many verb stems has alternates (i.e. shows consonantal ablaut) between two different forms in what Trager calls the "basic" stem and the "stative" stem. The "basic" stem is used for the preterit active verb form while the "stative" stem is used for the resultative stative verb-forms and deverbal nouns.
A different set of alternations are what Trager calls "internal" ablaut. The last consonant of the verb stem alternates between two different consonants in the basic stem form and the negative stem form.
Taos has six vowels with three contrastive vowel heights and two degrees of vowel backness.
Five of the vowels have an oral-nasal contrast, which persists even before a nasal consonant coda (i.e. the syllables CVN and CṼN contrast, where C = any consonant, V = any vowel, N = any nasal consonant). For example, the Taos has a /ju/ syllable before /n/ as well as /jũ/ syllable before /n/ as in the words /ˌkæˈjūnæ/ ('maternal aunt') and /ˈjũ̄næ/ ('this').