Phonetic realization of vowel length and glottalization in Todos Santos Mam

Abstract

Mam (Guatemala: Mayan) is described as having a vowel length contrast, as well as a laryngeal contrast between glottalized and modal vowels [England 32–36 (1983)]. Glottalized vowels are described as having a falling pitch contour and being longer relative to their modal counterparts (ibid.). However, there are no phonetic studies explicitly confirming this. In particular, the Todos Santos dialect has received almost no phonetic investigation, and the presence and realization of the length and laryngeal contrasts is not well-established. This study is one of the first phonetic studies of vowel length and glottalization in Todos Santos Mam. The authors collected data of one native speaker reading a list of words varying in vowel quality. We find evidence for both a length contrast and laryngeal contrast. For the length contrast, short vowels are significantly shorter in duration and lowered relative to long vowels. For the laryngeal contrast, glottalized vowels are found to have a falling pitch contour, while modal vowels have level/rising pitch. In addition, a lengthening effect was found such that short glottalized vowels are longer than their modal counterparts, but it is unclear whether the same effect is present for long glottalized vowels.