The Phonetic Structures of Oaxaca Chontal

Abstract

The first description in any detail of aspects of the phonetic structures of the highly endangered Lowland variety of Oaxaca Chontal is presented. The paper includes measurements of the characteristics of the vowels, and a survey of the principal features of the consonant system. Particular attention is paid to the series of glottalized obstruents and sonorants, which vary a great deal in their manner of articulation and the nature and timing of the accompanying glottalization. The relative frequency of different realizations of the glottalized obstruents mirrors the crosslanguage frequency of glottalized consonant types. Glottalized sonorant realizations cannot be predicted from their position in the syllable. Individual speakers frequently vary when producing consecutive repetitions of the same word. Such a large range of variation may be partly due to an ongoing process of language attrition.