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Inflectional class shifts in the Mazatec diasystem: Innovation, contact and metatypes

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Published/Copyright: August 3, 2018

Abstract

This paper aims at broadening the interdisciplinary field of linguistic typology and dialectology, through diasystemic ecology, from the standpoint of inflectional morphology. Mazatec inflectional classes and intricate patterns of paradigm diversification are scrutinized through a survey of dialect taxonomies and an overall model describing main parameters, such as subconflation, inflectional class shifts and metatypes. This approach provides as efficient a grid to observe dialect divergence and convergence as traditional isoglosses, especially considering the high degree of regularity and systematicity of inflectional class processes in the Mazatec dialect network.

Abbreviations

AGRS marking

agreement marking (agreement markers=agreement subject)

Asp

aspect

Ay

Ayautla

cpl

completive aspect

CPL Pv

specific completive preverb

excl

exclusive

imper

imperative

/H/

high tone

/h/

mid-high tone

HM

High Mid

Hu

Huautla de Jiménez

IC

inflectional class

ICS

inflectional class shift

incl

inclusive

incpl

incompletive aspect

IOM

incompletive overmarking

Ix

San Pedro Ixcatlán

Ja

San Felipe Jalapa de Diaz

Ji

Santa Maria Jiotes

/L/

low tone

LH

Low-High (contour tone)

Lh

Low-Midhigh (contour tone)

LM

Low-Mid (contour tone)

/M/

mid tone

MP

morphophonological

MPR

morphophonological rule

MPCT

morphophonological subconflation transfer

MPSCT

morphophonological subconflation

Mz

Mazatlán Villa de Flores

Mtz

Mazatzongo de Guerrero (Puebla)

N

noun

ntr

neutral aspect

OCP

Obligatory Contour Principle

pl

plural

Pv

preverb

preverb-T

preverbal tone

root tone Class class

root tone class

SAP

Speech Act Participant

SCFT.Br

Subconflation Breaking

SCFT.Neu

Subconflation Asymmetry Neutralization

SCFT.Sp

Subconflation Split

SCx

string complexification

sg

singular

SJ Ind

San José Independencia

SL

San Lorenzo

SmTA

Stem Template Allomorphy

Suff

Suffix

T

tone

TAM

Tense Aspect Mood

TAMV

Tense Aspect Mood Voice

TF

typological features

V

underspecified vowel

V’V, VhV

rearticulated vowels

VOS

Verb Object Subject

VSO

Verb Subject Object

<>

spelling convention

-

Affixal boundary

=

clitic boundary

|…|

morphemic representation (underlying concatenative pattern)

/…/

phonological representation (lexical level)

[…]

phonetic representation (postlexical level)

*

Etymological form

!*

alexical form (or wrongly construed form)

Acknowledgments

This work is part of the program “Investissements d'Avenir” overseen by the French National Research Agency, ANR-10-LABX-0083 (Labex EFL), in particular PPC11 – Language dynamics and Complex systems (strand 1) and Cross-Mediated elicitations, EM2 (strand 7). Moreover, this work is also a result of the MAmP Project, funded by the Institut Universitaire de France (IUF), which made fieldwork possible during the period 2009–2014. We also thank Bien Dobui (Sorbonne University) for her stylistic help.

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Published Online: 2018-08-03
Published in Print: 2018-08-28

© 2018 Walter de Gruyter GmbH, Berlin/Boston

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