Huehuetla Tepehua
| Huehuetla Tepehua | |
|---|---|
| Lhiimaqalhqama7 | |
| Native to | Mexico |
| Region | northeastern Hidalgo, Mexico |
Native speakers | 1,500 (2007)[1] |
| Language codes | |
| ISO 639-3 | tee |
| Glottolog | hueh1236 |
| ELP | Huehuetla Tepehua |
Huehuetla Tepehua is a moribund Tepehua language spoken in Huehuetla, northeastern Hidalgo, Mexico. There are fewer than 1,500 speakers left according to Susan Smythe Kung (2007).
Syntax
[edit]Word order tends to be VSO, although it can be SVO at times (Kung 2007).
Phonology
[edit]Consonants
[edit]Huehuelta Tepehua has 26 consonant phonemes.The following table lists these phonemes and uses Kung's practical orthography in angled brackets.[2]
| Labial | Alveolar | Post- alveolar |
Velar | Uvular | Glottal | ||||
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| plain | sibilant | lateral | |||||||
| Nasal | m ⟨m⟩ | n ⟨n⟩ | |||||||
| Stop/ Affricate |
plain | p ⟨p⟩ | t ⟨t⟩ | ts ⟨tz⟩ | tʃ ⟨ch⟩ | k ⟨k⟩ | q ⟨q⟩ | ʔ ⟨7⟩ | |
| ejective | pʼ ⟨p'⟩ | tʼ ⟨t'⟩ | tsʼ ⟨tz'⟩ | tʃʼ ⟨ch'⟩ | kʼ ⟨k'⟩ | ||||
| voiced | (b) | (d) | (g) | ||||||
| Fricative | s ⟨s⟩ | ɬ ⟨lh⟩ | ʃ ⟨x⟩ | h ⟨j⟩ | |||||
| Approximant | w ⟨w⟩ | l ⟨l⟩ | j ⟨y⟩ | ||||||
| Trill | r ⟨rr⟩ | ||||||||
| Flap | ɾ ⟨r⟩ | ||||||||
The voiced stops /b/, /d/, and /g/, as well as the flap /ɾ/ and the trill /r/, appear only in loanwords and ideophones.
In younger speakers, the uvular /q/ has merged with the glottal stop /ʔ/. Based on fieldwork from previous linguists and interviews with modern speakers, Kung theorizes that /qʼ/ merged into /q/ between 1945 and 1984. When Kung began her fieldwork in 1999, /q/ was only consistently found in speakers over 65.[3]
Vowels
[edit]Hueheutla Tepehua has ten phonemic vowels. Earlier stages of the language only had six, with /e, i/, /eː, iː/, /o, u/, and /oː, uː/ in complimentary distribution.[4]
| Front | Central | Back | ||||
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| High | i ⟨i⟩ | iː ⟨ii⟩ | u ⟨u⟩ | uː ⟨uu⟩ | ||
| Mid | e ⟨e⟩ | eː ⟨ee⟩ | o ⟨o⟩ | oː ⟨oo⟩ | ||
| Low | a ⟨a⟩ | aː ⟨aa⟩ | ||||
Morphology
[edit]Huehuetla Tepehua has a large variety of affixes.
- Valency-changing affixes[5]
- Reflexive -kan
- Reciprocal laa-
- Dative -ni
- Causative maa-
- Instrumental puu-
- Comitative t'aa-
- Applicative lhii-
- Aspectual derivational affixes[6]
- Inchoative ta-
- Imminent ti-
- Roundtrip kii-
- Ambulative -t'ajun
- Begin -tzuku
- Desiderative -putun
- Repetitive -pala
- Again -choqo
- All -qoju
- Distal -chaa
- Proximal -chii
- Derivative affixes[7]
- Agent nominalizer –nV7
- Non-agentive nominalizers –ti and -nti
- Deverbalizer -n
- Instrumental paa- and lhaa-
- Locative puu-
- Applicative lhii-
- Comitative t'aa-
Further reading
[edit]- Zendejas, Esther Herrera (2021). "Mecapalapa Tepehua". Illustrations of the IPA. Journal of the International Phonetic Association: 1–17. doi:10.1017/S0025100321000098, with supplementary sound recordings.
References
[edit]Sources
[edit]- Kung, Susan Smythe (2007). A Descriptive Grammar of Huehuetla Tepehua (Ph.D. thesis). The University of Texas at Austin.