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Laryngeal reduction and mora deletion in Mixtec: Phonetics in phonology

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  01 January 2026

Ben Eischens*
Affiliation:
Department of Linguistics, University of California, Los Angeles, 335 Portola Plaza, 3125 Campbell Hall, Los Angeles, CA 90095 USA
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Abstract

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This paper describes a process of laryngeal reduction in San Martín Peras Mixtec (SMPM; ISO: jmx), an Otomanguean language spoken in Oaxaca and by diasporic communities throughout Mexico and the US. In this process, roots containing a laryngealized vowel often appear in a highly reduced form in fast speech. Laryngeal reduction is gradient, dependent on speech rate, and lacks a phonologically-defined conditioning environment, giving it the characteristics of a phonetic process. However, it is at least sometimes correlated with a phonological process of mora deletion, as evidenced by the fact that some highly reduced laryngealized roots—but no unreduced laryngealized roots—undergo a phonological tone sandhi alternation that applies only to mono-moraic rising tones. The phonological process of mora deletion is argued to be conditioned by the same phonetic factors that drive laryngeal reduction, constituting an instance of a phonological process triggered by purportedly phonetic factors.

Information

Type
Research Article
Creative Commons
Creative Common License - CCCreative Common License - BY
Published by the Linguistic Society of America with permission of the authors under a CC BY 3.0 license.
Copyright
Copyright © 2025 Ben Eischens