Missionary Linguistics II / Linguistica Misionera II: Orthography And Phonology: Selected Papers from the Second International Conference on Missionary Linguistics, Spo Paulo, 10-13 March 2004 [Bilingual ed.] 9027246009, 9789027246004

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MISSIONARY LINGUISTICS II / LINGÜÍSTICA MISIONERA II

AMSTERDAM STUDIES IN THE THEORY AND HISTORY OF LINGUISTIC SCIENCE General Editor E. E KONRAD KOERNER Zentrum für Allgemeine Sprachwissenschaft, Typologie und Universalienforschung Jägerstrasse 10/11, D-10117 Berlin

Series III - STUDIES IN THE HISTORY OF THE LANGUAGE SCIENCES

Advisory Editorial Board Cristina Altman (São Paulo); Lia Formigari (Rome) Gerda Haßler (Potsdam); John E. Joseph (Edinburgh) Barbara Kaltz (Aix-en-Provence); Douglas A. Kibbee (Urbana, I11.) Hans-Josef Niederehe (Trier); Emilio Ridruejo (Valladolid) Kees Versteegh (Nijmegen)

Volume 109

Otto Zwartjes and Cristina Altman (eds.) Missionary Linguistics II/ Lingüística misionera II Orthography and Phonology Selected papers from the Second International Conference on Missionary Linguistics, São Paulo, 10-13 March 2004

MISSIONARY LINGUISTICS II / LINGÜÍSTICA MISIONERA II ORTHOGRAPHY AND PHONOLOGY SELECTED PAPERS FROM THE SECOND INTERNATIONAL CONFERENCE ON MISSIONARY LINGUISTICS, SÃO PAULO, 10-13 MARCH 2004

edited by OTTO ZWARTJES University of Oslo & University of Amsterdam

CRISTINA ALTMAN University of São Paulo

JOHN BENJAMINS PUBLISHING COMPANY AMSTERDAM/PHILADELPHIA

The paper used in this publication meets the minimum requirements of American National Standard for Information Sciences — Permanence of Paper for Printed Library Materials, ANSI Z39.48-1984.

Missionary Linguistics II / Lingüística misionera II. Orthography and Phonology. Selected papers from the Second International Conference on Missionary Linguistics, São Paulo, 10-13 March 2004 / Edited by Otto Zwartjes and Cristina Altman. (Amsterdam studies in the theory and history of linguistic science. Series III, Studies in the history of the language sciences, ISSN 0304-0720; v. 109) Includes index. ISBN 90 272 4600 9 (alk. paper) © 2005 - John Benjamins B.V. No part of this book may be reproduced in any form, by print, photoprint, microfilm, or any other means, without written permission from the publisher. John Benjamins Publishing Company. P.O. Box 36224 • 1020 ME Amsterdam • The Netherlands John Benjamins North America • P.O. Box 27519 • Philadelphia, PA 19118-0519 • USA

CONTENTS/ÍNDICE Introduction and Acknowledgements

1

Part I. New Spain/ Nueva España Thomas C. Smith-Stark (Mexico City): Phonological Description in New Spain Cristina Monzón (Zamora, Mexico): Tarascan Orthography in the 16th Century: The Franciscan Sources of Inspiration and their Analysis Ramón Arzápalo Marín (Mérida, México): La representación escritural del maya de Yucatán desde la época prehispánica hasta la colonia: proyecciones hacia el siglo XXI Klaus Zimmermann (Bremen, Germany): Traducción, préstamos y teoría del lenguaje: La práctica transcultural de los lingüistas misioneros en el México del siglo XVI

3 65 89 107

Part II. South America/ América del Sur Julio Calvo Pérez (Valencia): Fonología y ortografía de las lenguas indígenas de América del Sur a la luz de los primeros misioneros gramáticos Even Hovdhaugen (Oslo): How Was Mochica Being Pronounced? Astrid Alexander-Bakkerus (The Hague): Cholón Sounds Reconstructed: A symbol analysis Yonne de Freitas Leite (Rio de Janeiro, Brazil): Arte de gramática da lingua mais usada na costa do Brasil: A criterion for evaluation . . .

137 171 181 191

vi

CONTENTS / ÍNDICE

Part m . Asia Emi Kishimoto (Osaka, Japan): The Adaptation of the European Polyglot Dictionary of Calepino in Japan: Dictionarium Latino Lusitanicum, ac Iaponicum (1595) Emilio Ridruejo (Valladolid, Spain): Las ligaturas en las gramáticas misioneras filipinas del siglo XVIII Joaquín Sueiro Justel (Vigo, Spain): Análisis del Arte de la lengua Pangasinán (1690) de Fray Andrés López Masayuki Toyoshima (Tokyo): Phonetic Spellings in Historical Context vs Idiolect: Two Japanese grammars by João Rodriguez Tçûzu and his holograph documents

273

Addresses of Contributors /Direcciones de autores

281

Index of Biographical Names /Índice de nombres biográficos

283

205 225 247

Index of Grammatical (and linguistic) Terms Indice de términos gramaticales (y lingüísticos)

287

INTRODUCTION AND ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS CRISTINA ALTMAN & OTTO ZWARTJES University of São Paulo, University of Oslo/ Amsterdam The II International Conference on Missionary Linguistics, held at the University of São Paulo, from 10-13 March, 2004, was the culmination of a fruitful cooperation between the researchers of the Oslo Project on Missionary Linguistics (OsProMil, Norwegian Research Council) and those of the Centro de Estudos e Documentação em Historiografia da Lingüística Brasileira (CEDOCH-DL/USP). Founded in 2002, the OsProMil is devoted to advancing the study, analysis and understanding of the early-modern descriptions of non-Indo-European languages in the Spanish and Portuguese colonial world (16th—18th century). The project promotes and coordinates research of all aspects of missionary linguistic sources (grammars, dictionaries), and the historiography of particular language descriptions and language families. It aims at describing and understanding the mechanisms of the underlying descriptive techniques, linguistic thought and at assessing the possibilities and the shortcomings of the Greco-Romans traditional grammatical model. The CEDOCH, created in 1994 at the University of São Paulo as a research center in linguistic historiography, develops its activities in two complementary directions: one, of more practical nature, in which it promotes the compilation, the organization and the diffusion of materials which could preserve the memory of four centuries of Brazilian linguistics; the other, more theoretical, in which one reflects on, and generates monographic-length work about Brazilian languages description within its historical, social and political context. Being the second of a series of conferences which started in Oslo in 2003, continued in Hong Kong in 2005, and has the next one already scheduled for 2006 to take place in Valladolid, the São Paulo meeting made strong efforts to maintain the multicultural and multinational vocation of those who inspired the project. Participants came from four continents: Norway, Germany, Spain, Portugal, England, México, United States, Japan, China and Brazil.

2

INTRODUCTION

The papers united in the present volume, with three exceptions — the inedit Cholón's sounds reconstruction by Astrid Alexander-Bakkerus and Julio Calvo's article on the phonology of South American languages are invited papers; Smith Stark's lengthy work on Náhuatl's sounds was first presented at the Oslo meeting — constitute revised versions of the papers given in Sao Paulo, where Orthography and Phonology deserved special attention, with the main focus on the following issues: - methodology and creativity of the phonological description, parti­ cularly when less familiar features had to be described, such as vowel quantity, accentuation, tonality, nasalization, glottalization, 'gutturalization' - articulatory descriptions and definitions and the creation of a new metalanguage, 'saltillo', 'guturaciones', etc. - creativity and innovations of individual missionaries (as reflected in their approach, the creation of new symbols, the use of familiar letters with novel values, the creation of special combinations of letters, the use of modified forms of conventional letters, the use of diacritics, etc. - contrastive descriptions, comparisons with other languages - didactic and pedagogical features We gratefully acknowledge the assistance provided by the Organizing Committee and the help of all those scholars who served as consultants to the Program Committee, Prof. Dr. Francis H. Aubert (USP), Prof. Dr. Margarida Taddoni Petter (USP/Lyon), Prof. Dr. Tae Suzuki (USP/Strasbourg), Prof. Dr. Maria Filomena Gonçalves (Evora), Prof. Dr. Wilmar da Rocha D'Angelis (Campinas) and the anonymous referees of the submitted papers. We are particularly grateful to the helpful assistance of the members of the CEDOCH: Mercedes Hackerott, Luciana Gimenes, Beatriz Christino and Aline Cruz, and also to Maximino Ruiz Rufino, member of the OsProMil. Special thanks to Prof. Dr. Gregory James (The Hong Kong University of Science and Tech­ nology) and José María Izquierdo, from the University of Oslo. We must also show our appreciation to the editorial staff from John Benjamins and the general editor of the SiHoLS series. Special thanks are due to the Fundação de Amparo à Pesquisa do Estado de São Paulo (FAPESP) and the Coordenadoria de Aperfeiçoamento Pessoal (CAPES), Brazil, and the Norges Forskningsråd for their financial support.

August 2005

PHONOLOGICAL DESCRIPTION IN NEW SPAIN * THOMAS C. SMITH-STARK El Colegio de México "no abasta escreuir ni pronunciar las tales diciones como quiera [...] en no escreuir ni pronunciar los con las letras que conuienen se diran otras cosas muy al reues delas que se pensauan dezir. Y assi en lugar de dezir verdades, dezir se an falsedades: con muy gran peligro de las animas."1 Maturini Gilberti (1558:109v-110r)

RESUMEN Tradicionalmente se ha afirmado que las gramáticas coloniales de lenguas ame­ ricanas eran especialmente deficientes en su tratamiento de la fonología. Sin em­ bargo, al enfocarse en sus logros en lugar de sus fallas, y considerándolas en tér­ minos de los niveles contemporáneos de conocimiento lingüístico en lugar de nuestras expectativas modernas, se puede sostener que los lingüistas misioneros avanzaron en la descripción fonológica de manera significativa. Con base en ma­ terial de 20 autores que escribieron sobre una decena de lenguas de seis familias lingüísticas novohispanas entre 1547 y 1767, se demuestra que identificaron nu­ merosos tipos de sonidos novedosos no existentes en el español, que lograron apreciar datos fonéticos en términos fonológicos, que reconocieron procesos fono­ lógicos y morfofonológicos, que registraron datos fonotácticos, que utilizaron paAn oral version of this paper was originally presented at the First International Conference on Missionary Linguistics, at the Voksenåsen Konferansesenter, under the auspices of the University of Oslo. This written version incorporates additional material, including information kindly brought to my attention by other participants at the conference. I am also grateful to Yolanda Lastra and to Cristina Monzón for giving me their comments on a preliminary draft of this paper. This study develops material that I have been gathering since 1998 for a projected guide to Indomexican philology. 1

"it is not enough to write or pronounce such words in any way whatsoever [...] by not writing or pronouncing them with the letters that are called for, one will say things that are just the opposite of those that one intended to say. And so, instead of speaking the truth, one will speak falsehoods, placing souls in very great danger."

4

THOMAS C. SMITH-STARK

res mínimos para identificar oposiciones distintivas, y que justificaron sus análisis con argumentación fonológica. El trabajo de los franciscanos Olmos, Gilberti, Lagunas y Cárceres, y de los jesuítas Rincón y Carochi, en particular, resaltan por su agudeza descriptiva. Es importante reconocer que los alcances de este período fueron posibles en parte gracias a la participación de un elenco de nativohablantes inteligentes, reflexivos, y experimentados en la manipulación de sus lenguas como objetos de estudio. 1. Introduction Until about fifteen years ago or so, studies of the history of linguistics generally stressed the importance of philosophical and theoretical issues, such as, for example, the ancient Greek controversy between anomalists and analogists about the nature of the linguistic sign; interest in the modes of signifying and universal grammar among Medieval grammarians; and the debates between empiricists and rationalists during the Renaissance. They paid relatively little attention to des­ criptive linguistics per se, though they might refer to the development of certain basic grammatical notions among the Greek and Latin grammarians or the development of new writing systems for a variety of languages. Robins (1969) is a good example of this trend. Though by no means ignoring descriptive linguistics, he observes that "By far the most interesting and significant development in linguistics during the Middle Ages is the output of 'speculative grammars'" (Robins 1969:74). The relative unimportance of empirical practice in our histories of linguistics reflects to some degree, perhaps, the low esteem in which descriptive linguistics has been and continues to be held with respect to theoretical linguistics. However, the art of writing grammars and dictionaries - what I take to be the principal tasks of descriptive linguistics -, to be done well, requires a good deal of thought about the nature of language structure and presupposes a tradition of such thought which will have provided an author with a conceptual framework within which to operate. The history of such writing, then, merits serious study for what it can reveal about the evolution of linguistic thinking as reflected in descriptive practice. This apparently self-evident observation has not in fact lead to such study. Rather, certain preconceptions about pre-modern descriptive work have resulted in its neglect among contemporary linguists, at least among those in the Western tradition. In particular, older descriptions are generally conceived of as being overly dependent upon traditional descriptions of Greek and Latin, casting other languages into categories which are not the ones in terms of which they are in fact

PHONOLOGICAL DESCRIPTION IN NEW SPAIN

5

organized, and ignoring those that are, but which are not found in the classical languages of occidental culture.2 As Jorge Suárez (1983:2) observed, speaking about the missionary period in Mesoamerica, "The grammars written within this period are generally valued only to the extent that they offer raw materials on the respective languages, and are usually lumped together and dismissed as merely latinized descriptions." A good, and influential, example of such a point of view is that expressed by Boas (1917:6; 1940:206). Speaking about the linguistic catego­ ries found in American languages as opposed to those found in European lang­ uages, he observes that: No less interesting are the categories of thought that find expression in grammatical form. The older grammars, although many of them contain excellent material, do not clearly present these points of difference, because they are modelled strictly on the Latin scheme, which obscures the characteristic psychological categories of Indian languages.

Likewise, Stanley Newman, referring to the early grammar of the Mesoamerican language Nahuatl, published by the Franciscan friar Alonso de Molina (C.1513-C.1579) in 1571, observes that "When he [Molina] and other gram­ marians discussed the Nahuatl participles3 in -dus (i. e., Nahuatl forms functioning somewhat like Latin amandus, etc.), they were following the humanistic precept of measuring the Indian vernacular against the Latin standard" (Newman 1967:180). An added factor which has inhibited work on pre-modern grammatical traditions is the difficulty that many modern linguists have when faced with the philological problems which the adequate interpretation of the older materials entails, even when they have worked with the corresponding modern languages. The language used for writing the descriptions is, at the very least, different from the modern variety and may even be a language unknown to the modern linguist. The language being described will have changed, academic practices are different, typographic styles and conventions are not the same, a different writing system may have been in use. In other words, one does not just pick up such studies and use them without investing some, and perhaps a lot of, time and effort in the enterprise. Despite such difficulties, there is nonetheless a wealth of material to be studied. One of the primary motives for the production of such descriptive work was, and 2

Zimmermann (2004:15) observes that already in Humboldt's work, one finds deprecatory judgements about the descriptive studies of the missionary grammarians. 3 The original text reads principles, an obvious misprint which I have corrected as participles.

6

THOMAS C. SMITH-STARK

of course continues to be, religious proselytization. Missionaries driven by the desire to convert other peoples to their own systems of belief have been among those most motivated to study large numbers of other languages in order to communicate their message, express their arguments, translate their scripture and/or doctrinal texts, aquire converts, and attend to their congregations. Missionary activity does not, of course, necessarily require descriptive linguistics.4 The first millenium and a half of Christian expansion, for example, produced translations, liturgies in diverse languages, the invention of original writing systems for languages such as Coptic, Syriac, Armenian, Georgian and Old Church Slavonic, but to my knowledge little in the way of grammars and dictionaries. However, things changed drastically with the political expansion of Europe begun in the 15th century into Africa, Asia and America together with the invention of the printing press by Gutenburg around 1450. For the first time, grammars of languages which were not the native language of the writer or the vehicle of texts considered to be sacred or part of an important cultural canon began to be produced in significant numbers. In his useful compilation of such works, Rowe (1974) lists 21 languages for which grammars were first published in the 16th century and 41 more with grammars first published in the 17th century. Of these grammars, 25 were written in Latin, 21 in Spanish, 6 in Portuguese, 3 in English, 2 in Dutch and one each in French, White Russian, Italian, Czech and Swedish, an impressive indication of the explosive growth of language description in the Europe of this period and of the leading role played by writers in Iberian languages. One of the important loci for this activity was in fact New Spain, the Spanish viceroyalty governed from Mexico City and covering much of present day Mexico.5 During the period from the conquest of Mexico in 1521 to 1645, at least 20 grammatical descriptions produced in New Spain have survived (Smith Stark 2000b) and by 1611 some 22 dictionaries had been compiled (Smith Stark 1992a). In this paper, I would like to examine and evaluate the phonological work found in 4

Ostler (2004) notes that, of the three major religions which have actively sought converts, Buddhism and Islam have not been accompanied by descriptive linguistic work, and that in the case of Christianity, the association is only found among Roman Catholics and Protestants with the advent of European political expansion. 5 New Spain, in its widest sense, included the districts of the five audiencias of the West Indies of New Spain: Mexico, Guadalajara, Guatemala, Santo Domingo and the Philippines (León-Portilla 1995,111:2478). Here I use the term New Spain to refer only to the first three.

PHONOLOGICAL DESCRIPTION IN NEW SPAIN

7

such descriptions.6 It is generally thought that the Spanish grammarians were quite poor phonologists. Newman (1967:180), for example, in the grammatical sketch of classical Nahuatl referred to earlier, considers that: From the point of view of modern linguistics, the early grammars of Nahuatl were most deficient in their treatment of phonology. Sounds were conceived in terms of orthography. Nearly all discussions of Nahuatl sounds began with a list of the letters missing in the language of the Aztecs, and careful attention was paid to the spelling rules derived from Spanish orthography. Suarez, speaking in general terms about grammatical description in New Spain, considers that: As is to be expected for that period, the description and recognition of contrasts are weakest for sounds; in general the friars coped rather well with simple systems like that of the Nahuatl [...], and even with those of moderate complexity in the consonants. However, rich vowel systems such as those found in Otomian and Chinantecan languages [...] were markedly underdifferentiated, and tones were at most dimly recognized but in no case marked in the orthography. (Suárez 1983:4) In contradistinction to such opinions, I will show in what follows that the missionary grammars made significant progress in their phonological descriptions of the languages of New Spain. However, it is important to bear in mind that it is possible to take two contrasting positions when evaluating their work. One can emphasize the errors as seen from a modern perspective, or one can underscore the achievements found in the most accomplished work as evaluated in terms of contemporary standards. I will take this second tack. 2. The linguistic context: Nebrija In order to evaluate phonological work in New Spain, let's first consider the kinds of knowledge and attitudes about phonology which the friars had at their disposal. For this purpose, I will take the Spanish grammarian Antonio de Nebrija (1444-1522) as my standard of comparison.7 Nebrija was deeply immersed in the 6

For an overview of Spanish missionary linguistics in America, the reader is referred to Suárez Roca's excellent study (1992), which includes such a fine discussion of phonological aspects of missionary grammars that it was at times difficult for me to avoid simply repeating observations already made by this scholar. 7 See Esparza Torres and Niederehe (1999) for an excellent bibliography of Nebrija's work. For my understanding of Nebrija's phonology, I am especially indebted to Quilis' introductory study in his edition of Nebrija's Gramática castellana (Quilis 1984).

8

THOMAS C. SMITH-STARK

Latin grammatical tradition and formed part of the resurgence, emanating out of Italy, of humanistic interest in recuperating an accurate knowledge of classical Latin. He was an influential teacher and writer, whose Latin studies were fre­ quently mentioned by New Spain grammarians and lexicographers. He also wrote a Spanish grammar, famous for being the first published description of a European vernacular language, though probably not as influential as his work on Latin among New Spain grammarians.8 Nebrija had a clear idea of the difference between sound and letter. Consider his description of the relationship between the two: el primer inuentor de letras quien quiera que fue: miró quantas eran todas las diversidades delas bozes en su lengua: & tantas figuras de letras hizo: por las cuales puestas en cierta orden represento las palabras que quiso: de manera que no es otra cosa la letra: sino figura por la cual se representa la boz. ni la boz es otra cosa sino el aire que respiramos espessado enlos pulmones: & herido despues enel aspera arteria, que llaman gargauero: & de alli començado a determinarse por la campanilla lengua paladar dientes & beços. Assí que las letras representan las bozes. y las bozes significan como dize aristoteles los pensamientos que tenemos enel anima. (1492:6v)9 [the first inventor of letters, whoever he was, looked at the number of different sounds found in his language and made that same number of different letters, by means of which, placed in a certain order, he represented the words that he wanted, so that the letter is simply the figure by which the sound is represented, and the sound is simply the air which we breathe, thickened in the lungs and then modified in the harsh artery that they call the throat, and from there they begin to be determined by the uvula, tongue, palate, teeth and lips. Thus, the letters represent the sounds, and the sounds signify, as Aristotle says, the thoughts that we have in our soul.]10 As partially indicated by this quote, Nebrija distinguishes clearly between the letter (letra), figure of the letter (figura de la letra) or stroke (traço) on the one hand, and the sound (boz), pronunciation (pronunciacion) or force (juerga) of the letter on the other. 8

Nebrija is often mentioned in descriptive studies written in New Spain, but it is usually not clear which of his works is being referred to. Some linguists (for example, McQuown 1967:3) believe that such references were usually to his Spanish grammar. Others (such as myself) have assumed that they were to his Latin grammar. But it now seems to me that both were probably influential, though this question merits further study. 9 My transcription of Nebrija (1492) is based on the facsimile published in 1946, in conjunction with the edition of that same year and that of 1984. 10 This and all other translations are my own, unless otherwise indicated.

PHONOLOGICAL DESCRIPTION IN NEW SPAIN

9

Nebrija was also fully aware of the diversity of sounds in the languages of the world. He advises that: algunas lenguas tienen ciertas bozes: que los ombres de otra nacion, ni aun por tormento no pueden pronunciar [...] que de tal manera son proprias de cada lengua: que por ningun trabajo ni diligencia ombre de otra nacion las puede espressa mente proferir: si desde la tierna edad no se acostumbra a las pronunciar. (1492:6v, 7r) [some languages have certain sounds that the men of another nation, not even by way of torture, can pronounce [...] so that they are proper to each language and there is no way that a man from another nation can expressly produce them if he is not accustomed to pronouncing them from a tender age.]

For Nebrija, the sounds of a language are its minimal units of expression: "The letter is the smallest part of the sound that can be written [...] if I say señor 'sir', this word can be divided into two syllables, which are se and ñor, and then se into s and e; and the s cannot be further divided" ("Que la letra es la menor parte de la boz que se puede escriuir [...] porque si yo digo «señor», esta boz se parte en dos síllabas, que son: «se» y «ñor»; y el «se», después, en «s» y «e»; y la «s» ya no se puede partir", 1977:117[1517:2v])". Nebrija recognized the distinction between vowels and consonants. Vowels "have sound on their own, without being mixed with other letters" ("por si mesmas tienen boz sin se mezclar con otras letras", 1492:7v). They "sound on their own without being modified by any of the instruments which are used to form the consonants, but rather just passing the breath through the narrowness of the throat, forming the different ones by means of the shape of the mouth" ("suenan por si no hiriendo alguno delos instrumentos con que se forman las consonantes: mas sola mente colando el espíritu por lo angosto dela garganta: & formando la diversidad dellas enla figura dela boca", 1492:8r).11 Consonants, on the other hand, "cannot sound without modifying the vowels" ("no pueden sonar sin herir las vocales", 1492:7v). "For that reason it is called a consonant, because it sounds with another vowel letter, as the b cannot sound without the aid of the e" ("por esso se llama consonante, porque suena con otra letra vocal, como la «b», no puede sonar sin la ayuda de la «e»", 1517:2v[1977:118]). The Latin consonants are divided into two groups, mutes (mudas) - which include b, c, ch, d, f, g, p, ph, t, th, i u - and semivowels (semivocales) - which 11

Robins (1969:118-119) cites a quite similar passage from W. Holder in 1669 as evidence of "The excellence of his phonetic theory and the conciseness of his expression."

10

THOMAS C. SMITH-STARK

include l, m, n, r, s, z, and perhaps consonantal i -. This distinction seems to be based on sonority and degree of constriction, although it does not correspond to any that we would currently recognize as valid. The mutes, which come close to corresponding to stops, are divided into three types: those free from aspiration and more tightly articulated (c, t, p); those pronounced in an intermediate way, more loosely than the mutes, but more subtly than the third group (g, d, b);12 and those which are thicker, looser, articulated less tightly (ch, th, ph) (cf. 1492:8r). Evidently Nebrija considered the third series to be somewhat like fricatives, rather than true aspirated sounds. For Nebrija, Latin h was not a letter, but rather a sign of breath (1492:7r), though in Spanish he suggested that it could be considered a letter, as it is in Arabic and Hebrew (1492:9v).13 Nebrija (1492:8r) clearly distinguished Latin sounds in terms of five points of articulation: the uvula (c, ch, g), the teeth (t, th, d), the lips (p, ph, b, m), the upper teeth with the lower lip (f and consonantal v) and the palate (/, n, r, s, z). In addition, for Spanish (1492:9v), he recognizes a sixth point of articulation, the throat (h). The syllable is described as having three properties: number of letters, length in time, and height of accent. The number of letters simply refers to the number of segments in a syllable. Nebrija distinguishes short and long syllables, though he observes that the distinction does not apply to Spanish. He distinguishes five kinds of accent: two on simple vowels (acute and grave), two on diphthongs (deflex and inflex), and one on triphthongs (circumflex). Each syllable has its own accent, but the number of possible combinations is tightly constrained: "any word whatsoever, not only in our language, but in any other as well, has a high syllable, that dominates the rest, and which we pronounce with an acute accent, and all the others are pronounced with a grave accent." ("cualquiera palabra no sola mente en nuestra lengua mas en cualquiera otra que sea: tiene una silaba alta: que se enseñorea sobre las otras: la cual pronunciamos por acento agudo: & que todas las otras se pronuncian por acento grave", 1492:18r). That is, Nebrija identifies the acute accent and high pitch with the stressed syllable. Although his treatment of 12

The voiced-voiceless distinction is not described explicitly. Robins (1969:118, 142) observes that William Holder (1616-1698) was the first Western linguist to correctly describe this phonetic feature in 1669, though it was well understood by ancient Sanskrit grammarians. 13 The curious distinction between h as a sign of breath versus a true letter, repeated by various authors in New Spain, evidently is due to the fact that [h] is represented by a diacritic, the spiritus asper ('), in Greek orthography, rather than by an independent letter.

PHONOLOGICAL DESCRIPTION IN NEW SPAIN

11

stress and pitch together is perhaps adequate for Spanish, it is certainly not adequate for all languages as Nebrija seems to claim. Nebrija is quite clear about how a language should be written: "we must presuppose what everyone who has written about orthography presupposes: that we should write like we pronounce, and pronounce like we write; otherwise letters would have been discovered in vain." ("avernos aqui de presuponer: lo que todos los que escriven de orthographia presuponen: que assi tenemos de escrivir como pronunciamos: & pronunciar como escrivimos: por que en otra manera en vano fueron halladas las letras." 1492:8v). The ideal relationship between letter and sound should be one-to-one. That is, each sound should be represented by a single letter and each letter should represent a single sound. Nebrija fully endorses Quintilian's recommendation for setting a language to writing, which he explains as follows and which I refer to as Quintilian's method: "he who would reduce to art some language should first know if some of the letters in use are superfluous, and, on the contrary, if some are lacking." ("el que quiere reduzir en artificio algun lenguaje: primero es menester que sepa: si de aquellas letras que estan enel uso: sobran algunas: & si por el contrario faltan otras", 1492:7r).14 One last point about Nebrija's practice seems to me to be worth mentioning. When discussing Spanish orthography, he criticizes having a single grapheme with more than one interpretation. In particular, he wants to avoid using for both /c/, as in muchedumbre "crowd", and for /k/, as in monarchia "monarchy", and using for both /s/, as in xabon "soap", and for /ks/, as in Latin (cf. Nebrija 1492, libro 1, cap. 6, ff. 10v-llv). In each case he advocates a new letter for the innovative values, not found in Latin - for Icl and for /š/- though his actual practice (or that of his editors) is inconsistent in this regard.15 He even seems 14

Nebrija refers to a passage in book 1 of Quintilian's Institutio oratoria (chapter iv, paragraphs 7 and 9 in Butler's edition), in which the author recommends that teachers of literature should discuss which letters are absent from the Latin alphabet but should be there -he illustrates with the digamma, for instance- and which are superfluous -he mentions h, k, q, and x as possible candidates-: "desintne aliquae nobis necessariae litterarum [...] an rursus aliae redundent" ("whether certain necessary letters are absent from the alphabet [...] Again there is the question whether certain letters are not superfluous", Butler 1920:65-66). As far as I know, the extension of this pedagogical principal for the teaching of Latin to the setting down in writing of new languages is of Nebrija's own concoction. 15 I say inconsistent because there are clear cases of used for /č/ instead of (for example, f. 7v 1. 23 ) and of for /š/ instead of (for example, f. 7v, 1. 27 ). Moreover, in his Spanish-Latin dictionary (1495), there are cases where /k/ is written as , as in

12

THOMAS C. SMITH-STARK

to want to avoid using the same grapheme with different values in different languages. For example, he says that "if we were to leave cħ without a mark, we would commit the error of pronouncing the same letters differently in Spanish and in Latin" ("si dexassemos la .cħ. sin señal: verniamos | en aquel error: que con unas mesmas letras pronunciaríamos diversas cosas enel castellano & enel latin", 1492:10v-llr). However, he does not apply this principle systematically. Now, with this important antecedent in mind, let's look at how sounds were dealt with in the languages of New Spain, especially, though not exclusively, during the first century or so of grammar writing (1547-1645). Specifically, I will examine seven aspects of phonological description: the graphic representation of sounds (§3), the articulatory description of sounds (§4), the concept of a sound system (§5), the relation between graphemes and phonemes (§6), phonotactics (§7), argumentation (§8), and phonological processes (§9). I will then conclude with a consideration of the role of native speakers in the descriptions of their languages (§10). 3. The graphic representation of sounds in the languages of New Spain Perhaps the most direct evidence for the phonological capabilities of the friars in New Spain comes from their practice in writing the different languages they tried to describe. In general I would say that there was an implicit recognition of the variety of sounds in the languages of the world. That is, there is no evidence that they expected all languages to be expressed by the sounds of their own tongue and, in at least one case, there is explicit evidence to the contrary. The Augustinian friar Diego Basalenque (1577-1651), upon noting that Matlatzinca has no ƒ, observes that: no hay que levantar misterios en la falta de ésta y de otras letras, sino reducirlo a cosa natural de que no todas las lenguas se conforman en una misma pronunciaciòn y asì tampoco tienen unos mismos caracteres. La griega tiene màs que la latina y otras menos. (1975[1642]:7)16

the entry for . 16 This passage is also referred to by Suárez Roca (1992:211). Evidently Basalenque disapproves of the mnemonic device used by Lagunas (1574:1) to relate the absence of the letters B, D, F, G, I, L and R to the absence of Baptism, God (Dios), Faith, Grace, Justice, Law and Government (Regimiento) /Rule/Reason among the pre-Christian Purepechas. Altman (2003) notes the use of this same rhetorical technique by Sousa (1938[1587]:364-365) in Brazil.

PHONOLOGICAL DESCRIPTION IN NEW SPAIN

13

[there is no reason to create mysteries about the lack of this or other letters, but rather it should be treated as something natural since not all languages are alike in having the same pronunciation and so neither do they have the same characters. Greek has more than Latin and others fewer.]

When the sounds of a new language were quite distinct from those of Spanish, the friars had problems, but in some cases - though, of course, not all - they achieved an orthography which was in principle adequate, though in practice not necessarily applied consistently. For many, the correct pronunciation of the words of a language was something to be taken quite seriously. For example, the Franciscan Maturino Gilberti (c. 1507-1585) quotes Saint Jerome in this regard. La orthographia y recta pronunciacion, siempre ha sido, y es muy necessaria en qualquier lengua. La qual segun dize Sant Hieronymo en vna epistola, en tanto excede alaque no esta assi pronunciada ni orthographiada con deuidas letras, como difiere el hombre biuo, al pintado o muerto, por tanto como ya tengo dicho enlos auisos, despues del prologo: no se acertaria en dezir que esta lengua se puede bien pronunciar o escreuir, con qualesquieras letras, que poco mas o menos es intelligible, y que en escreuir esta lengua con tantas aspiraciones, y con letras no acostumbradas, es muy gran | estonio para daprender la lengua, todas estas y semejantes razones carescen de esperiencia enla orthographia dela lengua segun alcançan los que bien la entienden (Gilberti 1558:109r-v) [Orthography and correct pronunciation have always been, and continue to be, very neces­ sary in any language, and, according to Saint Jerome in an epistle, exceed that which is not so pronounced or spelled with fitting letters, as a living man differs from one that is painted or dead, for which reason, as I have already said in the preliminary notices, which follow the prologue: it would not be correct to say that in this language one can write and pro­ nounce with any letter whatsoever, which is more or less intelligible, and that writing this language with so many aspirations, and with unaccustomed letters is a great bother for learning the language. These and all such reasons show a lack of experience in the ortho­ graphy of the language according to what those who do understand it well have achieved]

In general the designers of new orthographies used letters based on their values in Spanish or, rarely, in Latin. For new sounds, they employed five strategies: a. they used familiar letters with novel values; b. they created special combinations of letters; c. they used modified forms of conventional letters; d. they invented completely new letters; and e. they borrowed letters from another non-Latin-based writing system.17 My thanks to Toru Maruyama for bringing this fifth possibility to my attention during the

14

THOMAS C. SMITH-STARK

In this way, they were able to represent most of the unfamiliar sounds encountered in the languages of New Spain. Among the consonantal phenomena represented successfully are aspiration, ejecrives, a preglottalized stop, the glottal stop, an alveolar affricate, a lateral affricate, a lateral fricative, a uvular stop, and a retroflex rhotic. Among the vocalic phenomena registered we find nasalized vowels, non-open central vowels, and different degrees of vowel height among mid vowels. Among the prosodic phenomena recognized were stress, vowel length and, in incipient form, tone. 3.1 Consonants 3.1.1 Aspiration. The letter was used in 16th century Spanish to represent a glottal fricative /h/ which resulted from the weakening of an earlier /f/ and which was later lost altogether: for example, fazer /fadzer/ > hazer /hazer/ > hacer /aser/ "to do, to make". This letter was thus a natural choice for representing sounds like [h] and aspiration, as occurred in Otomi and Purepecha.18 For example, in the Otomi vocabulary attributed to the Franciscan friar Alonso Urbano (c. 15291608)19 (his vocabulary dates from 1605), who continued the practice of the Franciscan Pedro de Cárceres (fl. 1580) in this regard, we find the following graphemes (cf. Lastra 1992, Smith Stark 1992b). ph = /ph/

th = /th/

hm = /hm/

hn = /hn/

tzh = /ch/

ch/qhu = /kh/ çh = /sh/

h = /h/

That is, an represents a glottal fricative, the aspiration of a preceding obstruent, or the preaspiration of a following nasal. Similarly, was used in Purepecha for a glottal fricative and, somewhat irregularly, for the aspiration of stops. For example, Monzón (2001) reports that in the grammar by the Franciscan friar Juan Baptista de Lagunas (c. 1530-1604?), aspiration was written after the corresponding stop in initial position, but before conference in Oslo, based on his own experience with systems of romanization for Japanese. If the tresillo is in fact modeled on cayn (ξ), then it would illustrate this fifth strategy (see §3.1.2). 18 In the case of Purepecha, the aspirated consonants were only partially represented and in a much less consistent and symmetrical way than in Otomi (cf. Monzón 2001). 19 Acuña (1990:lxx) is of the opinion, for not very convincing reasons, that Urbano is not the author of the Vocabulario trilingüe, though his annotations may have influenced it.

PHONOLOGICAL DESCRIPTION IN NEW SPAIN

15

the stop intervocalically, which corresponds to the phonetic realization of aspiration in that language: ph = [ph] th = [th] thz = ths = [t h]20 ch = [čh] k,kh,qhu = [kh] ku,qhu = [kwh] h = [h] hp = [hp] ht = [ht] htz = [ht ] hts = [ht ] hch = [hč] hc/hqu = [hk] hcu,hqu = [hkw]

Some languages had more than one h-like sound. For example, in the Motul dictionary of Yucatec Maya, probably written by the Franciscan Antonio de Ciudad Real (c. 15457-1617) towards the end of the 16th century, there are two sections devoted to . One is for strong (H. rezia, Ciudad Real 1984[16th century] ff.l70r-202v) and the other is for weak (H. simple, ff. 202v-209v). That is, there is clear recognition of two h-like sounds, but they are not distinguished in the orthography. However, at least one author does make an explicit distinction; Gabriel de San Buenaventura (1996[1684]), also a Franciscan (c.l620?-post 1695), uses for the weak h and barred for the strong ft, which was probably a velar or uvular fricative.21 3.1.2 Glottalization. An important category of new sounds encountered by the missionaries were those accompanied by glottal closure or stricture. The glottal stop itself, [?], which is very frequent in American languages, was quite pro­ blematic. For example, it is an important sound in Nahuatl, where it was simply ignored, or only represented sporadically as an , until about 1600.22 Even today, many students of Nahuatl fail to represent this sound adequately. In 1595, the Jesuit priest Antonio del Rincón (1555-1601) proposed the use of a diacritic similar to a breve accent, , over the vowel which precedes this sound to represent it, and referred to it as the saltillo, the little jump, because it seemed to be produced by a little jump in the voice (cf. Smith Stark 1996). However, 20

The IPA symbol for a retroflex s stands here for an apico-alveolar s. Such is Fox's interpretation (1978:45). The distinction is no longer made in the modern language, but it can be verified etymologically and can be argued for on morphophonological grounds (Orie & Bricker 2000). Of course, was not considered a possible candidate for representing this sound since it still represented /š/, /ž/, or /i/ in late 16th century Spanish, not [x]. 22 Cf. Smith Stark (1995). The use of was probably motivated by the fact that the glottal stop was pronounced as [h] in many forms of Nahuatl, a value which also had, at times, in 16th century Spanish. However, was also a reasonable candidate for representing a real glottal stop since it could represent a hiatus in 16th century Spanish as well, which, after /h/ > 0 in the 17th century, became virtually its only possible value in modern Spanish. 21

16

THOMAS C. SMITH-STARK

Rincón's proposal was not widely followed. After 1600, a grave accent was often used for the saltillo (Smith Stark 1995). Thus, a word such as /λa?toa:ni/ "governor", can be found written in any of the following ways (and many others as well): tlatoani, tlahtoani, tlãtoani, tlàtoani, tlàtoāni. In Mixtec, the glottal stop has been represented traditionally by an , a usage which is still employed in some modern practical orthographies. doho ndoho

"adobe" (Alvarado 1593) "adobe" (Stark Campbell et al, 1986)

This solution was possible since the in Spanish orthography which was derived from Latin was not pronounced in Spanish and probably was unpronounced in the Latin of Spanish speakers. Furthermore, after the Spanish mentioned above which was derived from prior /f/ lost its value as a fricative towards the end of the 16th century, it became an even more natural choice for representing some sort of hiatus, which is how Spanish speakers often perceive the glottal stop. In the Mayan family, the glottal stop never received adequate representation during the colony. Sometimes it was indicated by writing a double vowel, but not always. The difficulty which the missionaries had with this sound probably demonstrates the little influence that a solid knowledge of Arabic or Hebrew, languages in which the glottal stop is an important element, had on their linguistic preparation or thinking. In sharp contrast to the problems occasioned by the glottal stop, the missionaries were rather successful at identifying and representing glottalized consonants, which are found in many Otomanguean languages, where they are usually analyzed as consonant clusters of a plain consonant plus a glottal stop, and in Mayan languages, where they form unitary phonemes. The solutions to the problem of how to represent these segments were both diverse and creative, illustrating all five of the strategies mentioned above for representing new sounds. In Otomi as written by the Franciscan friar Alonso Urbano (1605), consonants were doubled to indicate glottalization.24 23

The Rinconian saltillo is, however, found in a few manuscripts, such as Cantares mexicanos, where Bierhorst (1985:692-694; 702-704) interprets its use as evidence for a Jesuit presence in the transmission of that important document. 24 Cárceres (c. 1580) used a similar system, but with representing /k'/, rather than . Notice that physical doubling of the non-glottalized grapheme is not really a complete description of this convention.

17

PHONOLOGICAL DESCRIPTION IN NEW SPAIN

pp = [p']

tt=[t']

ttz=[ts']

cc/cqu = [k']

In Yucatec Maya, ad hoc solutions were used for each point of articulation.25 pp/

= [p']26 th/th = [f ]

/dz = [ts']

ch = [c']

k = [k']

Doubling, doubling of the vertical stroke, barring or doubling together with barring was used for the bilabial /p7; a with an added or barred was used for /tV; a special symbol, , resembling a backwards , or a special digraph, ,27 was used for the alveolar affricate / /; a barred was used for /c7; and a special value was ascribed to for a /k7. For writing the Mayan languages of Guatemala, a series of special letters known as the Parra letters, named after the 16th century Franciscan friar Francisco de la Parra (cl500-1560),28 their inventor (Carmack 1973:22, note 4), was used to represent the glottalized consonants. One, known as the cuatrillo, the little four, is shaped like the number 4. Another, known as the tresillo, the little three, is shaped like a backwards number 3 or like Arabic cayn tt/th = [t']

4, = [ts']

4h=[c']

4=[k']

= [q']

In addition to the glottalized ejectives, Otomi had a preglottalized /?d/. This sound was distinguished by both Cárceres and Urbano, who used a barred to represent it (Smith Stark 1992b).

25

Cf. Tozzer (1967[1921]:21) and Pellicer Ugalde (1997:46). The barred p's should have the bar crossing the lower part of the setter, which we have been unable to reproduce. A fourth grapheme used to represent this sound, but which we have been unable to reproduce typographically, is a

with the vertical stroke doubled. 27 Neither Tozzer (1921) nor Pellicer (1997) mentions the use of for but it is common in place names and family names in Yucatan, such as Dzibilchaltun (an archaeological site in northern Yucatan) or Dzib (a Mayan family name). 28 Parra was a Galician who was in Guatemala by 1542. His invention of several special letters was considered an inspiration from God and was followed in all subsequent Franciscan writings on languages such as Quiché, Cakchiquel, Tzutujil, Pocomchí, Pocomam and Choltí (Vázquez 1937[1714], vol. 1:126-127 and Sánchez García 1919 apud Herbruger and Díaz Barrios 1956:34). 26

18

THOMAS C. SMITH-STARK

3.1.3 The alveolar affricate. The alveolar affricate, [ts], is very common in Mexican languages. It was usually written as , though there are early examples in Nahuatl documents where it was represented as or .29 3.1.4 The lateral affricate. The lateral affricate [X] was a particularly prominent sound in Nahuatl (Smith Stark 1995) and was also found in Totonac (Romero 1990[lst third of 17th century]).30 In both cases it was written as and caused little trouble. 3.1.5 The lateral fricative. Totonac also has a phonemic lateral fricative, [ł]. The grammar attributed to Eugenio Romero (fl. 1st third of 17th century) (1990) represents this sound as . A similar sound, [1], occurs in Nahuatl as an allophone of HI in syllable final position. Andrés de Olmos (c. 1485-1568) proposes recording this sound as (1972[1547]:200). 3.1.6 The uvular stop. Several Mayan languages in Guatemala have a simple uvular stop, [q], which was generally written as a . See, for example, Carmack and Mondloch (1983:33) for Quiché and Pantaleón de Guzmán (c.1652-1708) for Cakchiquel (1704). In Totonac in Mexico, this sound was written as (Romero 1990[lst third of 17th century]). 2

Cf. Anderson, Berdan and Lockhart (1976:34) and Téllez Nieto (2004:207-208). Interestingly, there is no unequivocal evidence in the linguistic work of the 16th century in New Spain for the retention of an affricated pronunciation of or in Spanish. As Canfield (1934) clearly argued, if these letters had still been pronounced as something like [ts] in 16th century Mexico, as many hispanists believe, one would expect them to be used in the representation of such affricates in newly romanized Mexican languages. However, such was not the case. Monzón (2005) observes that Molina (1571b, "Aviso segundo"), when discussing alphabetical order, says that he is going to "also put tza, tze, tzi, tzo, tzu with the letter T [since it is written with it] even though it is pronounced like ça, ce, ci, go, çu" ("poner tambien el. tza. tze. tzi. tzo. tzu. enla letra. T. [pues se escriue con ella] aunque se pronuncie a manera de. ça. ce. ci. ço. çu." ). She takes this as evidence that Molina pronounced as an affricate in Spanish or that he was at least familiar with such a pronunciation. However, it is also possible to understand him to be saying that the pronunciation is similar to that of , but not necessarily identical. Impressionistically, / / was compared to /s/, but distinguished as being stronger or more forceful (cf. Carochi's description of / / in §3.1, Gilberti's in §3.2.1, and Cárceres' in §3.2.7). McQuown's useful edition of this text includes his reconstruction of the phonological representation of the Totonac forms found in this grammar.

PHONOLOGICAL DESCRIPTION IN NEW SPAIN

19

3.1.7 The retroflex rhotic. Purepecha has two rhotics. One is a simple flap and is generally represented as . The other is usually described as being a more retroflex [ ]. The Franciscan friar Maturini Gilberti (1559) does not distinguish them, writing them both as ,31 but his fellow Franciscan Juan Baptista de Lagunas (1574:72-73) proposed using for the second, a grapheme which is still utilized to this day in most practical orthographies for the language, as, for example, in Monzón (1997) and Medina Pérez and Alveano Hernández (2000). 3.1.8 Interdentals. In Mixtec, Reyes (1976[1593]) and Alvarado (1962[1593]) use the digraph dz to represent [ð]. In Huastec, Tapia Zenteno (pre 1690-post 1769) (1985[1767]) uses a z to represent [0]. 3.2 Vowels The main oppositions found in the vowel systems of Mexican languages, in addition to those of vowel quality, are nasalization and laryngealization. Laryngealization, which is found in Totonacan and Zapotec languages, was not resolved adequately. Nasalization was registered well in at least one case, Otomi. Vowel qualities unlike those of Spanish were also problematical, as Suárez observed in the passage quoted above (§1), but Otomi was a notable exception in this regard as well. 3.2.1 Nasalization. Many Mexican languages, above all those in the Otomanguean family, distinguish between oral and nasalized vowels. In the case of Otomi, as registered by the Franciscan friars Pedro de Cárceres (fl. 1580) and Alonso Urbano, nasalized vowels were distinguished by writing a small omega-shaped diacritic above them, < >, which, following a suggestion by Heriberto Avelino (personal communcation), might be called a little bat, or 'murcielaguito' in Spanish. In striking contrast to the success of the Franciscans with Otomi, the Domi­ nicans in Oaxaca, friars Antonio de los Reyes (c.1538-1603) and Francisco de Alvarado (c. 1553-1603), did not register the nasalized vowels of Mixtee in a systematic way. In fact, they were only registered in a couple of special circumstances. A /t/ followed by a nasalized vowel was written as , a 31

Cristina Monzón informs me that Gilberti uses on one or two occasions to represent this sound.

20

THOMAS C. SMITH-STARK

representation of the allophone [tn] found in this context. A /k/ followed by a nasalized or was written using the letter q alone to represent the syllable or , as in duq "cochineal", dzuq "neck", and yeq "squash" (cf. the entries grana, cuello, and calabaça in Alvarado 1593). The corresponding modern forms in San Juan Colorado (Stark Campbell et al 1986) are nduk šùh and 3.2.2 Vowel quality. Various Mexican languages have vowels with qualities distinct from the five standard vowels found in Spanish. In Zoque, there is a sixth vowel, which is a high central unrounded vowel, /i/. In the colonial Zoque documents published by Ruz (1997), attempts can be seen to represent this sixth vowel with an ash, , or with a caudated e, < >.33 However, it is not adequately represented on the whole (Smith Stark 1997). Otomi is a language endowed with a rich system of nine vowel qualities. i u e o e a Table 1: Vowel qualities of Otomi The Franciscan friars Pedro de Cárceres (ca. 1580) and Alonso Urbano (1605) employ for the mid central unrounded vowel, /A/, and for the high central unrounded vowel, /i/, although Urbano, at least, often does not maintain this distinction, writing for both.34 Cárceres uses and to represent half close and half open mid front vowels, respectively; and and for the corresponding back vowels. Urbano (1605) uses the graphemes and , which might possibly be related to /ε/ y , respectively, but this usage is far from clear (cf. Lastra 1992, Smith Stark 1992b). In the 18th century, Neve y Molina (1767) uses for /e/ and for ; in addition, he uses two invented letters for and , a whose rightmost stroke continues vertically downwards for the 32

The only other case of a syllabic sign that I am aware of, is one recently brought to my attention by Michael Knapp; in a colonial Mazahua document which he is editing, the letter is used to represent the syllables /ka/, kha/ and /k'a/. 33 In the Latin based orthographies of New Spain, these two letters were familiar from the tradition of writing Latin, where they both are derived from the sequence , the tail on the < > originally being a reduced form of the vowel . 34 I interpret this letter as an o-e ligature, though Acuña (Urbano 1990) reads it as an a-e ligature, which would perhaps better explain why there are occasional uses of a caudated < > instead of .

PHONOLOGICAL DESCRIPTION IN NEW SPAIN

21

first, and an with a line rising from the top right edge, curving leftwards, and with another line falling from the bottom right edge and also curving leftwards for the second. He thereby registered all nine vowel qualities in an adequate, though antiesthetic, way. Chinantec (Jmiih) is another language which distinguishes various vowel qualities. Highland Chinantec, that spoken by the dzämo' (Hernández López 2000), for example, has the following inventory of nine contrastive vowel qualities.35 i y u e o æ a Table 2: Vowel qualities in Chinantec Barreda (1960[1730]) (fl. 1730) seems to distinguish seven of these vowels orthographically. In addition to the five vowels shared with Spanish, , he also writes for and for /Ә/. This claim is based on a superficial examination of the text, where one finds "woman" and "water" for forms that Rensch (1989) reconstructs as Proto-Chinantec * and * respectively, and "now" and "give" for Proto-Chinantec *nә'HL and *kwә..., respectively. The vowels, /æ/ and /y/, on the other hand, do not seem to be distinguished. For example, Barreda has "I" and "five" where Hernández López (2000, Anexo: "Lista de palabras") registers /hnæ:/ (#1) and /' æ:/ (#105) in Yolox; and Barreda has "casa" and "suck" where Yolox has /'nüh/ (#32) and /y 7 "chúpalo" (#67) according to Hernández López.36 3.3 Prosodic elements The prosodic elements of stress, duration and tone were particularly difficult areas for the colonial grammarians, especially the latter two. 3

In addition, there is a contrast of nasalization and vowel length, yielding 33 different vowels in all (Hernández López 2000:45). 36 I have not studied Barreda's orthography in detail, nor does Cline say very much in his edition of the text (1960:74-76), which includes useful, though brief, Spanish-Chinantec (1960:81-118) and Chinantec-Spanish (1960:125-131) vocabularies. The orthography of this document merits a de­ tailed study, now that more descriptively adequate materials are available on the language. In Hernández López, u with dieresis is used for the high front rounded vowel and underscoring marks nasalization.

22

THOMAS C. SMITH-STARK

3.3.1 Stress accent. During the 16th century, stress accent was not represented in Spanish orthography, although Nebrija's comments (cf. §2) show that it was well understood in Spanish at least. It is rarely represented when writing Indian languages. In some cases, this may simply be because it was not constrastive. For example, in Classical Nahuatl stress regularly falls on the penultimate syllable, except in forms with the vocative suffix -e, which always receives stress: "Note that the acute accent is never placed on the final syllable if it is not on the e of the vocatives" ("Nota que nunca se pone accento agudo en la vltima sino es en la. e. de los vocatiuos", Rincón 1967[1595]:64). In Purepecha, stress was contrastive, but not written. Even so, the Franciscan friar Maturino Gilberti (1558) clearly recognized the contrastive nature of stress. He explains that: En esta lengua ay muchos vocablos que en latin llamamos Æquiuocos, de dos significados, en los quales muy facilmente se podrían engañar los menos auisados: por que su significado solamente se conosce en el accento: el qual se ha de hechar conforme al significado de los dichos vocablos Equiuocos (signature bi r) [In this language there are many words that in Latin we call Equivocal, with two meanings, by which the less well-informed can easily be fooled: because their meaning can only be known by the accent: which must be placed according to the meaning of said equivocal words]

He goes on to give a series of seven minimal pairs which depend solely on the position of the stress, which in this language nearly always falls on one of the first two syllables of the word. For example, tecándini is "incorrigible" and técandini is "deaf. He uses an acute accent over the stressed vowel in all these pairs. In this, he seems to follow Nebrija, who likewise uses an acute accent to distinguish pairs like ámo "I love" and amó "he loved" in Spanish.37 One case where stress accent was written fairly consistently was in the Dominican friar Juan de Cordova's Zapotec dictionary (1578; cf. Smith Stark 2003). In Zapotec, stress is predictable grammatically, but not in terms of the surface phonological string. It generally falls on the first syllable of lexical roots. Cordova (c. 1501-1595) marks stress with any one of the three graphic accents he uses in his vocabulary: the acute accent ('), the grave accent ('), and the circumflex 37

Cf. Nebrija in Quilis'edition (1492 book 2, chapter 2:18r; 1984:138-139). Nebrija cites Quintilian as his model and says that the Latin rhetorician uses an apex for signalling stress, by which he apparently means an acute accent.

PHONOLOGICAL DESCRIPTION IN NEW SPAIN

23

accent (^).38 The written accents in this dictionary serve an important cumulative function as well, allowing the reader to pick out the lexical morphemes quite easily, since spaces are often omitted at word boundaries and compounding and incorporation are quite common. 3.3.2 Duration, The marking of vowel length was especially difficult, it seems, for the Europeans. For example, vowel length is contrastive in Classical Nahuatl (and most modern forms as well), but was not adequately identified as such until the Jesuit priest Antonio del Rincón published his grammar in 1595, and was only written consistently on rare occasions, such as when Rincón's successor and fellow Jesuit, Horacio Carochi (1579-1662), published his grammar in 1645. Classical Nahuatl vowel length continued to be largely ignored in modern studies of the language, until Andrews (1975) and Launey (1979, 1986) published their ground-breaking grammars, and Karttunen, her dictionary (1983). Even studies of the modern dialects tend to pay inadequate attention to this feature of the language. Rincón suggested representing vowel length with a grave accent (') in final position and an acute accent (') elsewhere. Short vowels would be left unmarked. Carochi, who improved upon Rincón's grammar in many ways (cf. Smith Stark 1996), used a macron (¯) to mark long vowels and an acute accent (') for short vowels. In the case of other languages with contrasting vowel length, for example many Mayan languages, I know of no cases where the distinction was marked successfully. The difficulty caused by vowel length is somewhat surprising when one takes into account that Latin, the major cultural language in Europe during the Middle Ages and the missionaries' primary model for grammatical description, had an opposition between long and short vowels. However, knowledge of the nature of vowel length seems to have been largely forgotten by the 16th century. For example Nebrija makes the following wry observation in this regard: "But the 38

According to Radin (1943-1944:8), Cordova uses both a breve (ˇ) and a circumflex (^) accent in his grammar. Whitecotton and Whitecotton (1993:xxii), on the other hand, say that he used the circumflex (^), the hachek ( ˇ ), and the dieresis ("). De la Cruz (2001:28-29) notes that the circumflex and the hachek predominate, though there are also cases of the breve and, possibly, the acute accents. The examples of the latter, however, may in fact be damaged examples of the circumflex accent. Like Smith Stark in the case of the Vocabvlario, he claims that these diverse accents in the Arte are all used to mark stressed vowels.

24

THOMAS C. SMITH-STARK

Castilian cannot sense this difference [in vowel length], not even those who compose verse can distinguish between long and short syllables, no more than those who composed some works in Latin verse in past centuries could sense it" ("Mas el castellano no puede sentir esta diferencia [en la longura de las sílabas], ni los que componen versos pueden distinguir las sílabas luengas de las breves, no más que la sintían los que compusieron algunas obras en verso latino en los siglos passados", 1492:17r). 3.3.3 Tone. Of all the phonological characteristics of the languages of New Spain, tone, which is particularly common in the languages of the Otomanguean family, was the one that caused the most difficulty for the early linguists. In many cases, the tonal nature of a language was not really recognized until the 20th century. Such was the case with Yucatec Maya, for example, which was first identified as a tone language by Kenneth Pike in 1946.39 However, there are some commentaries which indicate that the friars were aware of tonal phenomena and even made some attempts to represent them, though not with much success. For example, the Dominican friar Francisco de Alvarado observes that "The meanings of many words vary a lot with the accent, and some not only in having or losing an accent mark, but even as to pronouncing the tip with softness or with fullness of voice" ("En el acento varían muchas palabras la significacion, y algunas no solamente en tener o perder vna tilde pero aun en pronunciar el punto con blandura o con la boz llena", Alvarado 1593, "Prologo":6r). His contemporary and fellow Dominican Antonio de los Reyes also attempts to talk about tone: En todos los verbos aqui puestos y en los demas de su alea que propriamente son equí­ vocos se han de mirar los acentos como van señalados, y donde no ay señal, entiendan que la pronunciacion ha de ser llana, que de otra manera sera mucha la equiuocacion y 39

Contrast this situation with that of Vietnamese. According to Thompson (1987:56) in 1624 the Jesuit missionary Alexandre de Rhodes (1591-1660), a native of Avignon in southern France, arrived in Indochina and in 1651 published his Dictionarium annamiticum, lusitanum et latinum in which the writing system was close to phonemic, including, apparently, the representation of six tones, five by way of overt diacritics (', ~, ?, .). The Jesuits Michele Ruggieri (1573-1607) and Matteo Ricci (1552-1610) did not represent tone in their Chinese dictionary of ca. 1580, but the Dominican friar Francisco Varo (1627-1687) did do so systematically by way of five diacritics (", , ,̀ ,́ ˇ) in his grammar of Mandarin (2000[1703]). It seems reasonable to suppose that traditional Chinese language studies may have provided an important stimulus which made these early and sophisticated analyses of tone systems possible in Asia.

PHONOLOGICAL DESCRIPTION IN NEW SPAIN

25

confusion, y fuera cosa enfadosa pretender poner en esto reglas, de mas de que fueran sin prouecho." (Reyes 1976[1593]:54) [In all the verbs given here and in the rest of their kind which properly speaking are equivocal, it is necessary to observe the accents which are marked, and where there is no sign, understand that the pronunciation is plain, and that otherwise there would be much error and confusion, and it would be a vexing thing to try to reduce this to rules, in addition to which they would be of no use.] The evidence is extremely ambiguous and sporadic, but it appears that the Dominicans might have recognized three tones: acute (written with an acute accent), plain (unmarked), and grave (written with a grave accent). For example, the following possibly contrastive pairs appear in Alvarado (A) and in Reyes (R).40 a. yo+sànu÷ndi "crecer [to grow]" (R:54, A) yo+sánu÷ndi "doblar [to bend]" (A) yo+sánu site÷ndi "doblar la rodilla, haziendo reuerencia [to bend the knee, bowing]" (R:54) b.

yo+sani÷ndi yo+sàni÷ndi yo+sáni÷ndi

"soñar [to dream]" (R:54, A) "ordeñar [to milk]" (R:54) "ordeñar" (A)

c.

yo+ndayu÷ndi yo+ndàyu÷ndi yo+ndayu÷ndi

"temblar [to tremble]" (R:55 "llano"; A) "llorar [to cry]" (R:55 "acento") "llorar" (A)

d.

yo+sána÷ndi

"atrauesarseme el bocado en el garguero [for a bite of food to get stuck in my throat]" (R:56) "ahogarse [con violencia] [to choke violently]" (A) "reborverse los atomos en el aposento por el rayo del sol que entra, y por metaphora dizen de multitud de gente [for the small particles of dust in the air of a room to swirl about due to the rays of sunlight which enter, and, metaphorically, they say it when talking about a large group of people]" (R:56)

yo+sa'na÷ndi yo+sana

However, the examples of this sort are too few and too contradictory to allow a clear conclusion to be drawn at this time. The difficulty with tone remains with us to this day. Indeed there is a 40

In my analysis of the following examples, a prefix is separated by a plus sign (+) and a suffix, by a division sign (÷).

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THOMAS C. SMITH-STARK

widespread tendency to ignore tone when writing descriptions of Mexican languages and developing practical orthographies for them. 4. The articulatory description of sounds The recognition of a wide variety of different sounds can be inferred from the orthographic practice of the friars; however, such recognition is above all pragmatic and intuitive. That is, the sounds which are functionally different are recognized as such in practice. It is generally assumed that they will be pronounced as their Spanish counterparts would suggest. At times, however, reference is made to the pronunciation of sounds in other languages to help elucidate the value of a particular grapheme (§4.1), or explicit articulatory descriptions of sounds are essayed (§4.2). 4.1 Descriptions by analogy with other languages On the few occasions when reference is made to the pronunciation of another language, it is to Latin or Hebrew. There is very little or nothing said about the other languages which some of the missionaries surely knew: Greek, Arabic, French, Basque, Flemish, Italian, Danish etc. The two most prominent examples of this technique are the descriptions of the geminate/11/and of the affricate /¢/ in Nahuatl. The Franciscan friar Andrés de Olmos (1972[1547]:198) explains the pronunciation of the double - a particularly common sequence in Nahuatl which often results from the addition of the absolutive suffix -tl(i) to deverbal noun stems which end in /l/ — in the following way: "in the pronunciation of some letters, it seems to be more like Latin than like our Romance. And thus, they use two ll's as when in Latin we say villa, not like in Romance when we say maravilla" ("en la pronunciacion mas parece allegarse al latin que no a nuestro romance en algunas sillabas o letras. Y ansi usan de dos // como en latín que dezimos villa, y no como en el romance que dezimos marauilla"). Here of course the reference is to the fact that in Latin the double // refers to a true geminate, /ll/, whereas in Spanish, it is a digraph which represents a palatal lateral, /λ/.41 With respect to the affricate /¢/, both the Franciscan Alonso de Molina and the Jesuit Horacio Carochi explain its pronunciation in terms of Hebrew. Molina, for example, says that "This language has an Hebraic letter, the tsade, which should be written as t plus s or as t plus z, and which should be pronounced like t plus s" 41

A similar observation is also made by the Jesuit Antonio del Rincón (1595:64v[1967:68]).

PHONOLOGICAL DESCRIPTION IN NEW SPAIN

27

("Esta lengua tiene vna letra Hebrayca, que es tsade. La qual se hade escreuir con. t y, s, o con .t. y .z: y ase de pronunciar como. t. y. s.", 1571a:5r).42 Carochi says that "They have another letter which is pronounced like z or c, but stronger; it corresponds to the Hebrew letter tsade; it is written in this language as t plus z. [...] but it is a single letter, even though it is written as two." ("Otra letra tienen parecida en la pronunciacion à la z. y à la c. pero es de mas fuerte pronunciacion, corresponde à la letra Hebrea llamada, Tsade; escriuese en esta lengua con f. y z. [...] pero es vna sola letra, aunque se escriue con dos.", 1983[1645]:lv). 4.2 Explicit articulatory descriptions The attempts at the articulatory description of sounds tend to be vague and impressionistic. Perhaps the most explicit presentation in this regard is that of the Franciscan Juan Baptista Bravo de Lagunas (1574:75-76), who simply quotes from the third book, De arte grammatica, of a 4th-5th century Medieval treatise by the North African Martianus Capella, which describes the articulation of the sounds of Latin, presented in alphabetical order, as follows (cf. Arias 2001; Norton 1995, vol. 2:828): A. B. C. D. E. F. G. H. I. K. L. M. N. O. P. Q. R.

42

Sub hiatu oris congruo solo spiritu memoramus. Labris per spiritus impetu reclusis edimus. Super molaribus linguę extrema appulsis exprimitur. Appulsu linguae circa superiores dentes in nascitur. Spiritus facit lingua paululum pressiore Dentibus, labrum inferius deprimentibus lingua palatoque dulcescit. Spiritus cum palato. Contractis paulum faucibus ventus ex halat. Spiritus prope dentibus pressis. Faucibus palatoque formatur. Lingua palatoque dulcescit. Labris imprimitur. Lingua dentibus apulsa colliditur. Rotundioris spiritu comparatur. Labris spiritus erumpit. Appulsu palati ore restricto. Spiritu lingua crispante corraditur.

This description is quite disturbing since it seems to evidence confusion between apical and laminal in Molina's Spanish. However, Suárez Roca (1992:84) notes that Molina corrects this statement in the 1576 edition of his grammar, where he states that "one should write t. plus z. and not t plus s, and one should pronounce t plus z" ("se ha de escreuir con t.yz.y no con t. y s, y hase de pronunciar como t y z.", Arte 1576:133).

28

THOMAS C. SMITH-STARK

S. T. V. X. Y. Z.

Sibilum facit dentibus verberatis. Appulsu lingue dentibus impulsis excudit. Ore constricto labrisque promulis exhibet. Quicquid. c. & .S. formauit exibilat. Apressis labris spirituque procedit Vero iccirco Appius claudius detestatur: quod dentes mortui, dum exprimitur: imitator.43

However, there are occasional comments about articulation which are useful or at least understandable with a bit of hind sight. 4.2.1 Apico-alveolar vs. lamino-alveolar. Consider, for example, the observations made by the Franciscan Matutino Gilberti about the pronunciation of and in Purepecha. As was mentioned earlier, many Mexican languages have an alveolar affricate, which was usually written as . However, Gilberti dis­ tinguishes two different such affricates, which he writes as and . He describes the first as follows: Muchos vocablos ay enesta lengua derezia pronunciacion, para la qual pronunciacion es menester añadir .tz. [...] ha de ser poniendo el pico dela lengua entre los dientes delanteros de arriba, abriendo vn poquito los labios: y hiriendo rezio el paladar con la lengua: como en la pronunciacion de tza y debetzayda (1558:109v) [There are many words in this language of forceful pronunciation, for which it is necessary to add tz [...] it should be made by placing the tip of the tongue between the upper front teeth, opening a bit the lips: and articulating forcefully against the palate with the tongue: as in the pronunciation of tza and of Betzayda44] 43 Translation (based on Lucas 2002, with help from Beatriz Arias, Aurelia Vargas and Bulmaro Reyes; but of course I am accountable for any errors): A "we mention [it] with a single and convenient puff of air immediately upon opening the mouth"; B "we exhale, the lips opened by the force of the breath"; C "it is pronounced with the contact of the back of the tongue on the molars"; D "it comes from the contact of the tongue around the upper teeth"; E "the breath makes a bit of pressure on the tongue"; F "it is sweetened with the tongue and the palate, the teeth pressing against the lower lip"; G "the breath with the palate"; H "air is exhaled, constricting a bit the throat"; I "the breath with the teeth almost closed"; K "it is formed by the throat and the palate"; L "it is sweetened with the tongue and the palate"; M "it is made with the lips"; N "the tongue is struck in contact with the teeth"; O "it is compared to a more rounded sound"; P "the breath bursts forth from the lips"; Q "by contact with the palate, with the mouth narrowed"; R "the curling tongue is bunched up in the breath"; S "it makes a whistling sound, dashing against the teeth"; T "it is produced by the contact of the tongue against the teeth"; V "it is produced with the mouth tight and the lips in contact"; X "whatever formed c and s makes a whistling sound"; Y "tightening with the lips the breath that goes forth"; Z "truly for this reason, Appius Claudius is detested, because when it is pronounced, it sounds like the teeth of a dead man". 44 Betzayda is apparently his rendition of the Biblical name Bethsaida, an ancient town of Israel

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29

Here, by forceful pronunciation, Gilberti is describing the difference between a laminai fricative and an affricate /¢/ (= [t ]). The second affricate is described as follows: "There are other words for whose pronunciation it is necessary to make as if to pronounce ts, because their first syllable should be pronounced rather forcefully, articulating against the palate with the tongue, and then relaxing the tongue for the rest of the word, as if whistling" ("Otros vocablos ay: para cuya prolacion es menester fingir .ts. por que su primera silaba seha de pronunciar algo rezio, hiriendo el | paladar con la lengua, y luego afloxando la lengua para lo de mas de la dicion: como echando vn silbeo", 1558:110v-111r). This description seems to confirm the fact that represented an apico-alveolar fricative, [ ], like that still heard in Castilian Spanish, which has a whistling type of assibilation. The two affricates described by Gilberti thus seem to be [ ] and [t ].45 4.2.2 An interdental fricative. Spanish sibilants underwent several important changes in the 16th and 17th centuries. Two hundred years after Gilberti described the affricates in Purepecha, the priest Carlos Tapia Zenteno described in Huastec in the following way: "Z is pronounced properly with the tongue somewhat protruding from the teeth and touching them." ("La z se pronuncia con todo rigor, con la lengua algo fuera de los dientes, pegada à ellos.", 1767:2). From this description, from the examples given, as well as from knowledge of the present day pronunciation of the language, we can surmise that the author was referring to the interdental fricative [9], which is still found in Huastec. This example is particularly interesting because it suggests that the grapheme in Spanish was a natural candidate for representing this sound, a peninsular pronunciation probably never found in American Spanish, where has always represented

near the shores of the Sea of Galilee, mentioned various times in the New Testament of the Christian Bible (for example, in Matthew 2:21; Mark 6:45, 8:22; Luke 9:10; John 1:44). 45 A parallel difference was also surely found between and . The apical sibilants only occurred before , and so were in complementary distribution with the corresponding palatal sibilants , which never occurred before (cf. Monzón 2001, 2005) (note that the symbol stands here for an apico-alveolar s).

30

THOMAS C. SMITH-STARK

4.2.3 Glottal stop. Another good example of a successful phonetic description is the Jesuit Antonio del Rincón's characterization of the sound known as saltillo, the little jump, in Nahuatl. He was the first to mention this term, which is still used today in Mexican linguistics to describe the glottal stop. Accento del saltillo es, quando la syllaba breue se pronuncia con alguna aspereza como, tlaçolli.46 Esta aspereça no es del todo. H. hablando propriamente porque en la prouincia de Tlaxcalla, y en algunas otras apartadas de Mexico pronuncian con este Spiritu aspero muy affectadamente de manera que no solo es. H. mas aun pronunciada con mucha aspereça, y tuerça verbi gracia, tlacohtli, tlahtoani, y por esta causa con mucha raçon algunos han llamado, a este espiritu aspero el saltillo, porque ni del todo a de ser. H. como en Tlaxcala ni suspension de la syllaba, como algunos han dicho. Accento suspenso: porque ese es officio del accento agudo que es largo y suspende la syllaba, y assi no es mas de vna manera de salto, o singulto, que se haze en la syllaba, y esto solamente se halla en la syllaba breue. (Rincón 1595:63v-64v; cf. 1967[1595]:61-62) [The little jump accent is when a short syllable is pronounced with some roughness, as in tlahçolli "trash". This roughness is not properly speaking an h in all regards, because in the province of Tlaxcala, and in some other parts of Mexico, they pronounce this spiritus asper with much affectation, so much so that not only is it an h, it is even more roughly and strongly pronounced, as in, for example, tlacohtli "slave", tlahtoani "great lord". And therefore, for good reason, some people have called this spiritus asper the saltillo, the little jump, because it should not really be an h as in Tlaxcala, nor the suspension of the syllable, as some have claimed. The suspended accent: because this is the function of the acute accent which is long and which suspends the syllable, and thus it is no more than a kind of jump, a jiggle, in the syllable, and this is only found on short syllables.] Here Rincón refers to two different realizations of the saltillo, both of which are still present in modern varieties of Nahuatl. One was a glottal fricative, a spiritus asper as he calls it, which may even have had some velar friction as pronounced in Tlaxcala. The other was a true glottal stop. He rejects the description of this accent as the suspension of the voice, which he feels more properly describes vowel length. Similarly, the Dominican Antonio de los Reyes, in his grammar of Mixtec published in 1593, gives a fairly clear description of the glottal stop. Solo se puede notar acerca de ¿numerables vocablos que se hallaran en esta lengua que por 46

Karttunen (1992[1983]:271) gives this form as tlahzolli "trash".

PHONOLOGICAL DESCRIPTION IN NEW SPAIN

31

mas claridad se escriben con h antes de la vocal, y no por eso se ha de entender, que es aspiracion, sino que la pronunciacion ha de ser de tal | suerte que parezca dexar la vocal sola como yosini mani ñahandi es amar, la pronunciacion ha de ser como esta aqui escripto: yosi inimani ña andi, que haga diuision, pero como en nuestra lengua Castellana se escribe desta manera, muchos dias ha, sin ser aquella ha aspiracion sino que al parecer se declara mejor ansi lo que se escribe, se puede tambien escriuir en la Mixteca con la h para las vocales, y comunmente se vsa esto entre los curiosos de la lengua. (1976[1593]:2-3) [Just one thing can be noted about the innumerable words that are found in this language that for clarity's sake are written with an h before the vowel, which should not be understood to mark aspiration but rather that the pronunciation should be such as to appear to leave the vowel alone, as in yosini mani ñahandi "love", which should be pronounced as follows: yosini mani ña andi,47 with a division between ña and andi. But since our Castilian language has been written this way for some time now, where the aitch is not aspiration, but rather it appears that it is clearer to write it this way, it can be done so in the Mixtec area as well, and commonly those interested in the language do so.]

4.2.4 Nasalization. Nasalization is described as such by various authors. For example, the Dominican Antonio de los Reyes (1972[1593]:2) explains that "the pronunciation of q with n or with h is pronounced through the nostrils" ("la pronunciacion de la q con n o con h se pronuncia por las narizes"). Reyes' fellow Dominican Francisco de Alvarado, in a rare display of ethnocentrism, speaks rather disparagingly of the same phenomenon: "this language goes so far as not to be content with what nature has given us for pronouncing, but rather it rises to the nostrils: and these are used in some pronunciations which would otherwise be incomplete" ("llega a tanto esta lengua: que no se contenta con la que nos dio naturaleza para pronunciar sino que sube a las narizes: y dellas se vale en algunas pronunciaciones; que sin este socorro quedan faltas", 1962[1593], "Prologo":6r). Nasalization of vowels is also clearly described in Otomi, where the Franciscan friar Pedro de Cárceres (1907[1580]) notes in the "Clave" at the beginning of his grammar that "They have another [pronunciation] through the nostrils like those among us who speak with a nasal twang" ("Tienen otra [pronunciacion] por las narizes como los gangosos entre nosotros").

47

I have corrected the second repetition of this phrase so that the only difference is that being illustrated. In Alvarado's dictionary, the closest expression for "love" that I can find is chidzumaniyosiniñahandi "amar fuerte mente" (f. 18r).

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THOMAS C. SMITH-STARK

4.2.5 Aspiration. Aspiration was also clearly described in some grammars. For example, Gilberti (1987[1558]:110r), in his description of the pronunciation of the aspirated affricate thz, explains that "it is necessary to let out your breath abundantly from the depths of your chest" ("menester es sacar el huelgo abundosamente del profundo del pecho"). 4.2.6 Vowel height. One of the most remarkable examples of the description of the pronunciation of unfamiliar sounds is that found at the beginning of the Franciscan friar Pedro de Carceres' grammar of Otomi. The notes on pronunciation are entitled "Clave para entender la pronunciacion figurada de la lengua otomi en el arte de Fr. Pedro de Cárceres" ("Key for understanding the notated pronunciation of the Otomi language in Friar Pedro de Cárceres' grammar") in the printed version, but simply "On some observations about the Otomi language" ("De algunos apuntamientos de la lengua otomj") on the first page of the original manuscript, which Nicolás Leon fortunately reproduces in his edition of the grammar.48 There, Cárceres refers to many of the unfamiliar characteristics of Otomi phonology (to a European). For example, he explains the mid and high central vowels as follows: Tienen otra pronunciacion que ni bien es e. ni bien es o. ni v. y usan unas veces, la pronuncian mas obscura y apretada que otras apretando mas la garganta; y asi cuando es media y no tan apretada la significaremos con este diptongo œ [...] y cuando es mas apretada la significaremos con este ("Clave") [They have a pronunciation which is not quite e nor quite o, nor u and they at times are accustomed to pronounce it more obscurely and tightly than at others, tightening more the throat. Thus, when it is only about half as tight, we will indicate it with the diphthong œ [...] and when it is more tightly articulated, we will indicate it with this.]

Likewise, the "Clave" describes Otomi's half open [ε, Ɔ] and half closed [e, o] mid vowels as follows: "Sometimes they open the mouth', put on top this ` which falls to the right [...] Other times they close it, and one should put on top this ´ which falls to the left" ("Otras vezes abren la boca; ponerse encima esta ` caida a mano derecha [...] Otras la sierran, ponerse ha esta ' caida a mano izquierda").49 48

I am grateful to Klaus Zimmermann for bringing the existence of this facsimile to my attention. Toru Maruyama informs me that the Portuguese grammarians Oliveyra (1507-1681) (1536) and Barros (1496-1570) (1540) distinguished closed and open mid vowels in their respective orthographies. The normal vowel signs were used for the closed varieties. Oliveyra (1536) used an 49

PHONOLOGICAL DESCRIPTION IN NEW SPAIN

33

4.2.7 Laryngealization. The "Clave" also does a pretty good job at describing the glottalized sounds in Otomi. The ejectives /k'/, /t'/ and /¢'/ are described as follows: Tienen otras [letras] pronunciaciongutural, apretando la garganta, dando un como castañeda. Escriuese con esta letra k [...] Otras veces pronuncian la t apretadamente serrando la boca y hiriendo con alguna fuerza con la punta de la lengua en los dientes de arriba. Significasse con dos tt [...] Tienen otras que ni es z ni c. Escriuese con tz. [...] Otra tienen con mas behemencia, escriuese con ttz ("Clave") [Other [letters] have a guttural pronunciation, tightening the throat, and producing a sort of click. It is written with the letter k[...] At other times they pronounce ttightly, closing the mouth and articulating with some force with the tip of the tongue against the upper teeth. This is represented with two tt's [...] They have others that are neither z nor c. It is written with tz. [...] They have another with more vehemence, it is written with ttz.] Here, the glottalized sounds are described as being made by tightening the throat and making a click, or by pronouncing forcefully, or by being produced with greater vehemence. The glottalized /?d/ was likewise described with some degree of acuity in the "Clave": "They have other [letters] that are not quite a d nor a soft r, it is a d pronounced in the throat and difficult to pronounce. It will be indicated with å " ("Otras [letras] tienen que ni es bien. d. ni r. blanda; es d pronunciada en la garganta y difícil de pronunciar Significarse ha con esta, â "). Here, "in the throat" apparently refers to the laryngeal activity involved in the production of this sound. 4.2.8 Retroflexion. As a further example of the relative success of some of the articulatory descriptions achieved by the colonial linguists, consider the description of the retroflex rhotic in Purepecha offered by the Franciscan friar Juan Baptista [Bravo] de Lagunas, who proposes representing it as : Y tambien es de notar que de aqui adelante para la recta pronunciacion se escreuiran aspi|radas las. Rr. que tienen la pronunciacion entre L. y. R. por escusar algun inusitado character de que las emprentas suelen carecer, a differencia de las demas que se escriuen era medio de parte sin encoger, o alçar la lengua en su pronunciacion y diuerso significado [...] Aunque en la verdad en vnas differencian muy poquito de nuestra R. [...] Y assi opongo por nota de atencion: para que nadie de oy mas dexe la razon y lo que peculiarmente la propia lengua pide, por seguir su sola opinion. (1983[1574]:72-73) epsilon, for open /ε/ and an omega, , for open /ɔ/. Barros (1540) used a caudated e, , for open /ε/ and an accented o, , for open /ɔ/.

34

THOMAS C. SMITH-STARK

[And it is also to be noted that henceforth, for correct pronunciation, the r's that are pronounced halfway between l and r will be written with aspiration, rather than with some unusual character which the presses generally lack, unlike the rest [of the r's], which are written in the middle without bunching or raising the tongue in their pronunciation and diverse meaning [...] Although, in fact, in some they are very little different from our r. [...] And so I raise this word of warning: so that no-one from today onward will ignore reason and that which the very language itself requires, in order to follow his own opinion.]

Notice that even at this early date, the practical consequences of inventing totally new symbols were considered when attempting to decide how best to represent new sounds. 4.2.9 Liquids. The term liquid is used on at least two occasions (Olmos 1972[1547]:201, Cárceres 1907[1580]:88). Both times it refers to the use of [u] (or the letters ) as a semivowel of some sort rather than as a full vowel. For example, Olmos says that in the sequence "Sometimes the u becomes liquid" ("Algunas vezes [...] se haze la u liquida"), by which he means that the sequence represents /kw/, rather than /ko/. Cárceres refers to verbs which begin with "liquid v" ("v liquida"), by which he means verbs which begin with /w/. 4.2.10 Concluding remarks aboutarticulatorydescription. I do not mean to over­ state the success of the articulatory descriptions of sounds in New Spain. They are typically confusing, unclear, imprecise and impressionistic, and do not reveal the systematic level of knowledge found earlier in Nebrija. I simply want to point out that it is possible to find a number of cases which reflect fairly mature thinking about the way sounds are produced. 5. The sound system, the alphabet and Quintilian's method I find little evidence for the idea of a sound system among the colonial gram­ marians of New Spain. Generally, the description of the sounds of a language begins, following Nebrija's interpretation of the Quintilian method, with the letters of the alphabet with which it is to be written, the letters which are not needed, and the additional letters which need to be added in order to adequately express the sounds of that language. For example, the Franciscan friar Alonso de Molina (1571:5r) begins his Nahuatl grammar as follows: "First, one should know that this language lacks six letters, which are b, d, f, g, r, s [...] In addition, this language has a Hebrew letter, which is tsade" ("Primeramente es de saber, que esta lengua carece de seys letras, que son. b. d. f. g. r. s [...] Allende desto, esta lengua tiene

PHONOLOGICAL DESCRIPTION IN NEW SPAIN

35

vna letra Hebrayca, que es tsade"). In this case it is understood that the unmentioned letters of the alphabet are shared with Spanish. The phonological and orthographic descriptions tend to treat sounds atomistically and in alphabetical order, with little or no sense of natural classes beyond the common distinction between consonants and vowels. For example, Friar Juan Baptista de Lagunas (1983[1574]:1) presents the sounds of Purepecha as follows: "These Indians have 21 letters, without counting the h, which is a sign of aspiration. There are 5 vowels, a, e, i, o, u and 16 consonants, b, c, d, g, h, k. m, n, p, ph, q, r, s, t, x, y, z" ('Tienen estos Yndios veynte y vna letras, sin la H, nota de aspiracion. Las quales son cinco vocales, a, e, i, o, u. Consonantes diez y seys. b, c, d, g, h. k. m, n, p, ph, q, r, s, t, x, y, z."). One is struck by the little coherence found in the texts on the matter of the alphabet. For example, Lagunas includes ph in his alphabet, but not th, tz, thz or rh, all of which are also special combinations discussed in his grammar. There are, nonetheless, occasional indications of a more systematic notion of the phonetically motivated groupings of sounds. For example, two authors refer to the class of rough sounds ("letras asperas"), which is an evident reference to sibilants. The Jesuit Antonio del Rincón (1967[1595]:67-68) uses this term in his discussion of a process which affects tz, ch, x, and ç, which are all the sibilants of Nahuatl. His successor Horacio Carochi (1983[1645]:53v) also mentions letras asperas, and gives the two fricative sibilants, x and z, as examples. There is also a striking case where a natural class is recognized implicitly by the symbols chosen to represent sounds. Here I have in mind the convention used by Alonso Urbano to represent ejective stops systematically by means of doubling (see §2.1.2 above). 6. Grapheme and phoneme Let's look now at the kind of phonological unit that the graphemes of the different New Spain languages represented. In general, the units that are distinguished correspond to the taxonomic phoneme, with no reference to internal differences in pronunciation, although in a few cases there is some allusion to allophonic variation. Of course, there are also many cases of underdifferentiation, as well as of overdifferentiation and of what might be called displacement.

36

THOMAS C. SMITH-STARK

6.1 Phonemes and allophones The colonial authors of New Spain usually seem to have a very concrete view of phonological units. If two sounds are heard as different, then they should be written as different; if they are written the same, then they should presumably be pronounced the same. However, in actual fact, the units that are written tend to correspond pretty well to the phonological units of the languages being described (again, recall that I am talking about the best of the grammarians). In some cases this is probably due to the influence of native speakers writing their own languages (cf. §10); they would naturally tend to write phonological units rather than phonetic ones. Another factor is simply the fact that the friars would not go out of their way to make distinctions that were not functionally important. Nonetheless, there are also cases where allophones are recognized. A particularly clear, and also very early, case of this is found in the Franciscan friar Andrés de Olmos' description of [g] in Nahuatl. Pero, quanto a las letras que hemos dicho que no tenian, ay alguna dificultad, porque parece algunas vezes pronunciar algunas dellas, y una destas es la g porque en esta diccion uexotzinco, y aunque escriuen c, parece que pronuncian g, y lo mismo es en esta diccion cenca; y aunque paresca a algu|nos por esta pronunciacion que sea de escriuir g y no c, a mi me parece que ni en la pronunciacion es g, ni se deue tampoco escriuir; pues la c quando se pone despues de la n parece que tira a pronunciacion de g quando esta en una misma diccion, pero en la verdad no es sino pronuncacion de c. Y ansi no se ha de escriuir ni pronunciar cenga, sino cenca. (Olmos 1972[1547], p. 197-198) [But, with respect to the letters which we have said that they don't have, there is a problem, because it seems that they sometimes pronounce some of them, and one of these is g, because in the word uexotzinco, although they write c, it seems that they pronounce g, and the same thing goes for the word cenca; and although it seems to some that for this reason one should write g and not c, it seems to me that the pronunciation is not really g, nor should it be so written; since the c, when it is placed after an n, tends to sound like a g when in the same word, but in reality it is only the pronunciation of the c. And so, one should not write nor pronounce cenga, but rather cenca.]

In this quote, we can see the role of the native speaker quite well. The Spanish speakers hear a [g], but the Nahuas themselves write ; that is, they treat it as a realización of /k/. Olmos identifies the role of a preceding nasal as the relevant conditioning factor for a description of a phoneme which we would now describe perhaps as follows in item and arrangement terms:

PHONOLOGICAL DESCRIPTION IN NEW SPAIN

/k/:

[g] [k]

/ /

37

n_ elsewhere

He even recognizes that the voicing does not take place across word boundaries. However, Olmos cannot quite accept that two different phonetic sounds are phonologically equivalent, so he closes with a seeming contradiction by saying that the apparent [g] is in reality only a pronunciation of and that it should neither be written nor pronounced like . 6.2 Underdifferentiation Of course, the phonological representations of the friars are not consistently phonemic. There are many cases of underdifferentiation, that is, cases where distinctive features of a language are not represented in the orthography. This is in a sense what would be expected if the friars were truly unable to adapt to the new sounds they encountered in the languages of New Spain. One of the main points of this paper is that there is ample evidence that the friars were indeed able to learn to distinguish, to represent, and to discuss explicitly, new sounds. However, they also failed to recognize many distinctions. There is no point in listing all such failures, since, as I announced at the beginning of this paper, my intention is to focus on the achievements of the New Spain linguists, not to ridicule their failures. However, it might be well to distinguish three types of underdifferentiation. First, there are cases where certain characteristics were simply not recognized. Here we might include tone in Otomi (Smith Stark 1992b) or the various types of laryngealized vowels in Zapotec (Smith Stark 2003). Second, there are cases where features are adequately recognized, but are not incorporated into the writing system. Such seems to be the case of stress in Purepecha, for example, which Gilberti (1558) recognizes quite explicitly, but does not choose to write (cf. §3.3.1). Third, there are features which were apparently recognized, but which were often ignored in practice. Here, one might include features such as the distinction between lax and tense consonants in Zapotec, which Cordova (1578) distinguished at times, but more often than not left undifferentiated (Smith Stark 2003).

38

THOMAS C. SMITH-STARK

6.3 Overdifferentiation More interesting in the present context are the cases of overdifferentiation, where the friars register differences between sounds which are not contrastive. In some cases, overdifferentiation can be attributed to distinctions which are pertinent in Spanish but which are allophonic in the language being studied. A well-known case is the use of both and in Nahuatl texts. Classical Nahuatl only had four contrastive vowel qualities, as well as an opposition between long and short vowels. i o i: o: e a e: a: Table 3: Vowel qualities and quantities in Classical Nahuatl However, the vowel quality of/o/ and /o:/ varied phonetically between [o] and [u]. This fluctuation is registered in many early texts, although the friars were also aware that the distinction was not very important. The Franciscan Andrés de Olmos (1547), for instance, author of the earliest surviving grammar of an American language, notes the following: Y es de notar que entre estas dos vocales o, u, hazen muy poca diferencia en la pronunciacion y escritura, porque una misma diccion unos la pronuncian con o, y otros con u. Ex. vnos dizen: ocelotl, y otros dizen: ucelutl. Y para esto, quales se ayan de pronunciar y escriuir con o, y quales con u, no se podra dar regla general. (1972[1547]:198) [And it should be noted that they make very little difference in pronunciation and writing between these two vowels, o and u, because some will pronounce one and the same word sometimes with o and other times with u. For example, some say ocelotl "jaguar, ocelot" while others say ucelutl. As to which should be pronounced and written with o and which with u, no general rule can be given.]

Olmos, however, did not take this observation to its logical conclusion of only writing one vowel, though nearly a century later, the Jesuit Horacio Carochi (1645) did do just that: "they use o at times so closed and obscure that it approaches the pronunciation of vocalic u, but it doesn't stop being o, so that I do not consider it to be correct to write Teūtl, but rather Teōtl, God" ("vsan de o. algunas vezes tan cerrada, y obscura, que tira algo la pronunciacion de la u. vocal pero no | dexa de ser o. y assi no tengo por acertado escreuir Teūtl, sino Teōtl, Dios" 1983[1645]:lv-2r). Notice that even the clairvoyant Carochi resists saying that /o/ has an allophone which is [u]; it only sounds a bit like [u]. Another case of overdifferentiation undoubtedly due to Spanish influence is the

PHONOLOGICAL DESCRIPTION IN NEW SPAIN

39

distinction, referred to above in §4.2.1, that the Franciscan Matutino Gilberti made between and , which were allophones of /š/, and between and , which were allophones of /č/. Not all cases of overdifferentiation can be attributed to Spanish influence, however. Nahuatl provides an interesting example to the contrary. Syllable final HI is voiceless in Nahuatl. Olmos (1547) proposes writing the voiceless /, which does not contrast with voiced l, as , a suggestion which other authors did not follow. However, /w/, like HI also devoices in syllable final position, a fact which lead to the use of the digraph , as for example in the name of the last Aztec emperor, Cuauhtemoc. In this case the overdifferentiated orthography was widely used. The writing of these voiceless allophones cannot be attributed to Spanish influence. Rather it simply reflects the salience of these pronunciations which sounded somehow different and so attempts were made to represent these phonetic impressions irrespective of their functional status. Another interesting case of overdifferentiation is that provided by the Jesuit analysis of vowel length and the glottal stop in Nahuatl. The Jesuit Antonio del Rincón makes a distinction between long vowels in final syllables, which he proposes writing with a grave accent 0), and long vowels in other syllables, which he would mark with an accute accent ('): "An acute accent is that which, besides lengthening the syllable, adds a tone which raises the pronunciation with a highpitched sound [...] a grave accent is that which, besides lengthening the syllable, adds a grave sound which lowers the tone" ("Accento agudo es el que fuera de alargar la syllaba le añade vn tono que leuanta la pronunciacion con sonido agudo [...] accento graue es el que fuera de alargar la syllaba, añade vn sonido graue con que la abaja el tono", 1595:63v [cf. 1967[1595]:61]). This suggested orthographic practice appears to respond to a phonetic difference in the pitch of long vowels according to their position in the word, but not to a contrastive opposition. When the Jesuit Horacio Carochi published his adaptation and expansion of Rincon's grammar in 1645, he discontinued the orthographic distinction between these two types of long vowels, using a macron for both, though he agreed that "the tone of the voice lowers slightly on final long vowels" ("baxa vn poco el tono de la voz en las finales largas", 1983[1645]:56v). In other words, he treated the difference as allophonic. On the other hand, he introduced an orthographic distinction between final ( ̂) and non-final (´) glottal stop, which also seems to refer to a non-contrastive allophonic difference:

40

THOMAS C. SMITH-STARK

La C) es señal de la pronunciacion que suelen llamar saltillo, por que la vocal sobre que cae este accento se pronuncia como con salto, è singulto, o reparo, y suspension [...] Del accento (ˆ) vsaremos solamente en las vltimas vocales de todos los plurales de verbos, y nombres, que acabaren en vocal, quando no se pronunciare immediatamente otra diccion [...] Y esta pronunciacion tiene lugar quando tales nombres, verbos, advervios &c. terminaren el periodo; y no se pronunciare inmediatamente otra yllaba ni diccion. Por que en tal caso [...] aquella tal vocal final tendra infaliblemente saltillo (Carochi 1983[1645]:2r) [The grave accent f ) is a sign for the pronunciation that they are accustomed to call saltillo, because the vowel upon which it falls is pronounced with a jump or hop or rest or suspension [...] We will use the circumflex accent (ˆ) only on the final vowels of all the plural forms of verbs and nouns which end in a vowel, when there is no immediately following word [...] And this pronunciation applies when such nouns, verbs, adverbs etc. end the period, and no other syllable or word is pronounced immediately afterwards, because in such a case [...] the final vowel will unfailingly have a saltillo]

Notice that the final glottal stop becomes non-final if followed by another word in the same phonological phrase. Rincon not only distinguished between long and short vowels, but also distinguished vowels of intermediate length which are neither long nor short ("syllaba ygual, que ni es larga ni es breue" [f. 63r]) and which he proposed writing with a circumflex accent ("accento moderado" [f. 63v]). Carochi admits that there are phonetically intermediate vowels, but treats them as variants of short vowels, which he represented with an acute accent: Por remate deste primer Capitulo, advierto, que si bien todas las syllabas no finales, sino iniciales e intermedias, ö tienen saltillo, ö sin el son largas, o breues: con todo esto quando vn bocablo es polisyllabo y ninguna de sus syllabas es larga parecen todas medias, ni breues ni largas [...] Pero no se puede negar que ay algunas syllabas que parecen medias entre largas, y breues; y tales son ordinario las que despues de su vocal tienen dos consonantes que en latin se dice ser largas positione (Carochi 1983[1645]:3r-v) [To conclude this first chapter, let it be noted that although all syllables which are not final, but rather initial or medial, either have a glottal stop or, being without a glottal stop, are long or short: nonetheless, when a word is polysyllabic and none of its syllables is long, they all appear to be of intermediate length, neither short nor long [...] But it cannot be denied that there are some syllables which appear to be intermediate between long and short, and such syllables are ordinarily those that have two consonants after their vowel, which in Latin are said to be long by position.]

PHONOLOGICAL DESCRIPTION IN NEW SPAIN

Rincón (1595) long vowel (final) long vowel (non-final) moderate vowel (=short) ˆ short vowel (not marked) glottal stop (final) glottal stop (non-final)

41

Carochi (1645)

Table 4: Prosodic overdifferentiation in Rincón and in Carochi Purepecha offers two more cases of overdifferentiation which are sufficiently complex that they continue to characterize many modern treatments of that language. As mentioned earlier (§3.1.1), this language has an opposition between aspirated and non-aspirated stops. In initial position, aspirated stops are realized with aspiration accompanying the release of the stop, but between vowels, they are realized with preaspiration. Monzón (2001) has shown how these two types of allophones are distinguished orthographically by Lagunas and they continue to be so distinguished in many modern representations of the language, such as that in Medina Pérez and Alveano Hernandez (2000). Following nasals and before a vowel, the opposition between aspirated and unaspirated stops is realized in a different way. Aspirated stops are pronounced like simple voiceless stops, whereas unaspirated stops are pronounced like voiced stops.50 Orthographically, Lagunas writes the voiced allophones of the simple stops as , , , and notes that these letters do not occur in initial position (cf. §7); however, allophonic voicing is not indicated in the case of the affricates , , - which are also phonetically voiced after nasals. Even today, authors like Medina Pérez and Alveano Hernandez (2000) continue to distinguish the voiced stop allophones in their orthography. 6.4 Displacement In some cases, a phonological contrast was analyzed in terms of a secondary conditioned feature rather than the primary conditioning feature. That is, the graphic representation of the opposition is displaced from its primary locus to a 50 This produces a classic case of phonemic overlapping, but without loss of the opposition, of the type Jakobson, Fant and Halle (1963[1952]:5-6) discuss for Danish. According to these authors, the contrast [Ch] vs. [ ] / # corresponds to the contrast [ ] vs. [ ] / N V. Thus, | ] has two different phonological values depending on its position.

42

THOMAS C. SMITH-STARK

secondary one. Such was the case, for example, in the Dominican Juan de Córdova's Zapotec orthography (Smith Stark 2003). Zapotec has a contrast between tense and lax consonants which was apparently quite difficult for a Spanish speaker to hear. Stressed vowels are phonetically short before a tense consonant, as in the following examples.52 a. b. c.

quéte níça quicha

"baxo [low]" "agua [water]" "cabello [hair]"

°geté' °nisa °gica

"low" "water" "hair"

In these cases, Cordova usually writes a single stressed vowel and always uses a non-lax consonantal grapheme for the tense consonant. Compare the following examples which have a lax consonant following the stressed vowel, an environ­ ment where the stressed vowel is also redundantly lengthened. a. b. c.

peezo yóogi quèeza

"abeja [bee]" "arena [sand]" "picietl [tobacco]"

°bizu °yuzi °geza

"bee, wasp" "sand" "cigarette"

In these cases, the medial consonants are unambiguously written as lax. However, the stressed vowel is also written double because of the phonetic lengthening. This could be considered a case of overdifferentiation. However, there are also cases such as the following where the tension of the post-tonic consonant is not marked unambiguously53 and the doubling of the stressed vowel becomes the sole indication of the fact that the following consonant is lax. a. b. c.

piáache xoopa quijti

"ciruela [hog plum]" "mayz grano [grain of corn]" °zubá' "piel [skin]" °gidi

"hog plum" "corn" "skin"

This is an example of displacement. The nature of the following consonant is marked by doubling the preceding vowel. 51

This is a well-known phenomenon in the Cyrillic representation of Russian, where special vowel graphemes are used to mark the presence or absence of palatalization on the preceding consonant. 52 I also give the cognate forms in Juchitan Zapotee (Pickett et al 1979[1959]) to help identify the probable phonological representation of the forms written by Cordova. I modify Pickett et al.'s orthography, using standard Americanist symbols for voiced segments to represent lax consonants, a degree sign at the beginning of the stressed syllable, and an acute accent for high tone. Vowels without accents have a low tone. 53 The graphemes are ambiguous since they are used by Córdova for tense as well as the corresponding lax consonants.

PHONOLOGICAL DESCRIPTION IN NEW SPAIN

43

7. Phonotactics In addition to establishing the inventory of letters (i e., sounds) of a language, some information is at times provided about the combinations of those letters which are permitted. For example, the Franciscan Juan Baptista de Lagunas notes, after presenting the sounds of Purepecha, that "They have all of them at the beginning and in the middle of words, except for b, d, f, g, i, r, which do not have words that begin with them, and they are totally lacking ƒ and l." ("Tienen las todas en principio y medio de diction, sacando B, D, F, G, I, R. que no tienen vocablos que comiencen en ellas: y totalmente carescen de F, L" 1987[1574], Arte:l). It should really come as no surprise that the friars were attentive to possible sequences of sounds and to syllable structure. Quintilian (c.30-c.l00) recom­ mended that after teaching the names and shapes of the letters, the teacher should then teach the syllables of the language: "As regards syllables, no short cut is possible: they must all be learnt" ("Syllabis nullum compendium est; perdiscendae omnes nec", book 1, ch. 1, 30, in Quintilianus 1920[ca. 90], I:35). This viewpoint seems to be the inspiration of Lagunas' predecessor, Friar Maturini Gilberti, who presents what he calls the ba be (1987[1558]:10r-11v), that is, a list of 92 CV and 2 CVC syllables in Purepecha, with a word illustrating each one. Unfortunately, other authors did not take Quintilian's dictum so seriously. 8. Argumentation The colonial grammars are in general of a practical nature, meant to aid others in learning and using the Indian languages of New Spain. As a result, the analyses are generally presented as given facts, with little attempt at argumentation or justification. There are, however, some interesting exceptions. Particularly noteworthy is the use of minimal pairs to substantiate the existence of certain contrasts. For example, the Franciscan friar Maturino Gilberti (1987 [1558]) uses minimal pairs to establish the distinctiveness of stress placement, of the contrast between and , of the contrast between and , and of the distinctiveness of preaspiration, as is illustrated in the following examples. a. contrastive stress

véquanhaxeti vequanhaxeti tzahcamani çahcamani

"cosa linda [pretty thing]" "cosa triste [sad thing]" (f. 9r) "blanquear alguna cosa [to whiten some-thing]" "enxugarse el agua [to wipe off the water]" (f. 7r)

44

THOMAS C. SMITH-STARK

d. VhCV ≠ VCV

tsitsis tzitzis yehcamani [yecamani]

"abispa [wasp]" "hermoso [attractive]" (f. 7v) "mentir [to prevaricate]" "echar algo enel agua [to throw some-thing into the water]" (f. 109v)

Gilberti's successor, Juan Baptista de Lagunas, is equally attentive to the utility of minimal pairs, using them to establish the contrasts between aspirated and nonaspirated bilabial, velar and labiovelar stops and between the two rhotics (1983 [1574]:134-136). a. [p]≠[ph]

piràni

phiràni b. [k] ≠ [kh]

càni kàni

c. [kw] ≠ [kwh]

cuìni kuuini caràmeni

d. [r]

≠

[r]

carhàmeni

"el alcacer en porreta antes del espigar, o echar la caña: hora sea el del trigo ora el de mayz [the green shoot of grain which is absolutely naked, before bearing spikes, or producing the stalk: whether it be of wheat or of corn]" "tomar, o coger a alguno o qualquiera cosa [to take or grab someone or anything]" "mucho [a lot]" "qualquier pierna de manta o sauana, o las hojas del mayz [any uneven edge of a piece of cloth or a sheet, or corn leaves]" "paxaro [bird]" "dormir [to sleep]" "ser corrosiua qualquier cosa, o que con su leche, o çumo causa entre comezon y escozimiento: como lo hazen los higos por madurar, y las demas cosas semejantes [to be corrosive of anything whatsoever, or that whose sap or juice causes something like itching and irritation: like figs about to ripen, and all other similar things]" "meterse en el agua la propia cosa, id est. yrse hasta el fondon sumiendo poco a poco [to enter the water the thing itself, that is, to go to the bottom sinking little by little]"

Minimal, or near minimal, pairs are also used to good effect by the Jesuit priest Antonio del Rincón (1595). His Nahuatl grammar includes 41 pairs or triplets which are distinguished by vowel length or the placement of a glottal stop (ff. 7478), such as the following: Again

stands here for an apico-alveolar s.

PHONOLOGICAL DESCRIPTION IN NEW SPAIN

a. chichi

b. iecoa

c. tepiltzin

45

largo en la primera. mamar. [long on the first, "to suck"] breue en la primera. es perro. [short on the first, it is "dog"] salto en la primera surzir alguna cosa, y tambien es la saliua [jump on the first "to darn something", and also it is "saliva"] largo en la primera, lleuar al cabo vna cosa [long on the first, "to finish something"] breue en la primera, probar y si tiene accusatiuo de persona es verbo inhonesto [short on the first, "to try", and if it has a per­ sonal accusative, it is an indecent verb (meaning "to have sex with")] largo en la .1. hijo de alguno [long on the first, "son of someone"] breue en la .1. verbum turpe [short on the first, an obscene word55]

Horacio Carochi, Rincón's successor as the Jesuit authority on Nahuatl, also includes this list in modified form, with 58 sets of contrasting items, including 38 of those given by Rincón and 20 new ones (1983[1645]:126v-129r; cf. Smith Stark 2000 "Rincón"). A second type of argumentation has to do with the identification of segments as units or sequences of units: the vexing "one phoneme or two" problem (cf. Martinet 1939). For example, Carochi notes that verbs regularly form their preterite by eliding the final stem vowel: téma "to bathe" becomes tén in the preterite.56 However, if the elision of the final vowel would produce a stem which ends in two consonants, then the final vowel is not lost and a suffix -c is added to form the preterite: itta "see" becomes itta-c. Carochi (1983[1645]:31v) observes that the verb nōtza "call" forms its preterite like the first group, not the second: "You will say that nötza "call" has two consonants, and nonetheless loses the last a. I respond that it only has one consonant, that in the Spanish alphabet it is 55

This word refers to the female genitals. Pronouncing this pair of words properly was particularly important since the first, tepiltzin, was used to refer to Jesus when talking about 'the father, the son and the holy ghost'. Notice the use of Latin to disguise references to certain indelicate topics, a technique also noted by García-Medall 2004 and first brought to my attention some 30 years ago by Michael Silverstein (reiterated by correspondence in 2003), who has commented on the "gate­ keeping protective quarantine" (and I would add, euphemistic) function of using languages unintelligible to the uninitiated for translating possibly offensive language. He points out, for example, that the Loeb Classical Library translates obscene passages in Greek authors into Latin rather than English; that such passages in Latin authors are translated into Italian; and that Sapir sometimes reverted to Latin to translate obscene expressions, as in his publication of Takelma texts in 1909. 56 An /m/ regularly becomes [n] when left in final position in Nahuatl.

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represented by two, but the Hebrew language has it, and it is called tsade." ("Diras, que nōtza llamar, tiene dos consonantes, y con todo esto pierde la vltima a. Respondo que no tiene mas de vna consonante, que en el alphabeto castellano se suple con dos, pero tienela la lengua hebrea, y se llama tsade."). Even someone as lucid as Carochi, though, feels the necessity of pointing out that this sound can be represented by a single letter in Hebrew ( ), in order to prove that it can indeed be considered to be a single unit. Carochi derives a similar argument from the fact that the verb icuci "cook" has the preterite form icucic: "Icuci "to cook" or "to ripen" has the preterite oicucic, because, even though they write this verb this way, the first c is pronounced after the u, and so comes to have two consonants in the penultimate syllable." ("Icuci, cocerse, ô sazonarse algo, hace oicucic, porque aunque lo escriuen assi este verbo, pero su primera c, se pronuncia mas despues de la u, y assi viene à tener dos consonantes en la penultima", 1983[1645]:32r). We would currently say that this verb stem is /ikwsi/, with a consonant cluster before the final vowel. Once again, Carochi apparenly understands the phonological situation correctly, though he feels obliged to finagle a consonant cluster rather than clearly recognizing cu as a consonantal digraph. A third type of argumentation has to do with whether semivowels should be analyzed as consonants or as vowels. Olmos, as noted earlier (§6.3), points out that there is little difference between o and u in Nahuatl. However he recommends using u when it comes between two vowels, as in nitlaalaua "to slip", for the following reason: "But it seems to me that when o should happen to be between two vowels, it should best be pronounced and written with u rather than o, and the reason that I say this is that in such words, Mexican and Texcocan women pronounce consonantal v, which they would not do if it were an o." ("Pero pareceme que quando la o estuuiere entre dos vocales se pronunciara y escriuira mejor con u que con o, y la razon que a esto me mueue es que, en las tales dicciones, las mugeres mexicanas y tetzcucanas pronuncian v consonante, lo qual no harían si fuesse o", 1972[1547]: 198). That is, when the represents the semivowel /w/ rather than the vowel /o/, it is pronounced like a fricative [ß] by Mexican and Texcocan women. The semivowel /w/ is often not written in Nahuatl when it occurs between o and a (/ o a). However, the Jesuit Antonio del Rincón notes that in the preterite of verbs like poa "count" and çoa "unfold", the stem final vowel is deleted and uh is added to the stem, producing pouh and çouh. He suggests that this is "because

PHONOLOGICAL DESCRIPTION IN NEW SPAIN

47

some write them with a u before the a." ("porque algunos los escriuen con, u. antes de la, a.", 1967[1595], f. 18v). That is, some people write poua and çoua, suggesting that there may be a /w/ which will be left in final position, and therefore devoiced, when the final vowel is deleted to form the preterite stem. Currently we would say that such verbs are underlyingly /po:wa/ and /so:wa/, and that the /w/ that appears in the preterite is part of the stem which is left in final position when the final vowel is deleted. 9. Phonological processes The last aspect of phonological analysis in the colonial grammars which I would like to mention is the notion of phonological process. The colonial grammarians were familiar with a variety of specialized terms for talking about phonological processes of various sorts: syncope, aphaeresis, apocope, synaeresis, synaloepha, prothesis, paragoge, and epenthesis are all mentioned by at least one author (Smith Stark 2000b). It is also quite common to find discussion of what was called the addition, loss and mutation or conversion of letters. That is, an item and process terminology was usual for describing the phonological relationships among linguistic forms.57 In Nahuatl, for instance, Olmos (1972[1547]: 199-202) recognizes a series of phonological processes, which we might summarize as follows: a.

n→m

b.

t

c. d.

n → Ø / ch, x, z → Ø /

→

/

Ø

/

V (usually)

1_1 c, tz, u, x, consonantal y c, tç, ch, x

The first process refers to cases where an changes to an before a vowel: "when n is placed before the vowels a, e, i, o, it usually becomes m" ("quando la n se pone antes destas vocales a, e, i, o, por la mayor parte se buelue en m" [Olmos 1972(1547):201]). We would now say that the process goes in the other direction: an m is maintained before a vowel but assimilates to a following consonant in point of articulation and becomes n word finally, since in this form there are no exceptions. Olmos probably chose the opposite direction of change 57

Hockett (1954:211) notes that IP terminology was used by Boas and his students, and seems to consider it to be a carry over from processual descriptions of historical change. However, as the terms cited here illustrate, it is already an integral part of traditional synchronic grammatical des­ criptions such as those by New Spain grammarians, well before the advent of diachronic linguis­ tics.

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because he was influenced by the frequency of occurence of the forms. For example, the third person plural possessive prefix is /i:n-/ before stems which begin with any consonant, but it is /i:m-/ before stems which begin with a vowel. The frequency of /i:n-/ lead Olmos to take it as the basic form of this prefix, and so he conceived of the change in terms of the /n/ changing to /m/ instead of the other way around. The formulation of this process which is currently considered to be correct has the negative consequence, therefore, of claiming that certain very common grammatical morphemes which usually end in /n/ actually come from a form with an underlying /m/. The second process is formulated by Olmos in the following way: "When / is followed by tl, the t must be lost" ("Quando despues de la / se sigue tl se ha de perder la t.", p. 201) This statement, which is essentially correct, ignores the fact that the t forms part of the affricate A/, much as would currently be done in autosegmental treatments of affricates. Olmos describes the third process as follows: "when n is followed by c, tz, u, x, or consonantal y, it is totally lost" ("quando despues de la n se sigue c, tz, u, x, y consonante se pierde la n del todo", p. 201). This formulation is only partially correct. For one thing, it does not make it clear that the context consists of members of two natural classes, the sibilants /s, š, ¢, č/ and the semivowels /w, y/. And second, it fails to note that the /n/ is not lost altogether when followed by a sibilant, but rather assimilates to the following segment. Carochi clarifies things somewhat, claiming that the /n/ assimilates to a following /s/ or /s/, creating a double fricative: "Before a ç with a cedilla, n is not pronounced. Rather, the ç is pronounced as if it were double; and for this, some people write a z instead of an n, [...] Neither is an n pronounced before an x; rather, the x is pronounced with more force, as if it were double." ("Antes de la ç. cerilla no se pronuncia la n. supiese con pronunciar la ç. como si fueran dos; y para esto escriuen algunos la z. en lugar de la n. [...] Tampoco se pronuncia la n. antes de la x. sino que la x. se pronuncia con mas fuerça como si fueran dos.", 1983[1645]:lv). Andrews (1975:11) agrees with Carochi in limiting this process to fricative sibilants; however, Olmos also includes an affricate, /¢/, which leads one to wonder whether the other affricated sibilant, /c/, should not also be included. Andrews also points out that in the case of the glides, /w/ and /y/, the nasal simply disappears without compensatory lengthening, although some nasalization might remain in the case of /w/. This last observation is apparently based on Carochi, who says that "The same n, placed before consonantal v, is barely felt, if it is there at all" ("La mesma n. antepuesta à

PHONOLOGICAL DESCRIPTION IN NEW SPAIN

49

la v. consonante apenas se siente si la y", 1983[1645]:lv). Olmos describes the fourth process in the following way: "it is to be noted that when the letters ch, x, z come before any of the letters c, tç, ch, JC, the one that precedes is lost" ("es de notar que quando estas letras ch, x, z vienen antes de qualquiera destas letras c, tç, ch, x se perdera la que precede", p. 202). This too is only partially correct. The sibilants assimilate totally to a following sibilant, creating a long or double sibilant (Andrews 1975:10). Olmos' rule in a sense recognizes the assimilation, but not the consequent doubling. He also leaves out as one of the sibilants that can be affected by the rule. A slightly different description of this process is given by the Jesuit Antonio del Rincón: Donde quiera que se encuentran vna destas quatro letras [tz, ch, x, ç] con otra, o vna dellas semejante asimisma no se an de pronunciar dos sino sola vna. [...] donde en todos estos exemplos se pierden las letras asperas precedentes, y aunque no se pronuncia la letra aspera gastase, empero en aquella vocal que esta junto a ella doblado tiempo como si la otra se pronunciara (1967[1595]:67-68) [Wherever one of these four letters [tz, ch, x, ç] is found with another, or one of them with another like itself, one should not pronounce two, but rather only one [...] where in all these examples the preceding asperous letters are lost, and although the asperous letter is not pronounced, twice the time, however, is spent on that vowel which is with it, as if the other were pronounced]

This seems to be a clear description of compensatory lengthening of the preceding vowel, instead of the gemination of the sibilant described by Andrews. Rincón identifies another phonological process in Nahuatl, which he describes as follows: "Note about h: whenever a word that begins with m or p follows, it turns into m or p with the preceding u. For example, maimmochiua, for, maiuhmochiua; and of the p, for example, nicchippoloa58 instead of nicchiuhpoloa" ("Nota de la .h. que siempre sigue diction que comiença en .m. o en .p. se buelue .m. o p. con la .u. precedente, v.g. maimmochiua, pro, maiuhmochiua, de la p. v.g. nicchipoloa, en lugar de nicchiuhpoloa", 1595:73v). This description is correct, although we are today bothered by the fact that it is formulated in terms of , rather than , and we would incorporate the fact that the /m/ and /p/ form a natural class; that is, we would currently say that /w/ totally assimilates to a following bilabial consonant (cf. Andrews 1975:10). 58

Rincón gives this form as nicchipoloa, but it should of course be nicchippoloa. The correct form is in fact given in Rincón's vocabulary (f. 81r[1967:76]).

50

THOMAS C. SMITH-STARK

In Purepecha, Gilberti recognizes that is replaced by when preceded by a nasal: "Replace the c with a g, because of the n which is found in intermediate position and which is never followed by c" ("Truecase, la, c por. g. por razon dela, n. que se offrece en medio, ala qual nunca se sigue, c", 1987[1558]:lllv).59 He illustrates with examples like the following: aran-guhche xaca thireni, thirenguhche xaca, ara-haca-cuhche thireni "we are eating".60 Here it can be seen that the initial consonant of cuhche "we" is voiced when preceded by a nasal. Likewise, Lagunas (1983[1574]:44) gives the personal endings of the verb as ca, re, ti, and in the plural cuhche, tsi, tix. However, in some of the paradigms, he gives instead ga in the first person and di in the third person. He explains: "And that g in the first person and the d in the third person which are found in the optative and in the subjunctive are the result of the conversion of the letter, due to being preceded by an n." ("Y aquella G. de la primera persona: y la D. dela tercera, enel Optatiuo y Subjunctiuo. es conuersion de letra, por le auer antecedido la N."). Lagunas also identifies another phonologically conditioned process. He notes that the two suffixes for instrumental nouns, -ti and -ri, are phonologically conditioned: Saluo que para mas declaracion delos Nombres mecanicos, la causa desta differencia Ri. vel. Ti. Enlas terminaciones: no es sino el Accento, vt, Caràri, Escriuano, o pintor. Mítati, Portero. Porque el vno tiene luenga la. A penultima. Y el otro la I. antepenultima. (Lagunas 1983[1574],p. 69) [Except that, for further information about the mechanical nouns, the cause of the difference between the endings -ri and -ti is none other than the accent, as caràri "scribe" or "painter", mìtati "doorman". Because one has the penultimate a long and the other the antepenultimate i.]

In other words, the suffix is -ri if immediately after the stressed syllable,61 but 9 As noted above (§6.3), aspirated stops are realized as voiceless unaspirated stops when occurring after a nasal and before a vowel. Gilberti therefore seems to be mistaken, at least as far as the modern language is concerned, when he says that can never follow . However, Cristina Monzon informs me that she has not been able to find counterexamples to Gilberti's claim either in Gilberti 1558 or in Lagunas 1573. 60 Gilberti does not gloss these forms. Cristina Monzon informs me that the third form is not marked for the progressive. 61 Probably due to Latin influence, Lagunas wrongly refers to syllable length rather than stress.

PHONOLOGICAL DESCRIPTION IN NEW SPAIN

51

-ti if following an unstressed syllable. The examples in this section, I believe, demonstrate clearly that some colonial grammarians were able to identify and describe certain phonological processes coherently. 10. The role of the native speakers The many accomplishments of the European friars in describing the languages of New Spain are impressive. And yet it is important to keep in mind that their successes were due not only to their own skill and dedication but also to the gifted speakers who served them as informants, consultants, interpreters, translators, teachers, and models. At times we can only infer the presence of native speakers indirectly. Consider, for example, the comments which Olmos (1972[1547]: 200) makes about the h in Nahuatl. Pero es de notar que en todos los plurales, que no se diferencian en la boz ni pronunciacion de sus singulares, pondremos una h, y esto no porque en la pronunciacion se señale la h, sino solamente para denotar esta diferencia del plural al singular. Y esto se ha de entender ansi en los verbos como en los nombres donde no ouiere otra cosa por la qual se diferencian. Exemplo.: tlatlacoani, pecador; plural, tlatlacoanime vel tlatlacoanih; — tlaqua, aquel come; plural, tlaquah, aquellos comen; — titlaqua, tu comes; titlaquah, nosotros comemos. [But it is to be noted that in all plurals that are not different from the singular either in the word nor in the pronunciation, we will place an h. We don't do this because there is an h in the pronunciation, but rather solely to denote the difference between singular and plural. And it should be so understood with verbs as well as with nouns, when there is nothing else to distinguish them. For example, tlatlacoani "sinner", plural tlatlacoanime or tlatlacoanih; tlaqua "that one eats", plural tlaquah "those eat"; titlaqua "you eat (2sg)", titlaquah "we eat".]

Olmos seems to claim that the h is used solely as a diacritic feature in order to distinguish singular from plural, which otherwise would be identical. The funny thing is that there is a phonological difference between singular and plural forms 62 This process is somewhat reminiscent of Verner's law, which states that the position of stress in Proto-Indoeuropean was a crucial factor in determining whether voiceless stops (p, t, k) became voiced stops (b, d, g) (when neither initial nor immediatley preceded by the accented syllable, nor second in a voiceless cluster) or became voiceless fricatives (when initial or immediately preceded by the accented syllable) in Germanic (Anttila 1972:66-67).

52

THOMAS C. SMITH-STARK

and it consists precisely of the presence of a glottal stop (or an /h/) at the end of the plural forms. If Olmos didn't hear it, then how is it that he wrote it? It seems to me likely that the native speakers themselves who wrote their language served as his model. They wrote h because they heard it and pronounced it; Olmos simply followed suit. It really should come as no surprise that the Europeans had problems pro­ nouncing and hearing the Indian languages properly. After all, they usually came to New Spain as adults when they began to learn one or more Indian languages. It seems unlikely that they could learn to speak them with native speaker proficiency. Rather they probably depended on native speakers with whom they could check their work and make sure they were using the language properly. At times the presence of such advisors is overtly acknowledged, though they often remain anonymous. For example, friars Domingo Guigelmo and Juan de Villalobos say that, in order to evaluate Cordova's Vocabvlario, "we called together four Indian interpreters, native Zapotecs, who seemed to us to be the most able and appropriate that there could be" ("llamamos y juntamos quatro Indios lenguas, naturales çapotecas los mas abiles que para ello nos parecio y pudieron ser auidos", Cordova 1578b:iiiv). Similarly, the Dominican friar Francisco Alvarado, author of a 16th century Mixtec dictionary, notes in his prologue that he used material that his predecessors had gathered, but that he himself had to go over it all with care. However, he gives principal credit to the Mixtees themselves: "the very Indians who are the best teachers and who, for that task, were and have been the authors" ("los mismos Indios que son los mejores maestros que para esto eran, y an sido los autores", Alvarado 1593, "Prologo al lector", 6v). In a few cases we actually have the names of individuals who helped the friars. For example, one of the best informants for Andrés de Olmos "fué un indio principal viejo de Texcuco llamado D. Andrés" ("was an aged Indian lord from Texcoco named Sir Andrew", Mendieta 1945[1596]: 158). Hernandez de LeónPortilla (1996) has written about Hernando de Ribas (d. 11.XI.1597), a Texcocan who helped various Franciscans: Alonso de Molina with his Nahuatl vocabulary and grammar, Juan de Gaona in his Dialogos de la paz y la tranquilidad del alma (1582), and Juan Baptista Viseo in various of his works. Ribas was among the first students of the Royal Holy Cross College in the convent at Santiago Tlatelolco and, according to Juan Baptista, was "very knowledgeable in Latin, and with much ease translated anything from Latin and from Romance into the Mexican language,

PHONOLOGICAL DESCRIPTION IN NEW SPAIN

53

attending more to the sense than to the letter" ("muy gran latino, y que con mucha facilidad traduzia qualquiera cosa de Latin, y de Romance en la lengua Mexicana: atendiendo mas al sentido, que ala letra", Viseo 1606, prologue; cf. Hernandez de León-Portilla 1996:479). Also trained by the Franciscans at Tlatelolco and in particular associated with the extraordinary ethnographic and doctrinal work by the Franciscan Bernardino de Sahagún were other outstanding native Nahuatl speakers like Antonio Valeriano of Azcapotzalco (governor of the Indians of Mexico City from 1570-1605 and brother-in-law of the historian Fernando Alvarado Tezozómoc), Alonso Vegerano and Pedro de San Buenaventura of Cuauhtitlan, Martín Jacobita and Andrés Leonardo of Tlatelolco, and Juan Badiano of Xochimilco (cf. Martínez 1981, León-Portilla 1986, de la Cruz 1991 [1552]). About Antonio Valeriano (d. 1605), in particular, Juan Baptista says that he was: vno delos mejores latinos, y rethoricos que del [dicho Colegio de Santa Cruz] salieron [...] fue tan gran latino, que hablaua ex tempore (aun en los vltimos años de su vejez) con tanta propriedad, y elegancia, que parecia vn Ciceron, o Quintiliano. [...] El qual me ayudo muy bien, assi en cosas particulares que le consulté, como en la Ethimologia, y significacion de muchos vocablos. (Viseo 1606, prologue) [one of those most knowledgeable in Latin and one of the best rhetoricians produced by the Holy Cross College [...] he was so good at Latin that he spoke it extemporaneously (even in the last years of his life) with such propriety and elegance, that he resembled a Cicero or a Quintilian [...] He helped me very much in specific things that I asked him about, as well as the etymology and meaning of many words]

Juan Baptista also acknowledges the aid he received from Juan Berardo of Huejotzingo (d. 1594), Diego Adriano and Pedro de Gante of Tlatelolco (d. XI. 1605), Francisco Baptista de Contreras of Cuernavaca and Estéban Bravo of San Diego Tlailotlacan (ibid.). Among the Jesuits, we have the name of one Don Miguel. Karttunen and Lockhart (1987, p. 168), in their edition of the Bancroft dialogues, mention that at the bottom of the manuscript appears the following text: "These samples of excellent Mexican are written by Don Miguel, Father Oracio's teacher." ("Estos retazos de excelente Megicano son escritos por Don. Miguel, Maestro. del Padre. Oracio."). Assuming, as seems likely, that the reference here is to Horacio Carochi, author of what is generally considered to be the most outstanding grammar of Nahuatl produced until the modern studies by Andrews (1975) and Launey (1986), then Don Miguel must have been a fine teacher indeed.

54

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Martínez Baracs (1997) notes that Antonio Huitziméngari (c. 1519-1562), governor of Michoacan from 1545 to 1562, knew Latin, Spanish, Greek, and Hebrew, read Erasmus and Nebrija, and was a friend and collaborator of the Franciscan friar Maturino Gilberti. Two important collaborators of the Franciscans in Yucatan were Juan Cocom and Gaspar Antonio Chi. Bishop Diego de Landa speaks of the first as follows: fue hombre de gran reputación y muy sabio en sus cosas y bien sagaz y entendido en las naturales; y fue muy familiar del autor de este libro, fray Diego de Landa, y le contó muchas antigüedades y le mostró un libro que fue de su abuelo (Landa 1986[1560]:21) [he was a man of great reputation and very wise in his matters and well versed and knowledgeable in natural things; he was well known to the author of this book, Friar Diego de Landa, and he told him many things of old and he showed him a book that belonged to his grandfather] In his edition of Landa's Relación de las cosas de Yucatan (1560), Tozzer (1941:45, note 219) mentions another of Landa's informants, Gaspar Antonio Chi, who knew Maya, Latin, Spanish and Nahuatl. He taught Maya to the friars and worked as a translator and interpreter. He knew something of grammar and wrote sermons for the friars. Among the Mixtecs, Diego Osorio from the Achiutla area was an accomplished orator on Christian doctrine who left many prayers of saints and antiphons translated into his language. Another gifted Mixtec was Gabriel de Valdivieso from the valley of Yanhuitlan, praised as an avid reader, and as an erudite and prolific writer of prayers and spiritual tracts, though Burgoa did not approve of his explanations of certain religious matters nor of his translation of Apuleius' The Golden Ass (Terraciano 2001:54; Burgoa 1989[1674], I:349-350, 379). Clearly, intelligent, highly educated, experienced and thoughtful people such as these were instrumental in many of the achievements of the friars in the phon­ ological description of the languages of New Spain. 11. Conclusion In this paper, I have tried to present an evaluation of the accomplishments of the phonological descriptions produced by the New Spain linguists. As a group, and focusing specifically on their achievements rather than their failures, it is possible to appreciate many good insights. In particular, they recognized, recorded and to some degree described numerous types of sounds which were not found in

PHONOLOGICAL DESCRIPTION IN NEW SPAIN

55

Spanish. They showed some ability to arrive at phonologically correct appraisals of the phonetic data. They appreciated the contrastive function of sounds and justified their analyses with minimal pairs. They engaged in a bit of phonological argumentation and included phonotactic information. The work of the Franciscans Olmos on Nahuatl, Gilberti and Lagunas on Purepecha and Carceres on Otomi, and of the Jesuits Rincón and Carochi on Nahuatl in particular stand out for their descriptive acumen. Elsewhere (Smith Stark 2000b), I have argued that the period described in this paper should be recognized as marking the birth of modern descriptive linguistics. Do the accomplishments just presented in phonological description justify such an appraisal? Perhaps the predominantly empirical and practical nature of the work would suggest a negative answer. To mark the beginning of a scientific period, some would require work done for the sake of science, work which is integrated into a scientific community of observational data accumulation, debate, and theory building (cf. Zimmermann 2004). However, it seems to me that the quantity and quality of work produced in New Spain does indeed merit recognition as scientific. It remains to establish to what extent it was accompanied by similar activity in other parts of America and the world as a whole.

REFERENCES A. Primary sources Aluarado, Francisco de, et al, 1962[1593]. Vocabvlario en lengva misteca, hecho por los padres dela Orden de Predicadores, que residen enella, y vltima mente recopilado, y acabado por el Padre Fray Francisco de Aluarado, Vicario de Tamaçulapa, de la misma Orden. Mexico: Pedro Balli. Reedition: Wigberto Jiménez Moreno, editor, Fray Francisco de Alvarado, Vocabulario en lengua mixteca, facsimilar reproduction with a study by Wigberto Jiménez Moreno, including an appendix with the vocabulary taken from the Arte en lengua mixteca by Friar Antonio de los Reyes prepared by Alfonso Caso, México, D. F.: Instituto Nacional Indigenista e Instituto Nacional de Antropología e Historia. Barreda, Nicolas de la. 1960[1730]. Doctrina christiana en lengva chinanteca, añadida la explicacion de los principales mysterios de la fee. Modo de baptizar en caso de necessidad, y de ayudar a bien morir, y methodo de administracion de sacramentos. Mexico: Por los herederos de la viuda de Francisco Rodriguez Lupercio. Reedition: Howard F. Cline, Nicolas de la Barreda, Doctrina christiana en lengua chinanteca (1730), facsimilar edition and introduction by Howard F. Cline. México, D. F.: Instituto Nacional de Antropología e Historia. Barros, João de. 1540. Grammatica da lingua portuguesa. Lisboa: Luís Rodrigues.

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Basalenque, Diego. 1975[1642]. Arte y vocabulario de la lengua matlaltzinga vuelto a la castellana. Manuscript; the grammar (ff. lv-76v) is followed by a vocabulary (ff. 78r383v). Edition: María Elena Bribiesca S., paleography, with a preliminary study by Leonardo Manrique C, Biblioteca Enciclopedica del Estado de Mexico, vol. 33, Mexico. Burgoa, Francisco de. 1989[1674]. Geografica descripcion de la parte septentrional, del polo artico de la America, y nveva iglesia de las Indias occidentales, y sitio astronomico de esta Provincia de Predicadores de Anteqvera Valle de Oaxaca: en diez y siete grados del Tropico de Cancer: debaxo de los aspectos, y radiaciones de Planetas morales, qve la jvndaron con virtvdes celestes, inflvyendola en Santidad, y doctrina. Mexico: Iuan Ruyz. Reedited in 2 vols.: Mexico, D. F.: Editorial Porrúa. Cantares mexicanos. 1994[ca.l611]. Manuscript in the National Library of Mexico. Facsimilar edition: Jose G. Moreno de Alba y Miguel Leon-Portilla, presenters, Cantares mexicanos, Mexico, D. F.: Universidad Nacional Autonoma de Mexico. Capella, Martianus Minneus Felix. ca. 420. De arte grammatica. Third book of a manuscript in nine books. Carceres, Pedro de. 1907[ca.l580]. Arte de la lengua othomi. Ms. which survived into the 20th century in two copies, currently of unknown whereabouts. Published as "Arte de la lengua othomi por Fr. Pedro de Carceres, del orden de San Francisco. (Siglo XVI) Lo publica por vez primera el Dr. N. Leon", Boletín del Instituto Bibliografico Mexicano, 6:39-155. Carochi, Horacio. 1983 [1645]. Arte de la lengva mexicana con la declaracion de los adverbios delia. Mexico: Iuan Ruyz. Edition: Horacio Carochi, Arte de la lengua mexicana[;] con la declaracion de los adverbios della, ed. by Miguel Leon-Portilla, facsimilar edition of the one published by Juan Ruyz in Mexico City, 1645, with an introductory study. Mexico: Universidad Nacional Autonoma de Mexico. Ciudad Real, Antonio de (?). 1984[end of the 16th century(?)]. [Calepino maya de Motul.] Ms. in the John Carter Brown Library of Brown University, Providence, Rhode Island. Edition: Antonio de Ciudad Real, Calepino maya de Motul, 2 vols., ed. by Rene Acuña. Mexico, D. F.: Universidad Nacional Autonoma de Mexico. Cordoua, Iuan de. 1987[1578a]. Arte en lengva zapoteca. Mexico: Pedro Balli. Reedited as Juan de Cordova, Arte del idioma zapoteco, under the direction and care of Nicolas Leon, Morelia: Imprenta del Gobierno en la Escuela de Artes, 1886. A facsimilar edition of the 1886 edition was published by Ediciones Toledo, Mexico, D. F. Cordoua, Iuan de. 1987[1578b]. Vocabvlario en lengva çapoteca, hecho y recopilado por el mvy reverendo padre Fray Iuan de Cordoua, de la orden de los Predicadores, que reside en esta nueua España. Mexico: Pedro Charte y Antonio Ricardo. Facsimilar editions: Wigberto Jimenez Moreno, ed., Juan de Cordova, Vocabulario castellanozapoteco, with an introduction and notes, Biblioteca Lingüística Mexicana, 1, Mexico: Instituto Nacional de Antropología e Historia, 1942; Mexico, D. F.: Ediciones Toledo. Cruz, Martín de la. 1991 [1552]. Libellus de medicinalibus indorum herbis. Aztec manuscript from 1552 according to a Latin translation by Juan Badiano. 2 vols. I.

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Facsimile; II. Spanish version with studies and commentaries by diverse authors. Transcription and translation from Latin by angel María Garibay K. 2a ed. Mexico: Fondo de Cultura Economica e Instituto Mexicano de Seguro Social. (la ed., Mexico: Instituto Mexicano de Seguro Social, 1964.) Gilberti, Maturino. 1987[1558]. Arte de la lengua de Michuacan. [Mexico]: Iuan Pablos. Facsimilar edition: Maturino Gilberti, Arte de la lengua de Michuacan (1558), ed. by J. Benedict Warren, who prepared an historical introduction, documentary appendix and was responsible for the photographic preparation of the text, Morelia, Michoacan, Mexico: Fimax Publicistas Editores. Guzmán, Pantaleon de. 1984[1704]. Compendio de nombres en lengva cakchiqvel. Ms. in the John Carter Brown Library. Edition: Pantaleon de Guzman, Compendio de nombres en lengva cakchiqvel, ed. by Rene Acuna. Mexico, D. F.: Universidad Nacional Autonoma de Mexico. Lagunas, Iuan Baptista [Bravo] de. 2002[1574]. Arte y dictionario: con otras obras, en lengua michuacana, Mexico: Pedro Balli. Facsimilar edition: Arte y dictionario con otras obras en lengua michuacana, composed by Fray Juan Baptista de Lagunas, ed. by J. Benedict Warren, who prepared the historical introduction with documentary appendix and was responsible for the photographic preparation of text, Morelia, Michoacan, Mexico: Fimax Publicistas Editores, 1983. The grammar was edited separately as Iuan Baptista de Lagunas, Arte en lengua michuacana, Agustín Jacinto Zavala, transcription, Benedict Warren, revision, Zamora, Michoacan: El Colegio de Michoacan & Fideicomiso Teixidor. Landa, Diego de. 1959[1560]. Relacion de las cosas de Yucatan. Editions: with an "Introduction" by angel Ma. Garibay K., with an appendix with various important documents and a letter by the author, Editorial Porrúa, S. A., Mexico, D. F. (13a edicion, 1986); Tozzer 1978[1941] in "secondary sources". Mendieta, Geronimo de. 1870[1596]. Historia eclesiastica indiana, ed. by Joaquín García Icazbalceta. Mexico, D. F.: Antigua Librería. Reedited in 4 volumes, Mexico, D. F.: Editorial Salvador Chavez Hayhoe, 1945. Molina, Alonso de. 1998[1571a]. Arte de la lengua mexicana y castellana. Mexico: Pedro Ocharte. A second edition, "corregida, enmendada y añadida, mas copiosa y clara que la primera", was published in 1576, Mexico: Pedro Balli. Facsimile of the edition of 1571 on CD: Hernandez de Leon-Portilla 1998 in "secondary sources". Molina, Alonso de. 1970[1571b]. Vocabvlario en lengva castellana y mexicana[;] Vocabvlario en lengva mexicana y castellana (augmented and corrected version of the first edition of 1555). Mexico: Antonio de Spinosa. Reedition "facsimilaria" by Julio Platzmann, Leipzig, 1880. A facsimile of this edition, with a preliminary study by Miguel Leon-Portilla, was published as Vocabulario en lengua castellana y mexicana y mexicana y castellana, Editorial Porrua, Mexico, 1970 (2a ed., 1977). Nebrija, Antonio de. 1481. Introductiones latinae. Salamanca. The second edition, Zamo­ ra, c. 1492, includes a Spanish translation of the Latin. The last edition supervised by the author: Introductiones in latinam gramaticem, Alcala: Arnao Guillén de Brocar, 1523.

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Nebrija, Antonio de. 1984[1492]. ...Comiença la gramatica que nueva mente hizo el maestro Antonio de lebrixa sobre la lengua castellana ..., Salamanca. Reeditions: Antonio de Nebrija, Gramatica castellana ed. by Pascual Galindo Romeo & Luis Ortiz Muñoz, 2 vols., Madrid: Edicion de la Junta del Centenario, 1946; Antonio de Nebrija, Gramatica de la lengua castellana, ed. by Antonio Quilis, Madrid: Editorial Nacional. Nebrissensi, Aelio Antonio. 2001[1495(?)]. Dictionarium ex hispaniensi in latinum sermonem. Salamanca. A facsimile is included in Real Academia Española, Nuevo tesoro lexicografico de la lengua española, DVD, Madrid, España: Espasa Calpe, S. A. Nebrija, Elio Antonio. 1977[1517]. Reglas de orthographia en la lengua castellana. Alcala de Henares. Reedition: Antonio de Nebrija, Reglas de orthographia en lengua castellana, ed. by Antonio Quilis, Bogota, Colombia: Instituto Caro y Cuervo. Neve, y Molina, D. Luis de. 1975[1767]. Reglas de orthographia, diccionario, y arte del idioma othomi, breve instruccion para los principiantes. Mexico: Imprenta de la Bibliotheca Mexicana. Facsimile: Luis de Neve y Molina, Reglas de ortografía, diccionario y arte del idioma otomi, prepared by Mario Colín, Mexico, D.F.: Biblioteca Enciclopedica del Estado de Mexico. Oliveyra, Fernão d'. 1536. Grammatica da lingoagem portuguesa. Lisboa: Germão Gallardo. Olmos, Andres de. 1972[1547]. Arte de la lengua mexicana. There are six surviving manuscript copies. The first published version appeared as Grammaire de la langue nahuatl ou mexicaine, composee, en 1547, par le franciscain Andre de Olmos, et publiee avec notes, eclaircissements, etc. par Remi Simeon, Paris, France: Imprimerie Nationale, 1875. A facsimilar reedition of this one appeared in 1972 as Andres de Olmos, Arte para aprender la lengva mexicana, with prologue and Spanish translation of the introduction for this edition by Miguel Leon-Portilla. Guadalajara, Jalisco, Mexico: Edmundo Aviña Levy, editor. Quintilianus, Marcus Fabius. 1920[ca. 90]. Institutio oratoria. Edition: The Institutio oratoria of Quintilian. English translation by H. E. Butler, 4 vols., London: William Heinemann; New York: G. P. Putnam's Sons. Reyes, Antonio de los. 1976[1593]. Arte en lengva mixteca. Mexico: Pedro Balli. Reeditions: by H. de Charencey in Actes de la Societe Philologique, 18:1-96, 1889 and as a book, Paris: Klincksieck, 1890; facsimilar edition of that of 1890, Nashville, Tennessee: Vanderbilt Publications in Anthropology. Rhodes, Alexandre de. 1651. Dictionarium annamiticum lusitanum, et latinum ope sacrae congregationis de Propaganda Fide in lucem editum ab Alexandro de Rhodes. Romae. Congregado de Propaganda Fide. Rincon, Antonio del. 1967[1595]. Arte mexicana. Mexico: Pedro Balli. Reprinted under the care of Antonio Peñafiel, Mexico: Oficina Tipografica de la Secretaría de Fomento, 1885. Facsimilar reedition of that of Peñafiel, Guadalajara, Jalisco, Mexico: Edmundo Aviña Levy. Romero (?), Eugenio. 1990[lst third of 17th century (?)]. Arte de la lengua totonaca. Published as Arte de la lengua totonaca by unknown author, introduction, transliteration

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corrected and normalized, and indices of lexical and grammatical content by Norman A. McQuown, with a facsimile of the original manuscript and an opinion as to a possible author by Miguel Leon-Portilla. Mexico, D. F.: Universidad Nacional Autonoma de Mexico. Ruggieri, Michele & Matteo Ricci. 2000[ca.l580]. Diccionário portugues-chines. Por­ tuguese-Chinese dictionary. John W. Witek, S. J., editor. San Francisco, California: Ricci Institute for Chinese-Western Cultural History, University of San Francisco; Instituto Portugues do Oriente; National Library of Portugal. San Buenaventura, Gabriel de. 1996[1684]. Arte de la lengva maya, compuesto por el R. P. Fr. Gabriel de San Buenaventura Predicador, y difinidor habitual de la Provincial de San Joseph de Yucathan del Orden de N. P. S. Francisco. Mexico: Viuda de Bernardo Calderon. Reedition: Arte de la lengua maya de Gabriel de San Buenaventura, ed. by Rene Acuna Sandoval, Mexico: Universidad Nacional Autonoma de Mexico. Sousa, Gabriel Soares de. 1938[1587]. Tratado descriptivo do Brasil em 1587. 3rd edition. Sao Paulo: Nacional/EDUSP. (1st complete edition, Lisboa: Academia Real de Ciências, 1825.) Tapia Zenteno, Carlos de. 1985[1767]. Noticia de la lengua huasteca, [...] con cathecismo, y doctrina Christiana. Mexico: Imprenta de la Bibliotheca Mexicana. Facsimilar edition: Carlos de Tapia Zenteno, Paradigma apologetico y noticia de la lengua huasteca, con vocabulario, catecismo y administracion de sacramentos, ed. by Rene Acuña, bibliographical study and notes by Rafael Montejano y Aguinaga. Mexico, D. F.: Universidad Nacional Autonoma de Mexico. Urbano, Alonso. 1990[1605]. [Arte breve de la lengua otomí y Vocabulario trilingüe español-nahuatl-otomí.] Ms in the National Library of París. Edition: Alonso Urbano, Arte breve de la lengua otomí y vocabulario trilingüe español-nahuatl-otomí, ed. by Rene Acuña, Mexico, D. F.: Universidad Nacional Autonoma de Mexico. Vazquez, F. 1937-1944[1714-1717]. Cronica de la provincia del Santísimo Nombre de Jesús de Guatemala de la Orden de Nuestro Serafico Padre san Francisco (1714-1717). Biblioteca "Goathemala", vols. 14-17. Guatemala. Varo, Francisco. 2000[1703]. Arte de la lengua mandarina. Reprinted: Francisco Varo's grammar of the Mandarin language (1703): an English translation of 'Arte de la lengua mandarina', translated by Joseph A. Levi & W. South Coblin; introduction by Sandra Breitenbach, Amsterdam & Philadelphia: John Benjamins. [Viseo,] Ioan Baptista. 1998[1606]. Sermonario en lengua mexicana. Mexico: Diego Lopez Daualos. Reproduction: Hernandez de Leon-Portilla 1998 in "secondary sources". B. Secondary sources Acuña, Rene. 1990. "Introduccion". Urbano 1990[1605]:XIX-LXX in "primary sources". Altman, Cristina. 2003. "Revisiting Linguistic Relativity". Paper delivered at the First International Conference on Missionary Linguistics, Oslo. Anderson, Arthur J. O., Francis Berdan & James Lockhart, eds. and translators. 1976. Beyond the Codices!;] the Nahua View of Colonial Mexico. With a linguistic essay by

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Ronald W. Langacker. Berkeley, etc.: University of California Press. Andrews, J. Richard. 1975. Introduction to Classical Nahuatl. Austin & London: University of Texas Press. Anttila, Raimo. 1972. An Introduction to Historical and Comparative Linguistics. New York: The Macmillan Company / London: Collier-Macmillan Limited. Arias, Beatriz. 2001. "La figura de las voces: la relacion entre ortografía y sonidos en el español de los siglos XVI y XVII". Paper to appear in Smith Stark (2001, forthcoming). Bierhorst, John. 1985. A Nahuatl-English Dictionary and Concordance to the 'Cantares mexicanos/ with an Analytical Transcription and Grammatical Notes. Stanford, California: Stanford University Press. Boas, Franz. 1917. "Introduction". International Journal of American Linguistics 1:1.1-8. Repr. in Franz Boas Race, Language and Culture. New York: The MacMllan Company, 1940.199-210.) Butler, H. E. 1920. Cf. Quintilianus, Marcus Fabius, in primary sources. Canfield, Delos Lincoln. 1934. Spanish Literature in Mexican Languages as a Source for the Study of Spanish Pronunciation. New York: Instituto de las Españas en los Estados Unidos. Carmack, Robert M. 1973. Quichean Civilization[;] the Ethnohistoric, Ethnographic, and Archaeological Sources. Berkeley, etc.: University of California Press. Carmack, Robert M. & James L. Mondloch, eds. 1983. El título de Totonicapan[;] Texto, traduccion y comentario. Mexico, D. F.: Universidad Nacional Autonoma de Mexico. Cline, Howard F. 1960. Cf. Barreda, Nicolas de la, 1730, in primary sources. Cruz Perez, Víctor de la. 2001. El pensamiento de los Binnigula'sa'. Cosmovisión y calendario, con especial referencia a los binniza. Ph.D. Thesis, Mexico: Universidad Nacional Autonoma de Mexico (thesis defended in 2002.) Esparza Torres, Miguel angel & Hans-Josef Niederehe. 1999. Bibliografía nebrisense[;] las obras completas del humanista Antonio de Nebrija desde 1481 hasta nuestros días. Amsterdam & Philadelphia: John Benjamins. Fox, James Allan. 1978. Proto-Mayan Accent, Morpheme Structure Conditions, and Velar Innovations. Ph. D. Thesis, Chicago, Illinois: University of Chicago. García-Medall, Joaquín. 2004. "Notas de lexicografía hispano-filipina: el Bocabulario de lengua bisaya, hiligueyna y haraya de la isla de Panay y Sugbu y para las demas islas, de fray Alonso Mentrida, OSA (ca. 1637)". Zwartjes & Hovdhaugen 2004.201-232. Guzmán Betancourt, Ignacio, ed. 1996. Estudios de filología y lingüística nahuatl 19951996 (= monographic number of the Revista latina de pensamiento y lenguaje 2(2B): 377-540). Guadalajara, Jalisco, Mexico: Sociedad Iberoamericana de Pensamiento y Lenguaje. Herbruger, Jr., Alfredo & Eduardo Díaz Barrios. 1956. Metodo para aprender a hablar, leery escribir la lengua cakchiquel. Volume 1. Guatemala, C. A.: Tipografía Nacional. Hernandez de Leon-Portilla, Ascension. 1996. "Hernando de Ribas, interprete de dos mundos". Guzman Betancourt, ed., 1996.477-493. Hernandez de Leon-Portilla, Ascension, ed. 1998. Obras clasicas sobre la lengua nahuatl.

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Coleccion Clasicos Tavera, no. 16; Serie IX, Fuentes Lingüísticas Indígenas, vol. 8. Compact disc. Madrid, España: Fundacion Historica Tavera/ Mapfre Mutualidad / Digibis Publicaciones Digitales. Hernandez Lopez, Pedro. 2000. Actitudes, redes de comunicacion y dialectología: propuestas para la planeacion lingüística en la Chinantla de los dzämo'. M.A. Thesis, Mexico, D. F.: Centro de Investigaciones y Estudios Superiores en Antropología Social & Instituto Nacional Indigenista. Hockett, Charles F. 1954. "Two Models of Grammatical Description". Word 10:2-3. 210-231. (Repr. in Readings in Linguistics I. The Development of Descriptive Linguistics in America 1925-1956, Martin Joos, ed., Chicago & London: University of Chicago Press, second printing of the fourth edition, 1967:386-399, originally published in 1957 by the American Council of Learned Societies). Jakobson, Roman, C. Gunnar M. Fant & Morris Halle. 1952. Preliminaries to Speech Analysis. The Distinctive Features and Their Correlates, 5th printing: Cambridge, Massachusetts: The M.I.T. Press, 1963. Karttunen, Frances. 1983. An Analytical Dictionary of Nahuatl Austin, Texas: University of Texas Press. (Reedition: Norman & London: University of Oklahoma Press, 1992.) Karttunen, Frances & James Lockhart. 1987. The Art of Nahuatl Speech!;] the Bancroft Dialogues. Los Angeles, California: University of California. Lastra, Yolanda. 1992. "El vocabulario trilingüe de Fray Alonso Urbano". Scripta Philologica in Honorem Juan M. Lope Blanch, coordinated by Elizabeth Luna Traill, 3.39-46, Mexico, D. F.: Universidad Nacional Autonoma de Mexico. Launey, Michel. 1979. Introduction à la langue et à la litterature aztèques. Ed. L'Harmattan. Spanish translation by Cristina Kraft. 1992. Introduccion a la lengua y a la literatura nahuatl. Mexico, D. F.: Universidad Nacional Autonoma de Mexico. Launey, Michel. 1986. Categories et operations dans la grammaire nahuatl. Ph.D. Thesis, Universite de Paris-TV. Leon-Portilla, Miguel, ed. 1986. Coloquios y doctrina cristiana con que los doce frailes de San Francisco, enviados por el papa Adriano VI y por el emperador Carlos V, convirtieron a los indios de la Nueva España. Mexico D. F.: Universidad Nacional Autonoma de Mexico y Fundacion de Investigaciones Sociales, A. C. (based on a manuscript from c. 1569) Leon-Portilla, Miguel, ed. 1995. Diccionario Porrúa de historia, biografía y geografía de Mexico. 6th edition, corrected and augmented. 4 volumes. Mexico, D. F.: Editorial Porrúa, S. A. Lucas Gonzalez, Rosa. 2002. Translations of the Latin texts in Lagunas 2002[1574], in "primary sources". Martinet, Andre. 1939. "Un ou deux phonèmes?" Acta linguistica 1:94-103. (Repr. in Readings in Linguistics II, ed. by Eric P. Hamp, Fred W. Householder & Robert Austerlitz. Chicago & London: The University of Chicago Press, 1966.116-123. Martínez, Jose Luis. 1981. "Fray Bernardino de Sahagún y sus informantes indígenas. Vida y obra". Bernardino de Sahagún. El Mexico antiguo (seleccion y reordenacion de

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la Historia general de las cosas de Nueva España de fray Bernardino de Sahagún y de los informantes indígenas) ed. by Jose Luis Martínez, ix-cii, Caracas: Biblioteca Ayacucho. Martínez Baracs, Rodrigo. 1997. "El Vocabulario de la lengua de Mechuacan (1559) de fray Maturino Gilberti como fuente de informacion historica". Historia y sociedad[;] ensayos del seminario de historia colonial de Michoacan ed. By Carlos Paredes Martínez, 67-162. Morelia, Michoacan: Instituto de Investigaciones HistoricasUniversidad Michoacana de San Nicolas de Hidalgo. McQuown, Norman A., ed. 1967. Linguistics. Vol. 5 of the Handbook of Middle American Indians, Robert Wauchope, general editor. Austin, Texas: University of Texas Press. Medina Perez, Alberto & Jesús Alveano Hernandez. 2000. Vocabulario p'urhepechaespañol y español-p'urhepecha. Mexico, D. F.: Plaza y Valdes, S. A. de C. V. Monzon, Cristina. 1997. Introduccion a la lengua y cultura tarascas. Valencia: Universitat de València. Monzon, Cristina. 2001. "LaREPRESENTACIÓNortografica de las consonantes aspiradas del tarasco en la obra gramatical de los frailes: una reconstruccion historica". Paper to appear in Smith Stark (2001, forthcoming). Monzon, Cristina. 2005. "La pronunciacion tarasca de las grafías en el siglo XVI". Paper delivered at the First International Conference on Missionary Linguistics, Oslo, published in this volume. Newman, Stanley. 1967. "Classical Nahuatl". Norman A. McQuown, ed. 1967.179-199. Norton, Peter B., ed. 1995[1974]. The New Encyclopœdia Britannica, Micropœdia Ready Reference. 15th ed., Chicago, etc.: Encyclopaedia Britannica, Inc. Orie, Olanike Ola & Victoria R. Bricker. 2000. "Placeless and historical laryngeals in Yucatec Maya". International Journal of American Linguistics 66:3.287-317. Ostler, Nicholas. 2004. "The Social Roots of Missionary Linguistics". Zwartjes & Hovdhaugen, eds. 2004.33-43. Pellicer Ugalde, Alejandra. 1997. IM reconstruccion de la escritura por parte de niños maya-hablantes: el caso específico de laREPRESENTACIÓNde las consonantes glotalizadas. Ph. D. Thesis. Mexico, D. F.: Instituto Politecnico Nacional. Pickett, Velma et al, compilers. 1959. Castellano-zapoteco y zapoteco-castellano[;] dialecto del zapoteco del Istmo. Mexico, D. F.: Instituto Lingüístico de Verano en cooperacion con la Direccion General de Asuntos Indígenas de la Secretaría de Educacion Pública. (2nd edition, corrected and augmented, with the title Vocabulario zapoteco del Istmo[;] castellano-zapoteco y zapoteco-castellano, 1965. 8th printing, Mexico, D. F.: Instituto Lingüístico de Verano, 1979.) Pike, Kenneth L. 1946. "Phonemic Pitch in Maya". International Journal of American Linguistics 12:2.82-88. Quilis, Antonio. 1984. "Estudio". In Nebrija 1984[1492]:7-92, in "primary sources". Radin, Paul. 1943-1944. "Cuentos y leyendas de los zapotecos". Tlalocan, 1:1.3-30 (1943), 1:2.134-154 (1943), 1:3.194-226 (1944). Pages 3-10 were translated into Spa-

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nish by Pilar Mascare Sacristan and published as "La gramatica y el diccionario zapoteco de Juan de Cordoba", Guchachi' reza[;] Iguana rajada (Oaxaca), 13:3-9 (1982). Rensch, Calvin R. 1989. An Etymological Dictionary of the Chinantec Languages. Dallas, Texas: The Summer Institute of Linguistics. Robins, Robert Henry. 1967. A Short History of Linguistics. Bloomington, Indiana: Indiana University Press. (Second edition, 1969, London: Longman. Rowe, John Howland. 1974. "Sixteenth and Seventeenth Century Grammars". In Dell Hymes, ed., Studies in the History of Linguistics[;] Traditions and Paradigms, 361-379. Bloomington & London: Indiana University Press. Ruz, Mario Humberto, ed. (with the collaboration of Diana Birrichaga and with appendices by Søren Wichmann and Thomas Smith). 1997. Las lenguas de Chiapas colonial[;] manuscritos en la Biblioteca Nacional de Paris. Vol. 2, Lengua zoque. Mexico, D. F.: Universidad Nacional Autonoma de Mexico. Sanchez García, Daniel. 1919. "Bibliografía cachiquel". In the introduction to the edition of Gramatica del idioma cakchiquel, written in 1748 by the Franciscan friar Carlos Joseph Rosales, which was prepared for publication by Daniel Sanchez García, friar of the same order, with an introduction, a Cakchiquel-Quiche-Tzutujil bibliography, corrections, notes, a "Paralelo del cachiquel" and a "Compendio de la Doctrina cristiana en cachiquel y castellano". Guatemala: Tipografía "San Antonio". Smith Stark, Thomas C. 1992a. "Apuntes sobre la lexicografía novohispana". Paper presented at Jornadas Lingüísticas, Instituto de Investigaciones Filologicas, Universidad Nacional Autonoma de Mexico, Mexico, D. F. (Most recent version, 1995.) Smith Stark, Thomas C. 1992b. Unpublished review of Alonso Urbano, Arte breve de la lengua otomí y vocabulario trilingüe español-nahuatl-otomí ed. by Rene Acuña. Mexico, D. F.: Universidad Nacional Autonoma de Mexico, 1990. Smith Stark, Thomas C. 1995. "Apuntes sobre la evolucion de la ortografía del nahuatl". Paper presented at Jornadas Lingüísticas, Escuela Nacional de Antropología e Historia, Mexico, D. F. Smith Stark, Thomas C. 1996. "La grafía del nahuatl de Antonio del Rincon". Guzman Betancourt 1996.407-433. Smith Stark, Thomas C. 1997. "La ortografía colonial y la fonología de la lengua zoque". Appendix to Ruz 1997.345-354. Smith Stark, Thomas C. 2000a. "Rincon y Carochi: la tradicion jesuítica de descripcion del nahuatl". Las gramaticas misioneras de tradicion hispanica (siglos XVI-XVII), ed. by Otto Zwartjes, 29-72. Amsterdam & Atlanta: Rodopi. Smith Stark, Thomas C. 2000b. "La gramatica descriptiva en la Nueva España: 15211645". Paper to appear in Smith Stark (2001, forthcoming). Smith Stark, Thomas C, ed. 2001, forthcoming. Los gramaticos de Dios: las raíces de la lingüística descriptiva en la Nueva España. Mexico, D. F.: El Colegio de Mexico. Smith Stark, Thomas C. 2003. "La ortografía del zapoteco en el Vocabvlario de fray Juan de Cordova". Escritura zapoteca: 2,500 años de historia, coordinated by María de los

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angeles Romero Frizzi, 173-239. Mexico, D. F.: Instituto Nacional de Antropología e Historia, y Miguel angel Porrúa. Stark Campbell, et al. 1986. Diccionario mixteco de San Juan Colorado. Mexico, D. F.: Instituto Lingüístico de Verano. Suarez, Jorge A. 1983. The Mesoamerican Indian Languages. Cambridge, etc.: Cambridge University Press. Suarez Roca, Jose Luis. 1992. Lingüística misionera española. Oviedo: Pentalfa. Tellez Nieto, Herendira. 2004. Acercamiento filologico al vocabulario trilingüe, atribuido a fray Bernardino de Sahagún. Undergraduate Thesis. Mexico, D.F.: Universidad Nacional Autonoma de Mexico. Terraciano, Kevin. 2001. The Mixtecs of Colonial Oaxaca: Ñudzahui History, Sixteenth Through Eighteenth Centuries. Stanford, California: Stanford University Press. Thompson, Laurence C. 1987. A Vietnamese Reference Grammar. Mon-Khmer Studies XIII-XIV, Stephen O'Harrow, ed., Honolulu, Hawaii: University of Hawaii Press. Tozzer, Alfred M. 1921. A Maya Grammar[;] With Bibliography and Appraisement of the Works Noted. Cambridge, Massachusetts: The Peabody Museum. Repr. New York: Kraus Reprint Corporation, 1967. Tozzer, Alfred M., ed. 1941. Landa's Relacion de las cosas de Yucatan. A Translation. Cambridge, Massachusetts: The Peabody Museum. Repr. Millwood, N. Y.: Kraus Reprint Co., 1978. Whitecotton, Joseph W. & Judith Bradley Whitecotton. 1993. Vocabulario zapotecocastellano. Nashville, Tennessee: Vanderbilt University. Zimmermann, Klaus. 2004. "La construccion del objeto de la historiografía de la lingüística misionera". Zwartjes & Hovdhaugen, eds. 2004.7-32. Zwartjes, Otto & Even Hovdhaugen, eds. 2004. Missionary Linguistics / Lingüística misionera[;] Selected papers from the First International Conference on Missionary Linguistics, Oslo, 13-16 March 2003. Amsterdam & Philadelphia: John Benjamins.

TARASCAN ORTHOGRAPHY IN THE 16th CENTURY FRANCISCAN SOURCES OF INSPIRATION AND THEIR ANALYSIS

CRISTINA MONZoN El Colegio de Michoacan, Zamora, Mexico RESUMEN En este trabajo se aislan e identifican las convenciones ortograficas para la Maturino Gilberti y Juan Baptista de Lagunas apelan a su conocimiento de la grafía española y griega así como a la posibilidad de establecer nuevas acu­ ñaciones para dar cuenta de los sonidos de la lengua tarasca. La tradicion gramatical latina constituye la base para el estudio de la articulacion de los nuevos sonidos y para consideraciones fonologicas tales como variacion condi­ cionada, variacion libre, contrastes consonanticos y acentúales así como la existencia de palabras homofonas que se distinguen con base a la categoría gramatical a la cual pertenecen. A lo anterior Fray Juan Baptista de Lagunas añadira un capítulo sobre las 'figuras de la oracion' mostrandonos los procesos fonologicos y morfo-fonologicos que identifica para el tarasco. 1. Introduction In the area of western Mexico that forms part of the modern state of Michoacan and neighboring areas, the Tarascan language was spoken.1 The population was united under the Calzoncin, or king, of the Tarascan "Empire", which surrendered to Cristobal de Olid's forces in 1522. The first missionaries began to arrive soon after conquest, however records of the language from this early period are scant.2 It was not until 1558 that the Franciscan friar of French origin, Maturino Gilberti (c.1498-1585), undertook the publication of several 1 The origins of Tarascan are lost in time; there is no affiliated language in Mexico. At present, Tarascan is also known as P'urhépecha. 2 The letter of the principals, dated 1549, (Archivo general de indias, ramo justicia, legajo 173, see Warren and Monzon 2004) which presents the demands and complaints of the nobles to the bishop of Michoacan, Vasco de Quiroga; the Relacion de las ceremonias y ritos y poblacion y gobierno de los indios de la Provincia de Michoacan, thought to have been written between 1530 and 1541 (Anonymous 1977), contains an ample vocabulary in the areas of religion, social organization and toponyms.

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works, among them his Arte de la Lengua de Michuacan, the first grammatical study of Tarascan, which, years later, was consulted by a fellow friar in order to extend and improve knowledge of this language. Thus, in 1574 friar Juan Baptista de Lagunas (c. 1530-1604) published his Arte y Dictionario con otras obras en lengua michuacana. The humanist tradition influenced both friars approaches to the indigenous language. Friar Juan Baptista de Lagunas, born in Old Castile but who came to live in Michoacan when he was over 35,4 mentions poets and orators whose works date from as far back as the first century before our era. From the writings of Martianus Capella (?), a 4th and 5th-century author, he cites the Institutiones; he utilized Book I of Marcus Flavius Quintilian (c 35-96 A.D.) on the glottal; he consulted Antonio de Nebrija's 1508 Introductiones (or later editions) in relation to Greek pronunciation; his concern to determine the dialect that would be utilized in the elaboration of a grammar was shared with other linguists who studied this topic throughout the 16th century. In contrast, friar Maturino Gilberti offers no explicit information whatsoever as to the authors on which he based his work. For this writer who arrived in Michoacan after his thirtieth birthday, we must resort to the influences we can discern in the organization of his Arte and his use of paradigms, which indicate that he may well have been inspired by Antonio de Nebrija's Introductiones of 1481;5 and, in the definitions of noun, pronoun and conjunction, by Aelius Donatus (4th century), Priscian (6th century) and Nebrija (1444-1522) respectively.6 In his Latin grammar, Grammatica Maturini, he cites Erasmus of Rotterdam7 (1466-1536) and Antonio de Nebrija.8 In her recent edition of the Grammatica, Rosa Lucas (2003) further identifies the influence of Donatus and Priscian in his definitions of the parts of speech and the pronoun. To the aforementioned authors Lucas adds Nicolas Perottus (1430-1480) on the definition of the pronoun, Quintilian concerning the division between grammatice loqui and latine loqui, Juan Luis Vives (1492-1538) regarding the reproduction of the First Epistle on the introduction to the verb, and Antonio Mancinelli (1452-1506) in relation to the double regime of the verb 'to prohibit'. In New Spain, during their missionary activities, these friars have already 3 Thesoro spiritual en lengua de Mechuacan (1558), Dialogo de la doctrina Christiana en lengua de Mechuacan (1559), Vocabulario en lengua de Mechuacan (1559), Thesoro spiritual de pobres (1575); and other manuscript works. 4 See Warren (1983). 5 Monzon (1997:109). 6 Monzon (1999:34). 7 Gilberti (2003:597). 8 Gilberti (2003:107).

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dealt with the speech of several communities, so they were well aware of dialectal diversity and approached the problem as grammarians in a way that brings to mind the ample discussion of the "questione delta lingua" that so concerned scholars in Europe.9 Lagunas wrote: Y adviertan que en todas las lenguas vulgares ay pronunciacion pulitica, curiosa y bien pronunciada, y tambien ay otra tosca, plebeya, imperfecta y mal pronunciada. Y puesto que ambas sean maternas y vulgares, es cosa illustre y de advertir que la pulitica cortesana sea universal e muy perceptible a todos, como la toledana a los castellanos, y la tezcucana en los mexicanos, y a los de Michuacan la de Pazquaro y Cintzutzan, en la qual (no sin trabajo) he sacado y hecho este Arte y Copia verborum o Dictionario, para que cada qual pueda aprender la cortesana, pulitica y universal lengua, y se sepa apartar de la incongrua, barbara y mal pronunciada que algunos pueblos usan, puesto que la lengua Michuacana es toda una. (Lagunas 1983[ 1574]: 105-106) [And be aware that in all vulgar languages there is a courtesan, careful and wellpronounced language, as well as a coarse, plebeian, imperfect and badly pronounced one. And as both are maternal and vulgar, it is outstanding and worth noting that the courtesan pronunciation is universal and most perceptible to all, as is the one from Toledo to Castilians, and the one from Texcoco to Mexicans, and to those from Michoacan that of Pazquaro and Cintzutzan, from which (not without effort) I have drawn and elaborated this Arte and this verbatim Copy or Dictionary, so that everyone can learn the courtesan and universal language, and distance themselves from the incongruous, barbarous and badly pronounced one that some people use, as the language of Michoacan is but one.]

Based on the criteria of variants understandable to all speakers, Lagunas chose for his study the speech of the nobles who lived in Tzintzuntzan and Patzcuaro. Throughout his Arte he characterizes the language by a vocalic fluctuation between [e]/[i]10 and [u]/[o],n as well as by a stylistic substitution of the affricate [ts] for [tʃf]12 that is appreciated especially among this group of 9

Padley (1985:85). Y por quanto algunas vezes usan la E indifferentemente y la I, podian dezir Atarhihpenstani vel Atarhehpenstani, Olear, id est untar los cuerpos. Pamingan vel Pamengani, id est Serle llevada o llevarsele algo a alguna persona. (Lagunas 1983[1574]:284). [And given that they sometimes use the E and the I indifferently, they may say Atarhihpenstani or Atarhehpenstani 'To apply oils', that is, 'to anoint bodies'. Pamingan or Pamengani, that is, 'To take something to someone'.] 11 Kueramu, id est Tea. Kueramo endo, Lugar de teas que los Mexicanos llaman ocote. Atsimu vel atsimo, El lodo o barro. Atsimuendo vel Atsimœndo, Lugar en que o donde ay barro o lodo, por quanto estos naturales usan indifferentemente de la O y de la V (Lagunas 1983[1574]:180). [Kueramu, that is, 'Torch'. Kueramo endo 'Place of torches', which the Mexicans call pitch wood. Atsimu or atsimo 'The mud or clay'. Atsimuendo or Atsimœndo 'Place in which there is clay or mud', because these Indians use the O and the V indifferently. ] Tambien por policia y curioso phrasis de la lengua ponen algunas vezes Tz por Ch vt: Tzapatzani pro Tzapachani, id est Estar ronco (Lagunas 1983[1574]:107); Exemplos de tz por 10

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speakers. Though Gilberti does not enlighten us on the source of his materials, it is likely that, given the absence of numerous differences with Laguna's data, his Arte also took as its base the same dialectal variant. The description in the Artes offers phonological, morphological and syntac­ tic information on Tarascan, I will here focus on phonetic, phonology and morphophonological processes mentioned by the friars. Gilberti as the author of the first grammar gives the first detailed description known to us. Lagunas later on complements or increments this description. This early grammatical attempt is based as we shall see on the understanding of language at the time, such knowledge thus allows to interpret the analysis presented by the friars. Their statements are further complemented by the Tarascan examples which offer evidence of the practical use of the result of the analysis. 2. Phonological description Following the principle defended in Rome by Quintilian13 and present in Antonio de Nebrija,14 the letter is considered the means of representing the sounds; thus we have at our disposal a record quite close to the phonetics of the language. This record is limited by the individual's capacity for phonetic perception, his familiarity with the graphic conventions of other languages and his openness to the creation of new ones. Systematicness is not a characteristic of the grammatical works of these friars, whose interest seems always to focus on differences with regards to other languages, especially Latin and Spanish; an expository style shared by other writers, such as the Anonymous grammarian who published his grammar in Louvaine in 1555. This emphasis on differences results in a rather abrupt beginning of the ch: Cutzuhtzucuni por cutzuhchucuni, Alimpiar a otro las partes baxas. (Gilberti 1987[1558]: 216). [Also through careful or courtesan phrasing of the language they sometimes use Tz for Ch, for example: Tzapatzani for Tzapachani, that is, 'To be hoarse']; [Examples of tz for ch: Cu­ tzuhtzucuni for cutzuhchucuni 'To clean someone else's genitals'.] 13 Quilis (1984:43). 14 Alonso tells us that for Nebrija the relation between the grapheme and the phone is biunivocal, because "entre la letra y su sonido existe (en su origen) una relacion de naturaleza, no de mera convencion" (Alonso 1992:162). ["between the letter and the sound there exists (in their origin) a natural relation, not one of simple convention"]. Thus, "cada figura de letra tiene un solo 'oficio proprio', que es el de representar el sonido originalmente encomendado. Este principio tiene doble cara: a) a ninguna figura de letra se le debe dar mas que un solo sonido, el propio; b) ningún sonido diferente debe ser escrito con letra de otro sonido." (Alonso 1992:163) ["each figure of a letter has only one 'proper function', which is that of representing the sound originally assigned. This principle has two facets: a) no figure of a letter should be assigned more than one unique sound, its own; b) no different sound should be written with the letter of another sound."]

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grammars in which the friars introduce us to the specific letters of Tarascan, a posture adopted by Gilberti, as we shall see below, or offer a brief summary as Lagunas chose to do: cinco vocales, a, e, i, o , u. Consonantes diez y seys. b, c, d, g, h, k, m, n, p, ph, q, r, s, t, x, y, z. (Lagunas 1983[1574]:29) [five vowels, a, e, i, o, u. Sixteen consonants. b, c, d, g, h, k, m, n, p, ph, q, r, s, t, x, y, z.]

Lagunas probably took into account the existence of Gilberti's Arte, and therefore does not mention all of the consonants that, in practice, he recogn­ ized. Both authors complement their letter-sound presentation with the dis­ tribution of consonants within the word. While Lagunas once again offers a quick summary: Tienenlas todas en principio y medio de diction, sacando B, D, F, G, I, R, que no tienen vocablos que comiencen en ellas, y totalmente carescen de F, L. (Lagunas 1983[1574]: 29) [They have them all at the beginning and in the middle of the word, except B, D, F, G, I, R, as there are no words that begin with them, and they totally lack F and L.]

Gilberti treats this topic more extensively, probably inspired by Antonio de Nebrija, who in his 1481 Introductiones presents the Latin alphabet and details the acceptable consonantic combinations, as when he writes: B ante d in eaden syllaba poni potest ut Abdera,15 bdelium.16 Ate 1 ut blandior, hybla. Ante r ut bromius, umbra. (Nebrija 1481, seccion de la orthographia s.f., Similar quotation in the edition of 1540 fo.XLVIIv).

Unlike Nebrija, who, as the previous quotation shows, describes each letter with respect to its combination with other letters, Gilberti divides his presen­ tation into three large sections; in the first, he gives examples of the consonants (b, d, g, r) that appear only within the word in combination with the five vowels; in the second, the sequence CV (where C is c, ç, ch, h, y, m, m, p, qu, s, ts, t, th, v, x) is described as appearing at the beginning, middle or end of a word (Gilberti 1987:19), indicating moreover the non-existence of certain sequences: before , and before the vowel , also mentioning the existence of the sequences and , such that the absence of the combinations of and with other vowels in this language is implicit.17 In the third section, he exemplifies the consonants and in 15

"'Abdera', que es ciudad de Tracia" (Nebrija 1984:129) ['Abdera', which is a city of Tracia] "'bdelium', que es cierto arbol y genero de goma" (Nebrija 1984:129) ['bdelium', which is a certain tree and genus of gum] 17 In modern terms, because of their complementary distribution with respect to vowels the 16

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combination with the five vowels. With respect to stress, both friars recognize its importance as a means of differentiating words that would otherwise be homophones: porque su significado solamente se conosce en el accento, el cual se ha de hechar conforme al significado de los dichos vocablos equivocos, assi como: Vequan haxeti. Es cosa linda. Vequan haxeti. Es cosa triste. Tecandini. Sordo. Tecandini. Incorregible... (Gilberti 1987[1558]:17) [Because their meaning can only be discerned from stress, which is to be pronounced according to the meaning of said ambivalent words, as in: Vequan haxeti 'It is a pretty thing'. Vequan haxeti 'It is a sad thing'. Tecandini 'Deaf'. Tecandini 'Incorrigible'...]

To the previous statement, Lagunas adds a rule of stress that, though not particularly clear, identifies the presence of the primary stress on the first or second syllable of the root, which he refers to as "capital or bounded prepositions, and initial etymological positions of the verbs": ...las mas interposiciones son de una syliaba, y assi no ternan mas que un accento y siempre se lo llevan consigo, y si son de dos, van señalados. Y desta manera esta la fuerça del accento en la letra vocal ultima en estas preposiciones inseparables o capitales y primeras posiciones ethymologicas de los verbos. Mas siendo Infinitivo de dos syllabas, en la penultima, y si es de mas, en la antepenultima. (Lagunas 1983 [1574]:243) [... most of the other interpositions are of one syllable, and thus will not have more than one stress and always carry it, and if they have two syllables, they are marked and in this way the stress is placed on the last vowel letter of these bounded prepositions or capital and initial etymological positions of the verbs. Moreover, if it is a two-syllable Infinitive, then the stress will be on the second-to-last one, and if it has more syllables, it will be on the third-to-last one.]

3. Articulation of sounds Both friars express concern for the graphic representation of the language. Their overriding interest in communicating correctly the religion18 leads them to focus upon those speech sounds for which they find no parallel in Spanish. affricate phones, [tʃ] and [ts] are analyzed as allophones of one phoneme; similarly the fricatives [ƒ] and [s] are allophones of a single phoneme, [ts] and [s] being restricted to the context of preceding [i]. 18 La orthographia y recta pronunciacion, siempre ha sido y es muy necessaria en qualquier

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At the beginning of the third part of his Arte, under the heading "Ortho­ graphy", Gilberti presents a meticulous description of the articulation of four Tarascan sounds, emphasizing the position of the tongue relative to the upper teeth and palate and the amount of air that is expelled: The is pronounced: poniendo el pico de la lengua entre los dientes delanteros de arriba, abriendo un poquito los labios y hiriendo rezio el paladar con la lengua, como en la pronunciacion de tza y de Betzayda (Gilberti 1987[1558]:212) (14) [placing the tip of the tongue between the upper front teeth, opening the lips slightly and striking the palate forcefully with the tongue, as in the pronunciation of 'tza' and 'Betzayda'.]

Gilberti describes the by contrasting it to the above mentioned des­ cription of , saying that it is: de mas rezia prolacion, porque allende de apretar el pico de la lengua entre los dientes delanteros hiriendo con ella el paladar menester es sacar el huelgo abundosamente del profundo del pecho, por lo qual es menester fingir una aspiracion mas que a los otros de la primera regla. (Gilberti 1987[1558]:213) [of a stronger pronunciation, because not only does the tip of the tongue tighten between the front teeth and strike the palate, but further it is necessary to expel the breath abundantly from the depths of the chest, thus making it necessary to simulate aspiration more than for those of the first rule].

For the , presented immediately after his description of the , Gilberti writes: para cuya pronunciacion es menester mudar la z que viene despues de la h en s como echando un silvo. (Gilberti 1987[1558]:214)

lengua, la qual segun dize Sant Hieronymo en una epistola, en tanto excede a la que no esta assi pronunciada ni orthographiada con devidas letras, como difieren el hombre vivo al pintado o muerto, por tanto como ya tengo dicho en los avisos despues del prologo, no se acertaría en dezir que esta lengua se puede bien pronunciar o escrevir con quales quieras letras, que poco mas o menos es intelligible, y que en escrevir esta lengua con tantas aspiraciones y con letras no acostumbradas es muy gran estorvo para daprender la lengua... (Gilberti 1987[1558]:211212) [The orthography and correct pronunciation have always been and continue to be very necessary in any language. A language, according to Saint Jerome in an epistle, as much as it exceeds that which is not thus pronounced nor written with the fitting letters, differs in the same manner as does a living man from one that is painted or dead, thus as I have already said in the preliminary notices after the Prologue, it would not be correct to say that this language can be pronounced or written with whatever letters, that makes it more or less intelligible, and that writing this language with so many aspirations and with unaccustomed letters is a great impediment to learning the language...]

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[for the pronunciation of which it is necessary to change the 'z' that comes after the 'h' in V as if emitting a whistle.]

Finally, with regards to the , he states that: se ha de pronunciar algo rezio, hiriendo el paladar con la lengua, y luego afloxando la lengua para lo demas de la dicion: como echando vn silbo. (Gilberti 1987[1558]:214215) [it should be pronounced somewhat strongly, striking the palate with the tongue, and then relaxing the tongue for the rest of the diction: as if emitting a whistle.]

Thanks to this series of quotations we can identify the existence of four affricates, two of which are aspirated and two non-aspirated, with aspiration being represented by the symbol . affricates not aspirated aspirated

apico-dento-alveolar

predorsal-alveolar [ts] [tsh]

Table 1: the affricates according to Gilberti (1558) The is used to indicate the initial occlusion, while the sibilants allow us to differentiate the point of articulation; one apico-dento-alveolar, and , if we interpret the preposition "between"19 as "against" in Gilberti's description "el pico de la lengua entre los dientes delanteros de arriba" which then should be read as the tip of the tongue against the upper teeth. Further the tongue makes contact with the palate here interpreted as alveolar; the other predorsal-alveolar, written and , given that Gilberti does not specify the 'tip of the tongue' as in the rules for and , but does states that the palate is touched by the tongue, in addition these consonants are allophones respectively of the affricates post alveolar [tf] and in the context of the front vowel [i] as mentioned in footnote 17 which suggest a closer point of articulation between them. Furthermore, he describes the muscular relaxation and the fricative expulsion of the air: En esta primera sillaba tza, se antepone la t a la z en señal de la dicha recta pro­ nunciacion la qual se ha de proferir como quien quisiesse pronunciar las siguientes silabas disiunctas: vat, vet, vit, y despues lo que se sigue, assi como: vuatsi, vetsiquareni, vetzeni, vitzindequa, vitzaqua (Gilberti 1987:16). 19 In De la pronunciacion medieval a la moderna del español (1953), Amado Alonso clarifies that the tradition of using the expression "el pico de la lengua entre los dientes" "era una formula de tradicion latina recogida por Nebrija, Erasmo, Vanegas y otros despues" (Alonso 1953:118 nota 20) ["the tip of the tongue between the teeth" "was a formula of the Latin tradition taken up by Nebrija, Erasmus, Venegas and others afterwards] to refer to the position of the tongue "contra los dientes de arriba y de abajo" (Alonso 1992:117) [against the upper and lower teeth]

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[In this first syllable 'tza', the 't' is placed before the V to signal the correct pronunciation, which must be uttered as if someone wished to pronounce the following disjunctive syllables: 'vat', 'vet', 'vit', and then what comes after, as in: 'vuatsi', 'vetsiquareni', 'vetzeni', 'vitzindequa', 'vitzaqua'.]

A second group of consonants takes Greek as its source of inspiration. In the second part of his Arte, Chapter II, Lagunas presents us with the following set of quotations, taken from Antonio de Nebrija's Introductiones of 1508:20 Theta la emiten con la voz con la que nosotros debemos emitir la th. Cappa, la emiten con el mismo sonido con el que nosotros debemos emitir la C frente a A, o la O, o la V que le siguen. Phi Es pronunciada por los griegos del mismo modo que debería ser pronunciada por nosotros, no como la pronunciamos ahora, esto es, como F latina. (Lagunas 2002[ 1574]: 146) [Theta is uttered with the sound with which we should utter the 'th'. Cappa, is uttered with the same sound with which we should utter the C before the A, or the O, or the V that follows it. Phi is pronounced by the Greeks in the same way as it should be pronounced by us, not as it is now pronounced, that is, like the Latin F.]

The symbol , then, is presented as the natural companion of aspirated sounds,

bilabial21 and the dento-alveolar. The velar , Lagunas argues, should be used in this language because it is necessary, just as it is in Greek, Arab and German, although Quintilian affirms that: la k precisamente pienso que no se ha de emplear en ninguna palabra, a no ser la que tambien tenga un significado de modo que aparezca sola (como abreviatura) [I believe precisely that the 'k' should not be used in any word, unless it also has a meaning when it appears alone (as an abbreviation)].22

On the other hand, the velar labialized occlusive [kw] is to be written

Errandonea (1945:73) translates Nebrija's description of the letters. Another option could well be the 1540 edition, where the description appears once again. 21 ...Adonde es menester aquella H nota de aspiracion entre la P y la A para engrossar un poco el huelgo. Y no diran Fa, ... Porque la Ph de la misma manera se pronuncia que la P, salvo que va el huelgo mas gruesso y tira mas largo que el de la B. (Lagunas 1983[1574]:100) [..In which it is necessary that the H represents the aspiration between the P and the A in order to increase the breath a little. And they will not say Fa, ... Because the Ph is pronounced in the same way as the P, except that the breath is stronger and the extension greater than that of the B.] Nam k quidem in nullis verbis utendum puto nisi quae significat etiam ut sola ponatur. (Lagunas 1983[1574]:101 y Quintilian 1997: Book One, Chap. VII:115)

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before the vowels /e,i/ and before /a/ when inside the word but at the begining or a word.23 The corresponding aspirated is represented as 24 in all contexts as examples from his Dictionario show. In Gilberti's conventions, only the dental aspirate occlusive , written , is presented, though with no commentary, while the other aspirated consonants mentioned above are totally unknown to this author. One other sound receives special attention. In order to articulate the retroflex tap , Lagunas tells us that the tongue is somewhat retracted towards the palate (Lagunas 1983:165). Comparing this to the articulation of wellknown speech sounds in Spanish, Lagunas describes it as having a pronunc­ iation between [1] and [r] (Lagunas 1983:102). To represent it, he chooses the grapheme , arguing that the had come to be used as the symbol for the creation of new letters;25 though, curiously, he does not associate it with Greek. Gilberti, on the other hand, does not mention the existence of this retroflex, though it is recorded in his Arte inconsistently with the form ,26 a combination of letters that is found but rarely in Lagunas. Finally, with regard to the other consonants, while Gilberti does not bother to mention them, Lagunas refers to the description offered by Martianus Capella, a 4th- and 5th-century writer. This author in describing the A,B,C used as his criteria the lips, the tip of the tongue or the tongue with no other specification, the upper teeth or the teeth in general, including the molars, the palate, and points of contact, and specifies in some cases the pressure applied, 23

Kuiripeni, Venir creciendo qualquier cosa o ser liberal o franco, id est que haze mercedes. (Lagunas 1983[1574]:272), kuerèni, Pegarse, prender o asirse alguna cosa a otra señalandola. (Lagunas 19S3[1574]:284), Angequarheni, trabajar. (Lagunas 1983[1574]:75), Kuangapeni, Ser fuerte, rezia o hierta. (Lagunas 1983[1574]:270), [kuiripeni 'Something that is growing' or 'to be liberal or bountiful', that is, 'to perform mercies', kuerèni 'To stick, to stick or attach something to another, indicating it', Anchequarheni 'To work', Kuangapeni 'To be strong, tough or rigid'.] Qhuanini, tyrar o arrojar algo (Lagunas 1983[1574];348), Qhuanini 'To throw or toss something'. Y tambien es de notar que de aqui adelante para la recta pronunciacion se escreviran aspiradas las Rr que tienen la pronunciacion entre L y R por escusar algún inusitado character de que las emprentas suelen carecer, a differencia de las demas que se escriven enmedio de parte sin encoger o alçar la lengua en su pronunciacion... (Lagunas 1983[1574]: 101-102) [It should also be noted that from this point on, for correct pronunciation the Rr will be written as aspirated, when it is pronounced between L and R, to excuse any unusual character that printers often do not possess, unlike the others that are written in the middle of the word without retracting or raising the tongue in their pronunciation... ] Ehrambarihberaqua (Gilberti 1987[1558]96), tehruncheti (115), nuhrundatsperagnanstan (161), cahrapeni (163), pahrandatzesti (165), mihrincheni (233), chehremarini (251), quihramarini (129), tahratatarani (258), yrhanhata (279), vihrungata (280), puhrungataquareti (313), quehrengataquareti (131).

TARASCAN ORTHOGRAPHY IN THE SIXTEENTH CENTURY

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the vibration of the tongue and the form in which the air is expelled, as for example: A. Referimos la .A. con un único y conveniente soplo de aire inmediatamente despues de abrir la boca... C.Se produce por el contacto de la lengua alrededor de los dientes superiores... G. {Se produce} el sonido con el paladar... M. Se produce apretando con los labios... R. Se rasca en el aire haciendo vibrar la lengua. S. Se produce un silbido azotando los dientes... Estas {definiciones} estan tomadas de Martianus Capella libro III [De arte grammatica] (Lagunas 2002[ 1574]: 148 -149) [A. We refer to the .A. by one sole and convenient blowing of air immediately upon opening the mouth... C.Produced by the contact of the tongue in the area of the upper teeth... G. The sound is produced with the palate... M. Produced by pressing the lips together... R. Made by friction with the air, making the tongue vibrate. S. A whistling is produced by forcing air against the teeth... These {definitions} are taken from Martianus Capella Book III [De arte grammatica] ]

This quotation from Capella allows the supposition that those Tarascan con­ sonants that do not receive special attention have, in principle, a pronunciation identical, or very similar, to that of the Spanish of the time.27 Concerning the representation of the velar nasal [ŋ], in the case of both friars, the graphic sequence is used with no additional commentary. The following Tables present the representation of the sounds registered by the friars and mentioned herein28:

27

Without question, determining the pronunciation of the and the in 16th-century Spanish is problematical, as attested to by the countless studies that have been done on this topic.The Tarascan phonetical system opens a window on Spanish pronunciation: on the one hand, it allows us to affirm that the voiceless Spanish affricate had disappeared by the second half of the 16th century; on the other, it suggests the existence of a period in which the sibilants remained differentiated (predorsal-alveolar , apico-dento-alveolar ). In Tarascan itself, the point of articulation assigned to the pronunciation associated with these graphemes is based on the symmetry of the system, as can be seen in Table 3. Regarding the glottal fricative [h], , and the palatal [ƒ], , the Tarascan record testifies to the fact that American Spanish, or at least that of some speakers, preserved both pronunciations. 28 O basis of Gilberti's description for the affricates and the symetry of the system the dental articulation of the sound represented as , and are assumed.

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Table 2: Tarascan vowels bilabial occlusives voiced nonaspirated aspirated

predorsalalveolar

post alveolar

[b] [p]

retroflex

velar

[g] [k] , [kw] [kh] , [khw]

[ph]

affricates nonaspirated aspirated

[tʃ]

fricative taps nasal

apico-dentoalveolar

[ʃ]

[m]

[ŋ]

Table 3: Tarascan consonants subsumming Gilberti (1558) and Lagunas (1574) 4. Conditioned pronunciations Not all of the phones mentioned in Table 3 are phonemes in Tarascan. Spanish pronunciation and its graphic representation allowed the friars to identify sounds whose status in Tarascan is that of allophones. Hence, both Gilberti and Lagunas noted the nasal conditioning to which the voiceless, nonaspirated occlusives [p, t, k], resulting in voiced ones [b, d, g].29 A las quales letras [C, P, T] como queda dicho antecediendo la N a la C se convierte en G; y la P en B; y la T en D. (Lagunas 1983[1574]:117)

29

Though they are not aware of the phoneme, Gilberti represents it from time to time. We find examples in his Arte in which the phoneme, and not the allophone, is written. Nasallyconditioned voiced occlusives are not registered as : mento (111), tantongaricha (317), pampauarati (299), xahmpangataquareni (313).

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[To which, as has been said, the letters [C, P, T] when the N precedes the C it becomes G; the P becomes B; and the T becomes D.] Truecase la C por G por razón de la N que se offrece enmedio, a la qual nunca se sigue C mas communmente G; t. d. (Gilberti 1987[1558]:216) [The C changes to G because of the N that appears in an intermediate position, which can never be followed by C but more commonly by G; t. d.]

While Gilberti records this conditioning without establishing any infer­ ences, Lagunas suggests a certain level of awareness of the phoneme by recognizing the base form of the morpheme in its phonetical context: C post N en G, vt: Has ehcangu, id est No levantes falso testimonio, por quanto la Cu señala tercera persona y aviamos de dezir Has ehcancu. Q post N en G, vt: Thunguini pro Thunquini. P post M en B, vt: Hapimbeni pro Hapimpeni, id est posseer, vel Vhcambeni pro Vhcampeni, id est Tener cuenta o cargo de algunas personas en numero indeterminado cuya pluralidad señala, o termina la P, y de aqui viene Vhcambeti. T post N en D, vt: Pahandi pro Pahanti, de tercera persona singular. (Lagunas 1983[1574]:106-107) [C after N in G, for example: Has ehcangu, that is, 'Do not bear false witness', given that the Cu indicates third person thus we should say Has ehcancu; Q after N in G, for example: Thunguini for Thunquini; P after M in B, for example: Hapimbeni for Hapimpeni, that is, 'to possess', or Vhcambeni for Vhcampeni, that is, 'To be in charge of some persons of indeterminate number whose plurality is signaled', or ends in P, and from this comes Vhcambeti; T after N in D, for example: Pahandi for Pahanti, in third person singular.]

A second example confirms the recording of allophones thanks to the exis­ tence of Spanish sounds. Lagunas identifies a conditioned post alveolar [ƒ], written for the postdorsal-alveolar phone , represented as , as he tells us, given the context of the glottal fricative /h/ and the verb 'eni': ...qualquier diction que comiençe en aspiracion H hazen que la S antecedente se convierta en X. (Lagunas 1983[1574]:69) Empero, porque no se offusquen en la conversion de letras sepan que, muchas vezes por guardar la pulicia, hallaran X ax eni por Ys, has eni. Yx a por Ys ha, etc. (Lagunas 1983[1574]:295) [... any diction that begins with an aspirated H makes the previous S become X. However, in order to avoid becoming obfuscated because of the conversion of letters we must understand that, often to maintain correct speech, one will find 'X ax eni' instead of 'Ys, has eni'. 'Yx' instead of 'Ys ha', etc.]

In this quotation, Lagunas demonstrates the complementary distribution of the [s], [ƒ] phones that result from fast speech: the post alveolar allophone [ƒ]

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before the vowels a, e, o, u and the postdorsal-alveolar before the vowel [i], which has been elided in the examples offered above, given its tendency to disappear at the end of a word. To the degree in which there was no familiarity with the phones heard, the friars did not record the conditioned allophone; as is illustrated by the group of voiced affricates [dz], [dz] that pass almost totally unnoticed.30 Only Lagunas, in the following quotation, shows that he perceived a difference in pronunciation of the post alveolar, non-aspirated affricate depending upon the context: the voiceless pronunciation of the between vowels "is pronounced more softly... almost as if puffing as when tired," while after the nasal it has a voiced pronunciation that Lagunas does not describe, though he suggests that it is indicated by "that N as a signal". He informs us: Carhancheni, id est Sospirar, tiene propia esta interposicion [refers to -nche 'sky']. Miren bien que se a de escrevir como lo pronuncian, Karhancheni [voiced ]. Y tambien que quando sirve a Datiuo [voiceless [tf] in intervocal position refers to -che benefactive], se pronuncia mas blandamente y como quasi cansado el Anhelito. Y aun sera menester fingir characteres en la pronunciacion, de los quales porque no hallo letras para los explicar, puse aquella N por señal porque siempre antecede a la Ch quando son menester las tales pronunciaciones [voiced consonant] vt: Ynchàncheni, Curhancheni, Phamènchani, Thirhanchurhini, etc.(Lagunas 1983[1574]:179) [Carhancheni, that is, 'to sigh', has this interposition. [refers to -nche 'sky']. Observe carefully that it should be written just like they pronounce it, Karhancheni [voiced ]. And also, when it is used for the Dative [voiceless in intervocal position refers to -che benefactive], it is pronounced more softly, as if puffing as when tired. And it will still be necessary to devise characters for the pronunciation, but because I have no letters with which to explain it, I put that N as a signal, since it always antecedes the Ch when those pronunciations are necessary [voiced consonant]: for example Ynchàncheni, Curhancheni, Phamènchani, Thirhanchurhini, etc.]

There are, however, exceptions to the generalization on allophone recording, given that the affricate phones and are so meticulously described though they are allophones conditioned by the vowel HI of, respect­ ively, the non-aspirated /tJY (written ) and aspirated affricates (written ). Lagunas also perceives differences in the articulation of the velars: the aspirated or and , and the non-aspirated and , based on the type of vowel that follows, such that the sounds represented by

30

Clear evidence that the voiced affricate of medieval Spanish no longer existed, as otherwise it would have been recorded, as were the Tarascan voiced allophones of the voiceless nonaspirated occlusives.

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can be classified as posterior aspirated velars [k+h],31 as a non-aspirated velar [k] and and as aspirated and non-aspirated anterior velars, [kh]and [k]- : Pues esta [k] tiene su pronunciacion en el Gaznate; y la C desde el medio del alto paladar tocando con las orillas de la lengua en las primeras muelas; y la Q enmedio del paladar encogendo la boca, como el que quiere silvar, vt: Karhapeni, Engañar. Carhahpeni, Hincharse alguna cosa. (Lagunas 1983[1574]:101) Kharhatani, Barrer. (Lagunas 1983[1574]:247) Qhirhihpani, por aquel andar meneandose de una parte a otra, y por aquel ruydo o sonido o cruxir que consigo llevan, mayormente la polea quando suben o baxan con ella qualquier cosa pesada. (Lagunas 1983 [1574]:359) [Hence, this [k] has its pronunciation in the throat; and the C between the middle and upper palate with the edges of the tongue touching the first molars; and the Q in the middle of the palate closing the mouth, as if desiring to whistle, for example: Karhapeni 'to deceive'. Carhahpeni 'Something that is swelling'. Kharhatani 'To sweep'. Qhirhihpani 'for that kind of walking with a rolling hip movement from one place to another, and that sound or noise or grating that the pulley generally makes when one raises or lowers some heavy thing with it'.]

Having undertaken the minutia of his analysis, Lagunas records the auto­ matic insertion of [h] for the separation of reduplicated roots and devotes himself to the search for rules that explain it: Y sepan que las dos syllabas primeras dobladas se aspiran y no sin causa, porque en lo uno se da a entender que aquella H divide aquella reiteracion con la differencia del ayre que se pronuncia con mas fuerça, aunque sea con brevedad pronunciada.... Charhàhcharhàhcàxeti pro Charàcharhàs, hàs eti. Es coloradillo. Vrahvrahcaxeti. Es blanquezillo. Turhihturhihcaxesti. Es negrezillo. Tsipahtsipahcàxeti. Es un poco amarillo, etc. (Lagunas 1983[1574]:116-117) [And let it bet known that the two first doubled syllables are aspirated and not without cause, because firstly it allows us to understand that the H divides that reiteration by the difference in the greater force of the air with which it is emitted, though it is pronounced only briefly... Charhàhcharhàhcàxeti for Charàcharhàs, hàs eti 'A little reddish'. Vrahvrahcaxeti 'Whitish'. Turhihturhihcaxesti 'Blackish'. Tsipahtsipahcàxeti 'A little yellowish', etc.]

According to Lagunas, the conditioning of aspiration is the stress: Vravras, Cosa muy blanca. Charhacharhas, Cosa muy colorada, etc. Y tienen el accento luengo en la ultima, y por tanto no piden aspiracion. (Lagunas 1983[1574]:115) [Vravras 'Something very white'. Charhacharhas 'Something very red', etc. And as the words have the long stress on the last, they require no aspiration.] 31

The symbol + must be placed under the letter ,k'.

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However, the examples he provides in these two quotations are contradict­ ory, in one the roots 'vra' and 'charha' when reduplicated present the aspir­ ation while in the other the aspiration is absent. 5. Phonological analysis Having recorded the sounds in their bi-univocal association with letters, the friars moved on to phonological considerations, such as the conditioned variation exemplified above, free variation, consonantic and stress contrast and the homophony of words that are distinguished on the basis of the grammatical category to which they pertain. These phonological analyses are illustrated with the following lines: 5.1 Conditioned variation Pangahaca, Pangahacare, Pangahati vel Pangapiringa, Pangapiringare, Pangapirindi. etc. De manera que resolutas las terminaciones personales son: ca, re, ti. Plural cuhche, tsi, tix. Y aquella G de la primera persona, y la D de la tercera, en el Optativo y Subjuntivo es conversion de letra por la aver antecedido la N. (Lagunas 1983[1574]:73) [Pangahaca, Pangahacare, Pangahati or Pangapiringa, Pangapiringare, Pangapirindi. etc. Such that the personal endings are: 'ca', 're', 'ti'. Plural 'cuhche', 'tsi', 'tix'. And that G in the first person, and the D in the third, in both the Optative and Subjunctive, are the result of the conversion of the letter because they come after N.] 5.2 Free variation Y por quanto algunas vezes usan la E, indifferentemente, y la I, podrian dezir: Atarhihpenstani vel Atarhehpenstani, Olear, id est Vntar los cuerpos (Lagunas 1983 [1574]: 284) [And because on occasions they use the E and the I indifferently, they could say: Atarhihpenstani or Atarhehpenstani 'To apply oil', that is, 'To anoint the body'] 5.3 Stress and consonantic contrast Polysemos id est de muchos o diversos significados debaxo de una pronunciacion, o distinctos en alguna differencia de letra o accento... Càni, siendo adverbio significa mucho. Kàni es nombre y significa qualquier pierna de manta, o savana, o las hojas del mayz erangani, hazerse que se haga o sea hecha en la propia cosa mediante otra que en ella haze, assi como ser hecho Alcalde y por tal tenido. Erangani, mirar en qualquier cosa hueca. (Lagunas 1983[1574]:163-165)

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[Polysemy, that is, having many and diverse meanings with one pronunciation, or different when there is a difference of letter or stress... Càni, when an adverb, means 'much'. Kàni is a noun and means 'any tubular piece of cotton cloth, or sheet, or the leaves of corn'... erangani 'to have something done, or something be done through something else that acts upon it', as in to be made Mayor and be considered as such. Erangani 'to look into something hollow'.]

5.4 Homophony Vni, hazer. Empero siendo nombre significa el huesso. (Lagunas 1983[1574]:164) [Vni 'To do'. Though as a noun it means 'bone']

The unavoidable criteria of the letter-sound association that prevailed dur­ ing this period leads the friars to explain spelling variations through the same criteria they used for phonetic variation: Y assi los semejantes convierten la Z en C por quanto no les antecede P vel T vt: Hizcani, enterrar o absconder algo. Hicingani, ser abscondido o enterrado. (Lagunas 1983[1574]:84) [And similarly they convert the Z in C as long as they are not preceded by P or T, as for example: Hizcani 'to bury or abscond something'. Hicingani 'to be absconded or buried'.]

6. Spelling conventions From the spelling conventions inherited from the Latin tradition, Lagunas informs us of the use of to represent the phonic sequence [ks] or [gs]32 which, he says33 Silvius used in the times of Augustus Caesar (63 B.C.-14 A.D.). Gilberti also maintains this tradition and further records the variation in spelling between / for the post alveolar fricative, which in Spanish indi­ cates a change in pronunciation, while in Tarascan it only points to an alter­ native spelling for an articulation that has been preserved down to the present day: De la particula je o xe. Esta particula je o xe sirve para todo el cuerpo, assi como: Xararajeni vel xararaxeni, tener delectacion o alteracion de carne en todo el cuerpo. Tzepumbajeni, lo mesmo. Variuarimajeni, tener muerto todo el cuerpo como de cançançio o enfermedad.

Y assi se pone la Cs vel X sola tras el adverbio para denotar tercera persona del Plu. (Lagunas 1983[1574]:64) [And so the Cs or X comes only after the adverb to denote the third person Plu. 33 (Lagunas 1983[1574]:40).

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Cururaxeni, alterarse todo el cuerpo con ira. Tzitzijeni, ser hermoso de cuerpo. (Gilberti 1987[1558]:245) [On the particle je o xe. This particle je o xe is used for the entire body, as in: Xararajeni or xararaxeni 'to experience delight or alterations of the flesh in the entire body'. Tzepumbajeni, the same. Variuarimajeni 'to have the whole body dead', as from fatigue or illness. Cururaxeni 'to alter the entire body due to anger'. Tzitzijeni 'to be beautiful of body'.]

7. Phonological and morphophonological processes The figures of speech are another of Lagunas' topics of study. He enumer­ ates them by giving us their definition and exemplifying them with Tarascan words: ... Prothesis que es quando se añade al principio letra o syllaba, vt; Cuecani por Vecani ... Epenthesis quando se añade en el medio letra o syllaba como en Eca, esca vel Hurhasca por Hurhaca ... Paragoge quando se añade letra o syllaba en el fin de la diction, vt; Hiquinis pro Hiquini ... Apheresis quando se quita algo del principio de la diction, vt; Marhani, id est Refunfuñar, por Amarhani. Vinani por Auinani. ... Syncopa quando se quita algo del medio, vt; Tharencha, Cutsimencha, Yurhitsquecha, Vuacha por Tharhepeti echa, Cutsimeti echa, Yurhitsqueri echa, Vuatsiecha ... Apocope quando se quita algo del fin de la diction, vt; Am por Ambe. Thirenstan por Thirenstani. Ta, Na por Tata, Nana. (Lagunas 1983[1574]:118-119) [... Prothesis which is when a letter or syllable is added at the beginning of a word; Cuecani for Vecani ... Epenthesis, when a letter or syllable is added in the middle, as in Eca, esca or Hurhasca for Hurhaca ... Paragoge, when a letter or syllable is added to the end of the diction, for example: Hiquinis for Hiquini ... Aphesis, when something is lost at the beginning of the diction, for example: Marhani, that is, 'To grumble', for Amarhani. Vinani for Auinani. ... Syncope, when something is cut out of the middle of the word, for example: Tharencha, Cutsimencha, Yurhitsquecha, Vuacha for Tharhepeti echa, Cutsimeti echa, Yurhitsqueri echa, Vuatsiecha ... Apocope, when something is removed from the end of the word, as for example in: Am for Ambe. Thirenstan for Thirenstani. Ta, Na for Tata, Nana.]

With respect to these figures, Lagunas bases his approach on various classical authors of poetry and oratory, as he indicates when he writes: se puede provar libro 7 aña[dido] Lucreti; libro 1, 2 y 5 Persi Saty[rarum]; pi[mero] Pli[nii] Iuni[oris]. (Lagunas 2002[1574]:172)

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[as can be checked in book 7 added Lucretius; book 1, 2 and 5 Persi Satyrarum; first Pliny Iunioris] It is clear in these figures of speech that Lagunas thought there was a base form upon which processes of phonic loss or insertion were applied, resulting in the words as they were really pronounced by the speakers. Lagunas says, Noten que son seys [figuras] las que en alguna manera no las dexan estar en su forma legitima (Lagunas 1983[1574]:118) [Note that there are six [figures] that in some way are not allowed to remain in their legitimate form]. This conception leads him to undertake a constant search for a possible base form whose pronunciation is modified as a result of the application of a rule as, for example, in the modern identification of clitic -s that Lagunas derives from the adverb 'ys' when the context is that of a pronoun (hy T , thureni 'you to me', ynde 'that one'): Por quanto este adverbio Ys quiere dezir ansi o desta manera, y algunas vezes sirve por todo el adverbio y aun tambien es señal de amor o recordacion de algo al fin de algun pronombre demostrativo que sea nominativo y le haze significar ser el propio el que hizo o dixo algo, vt: Hys nipihca Echero, id est Yo mismo soy el que fui a Mexico. Y si es oblico paciente le haze significar ser el que o a quien se hizo o dixo algo, vt: Thurenis hurhendaca, id est Yo soy propio a quien tu enseñaste. Yndes nipihti phazquarho, Aquel propio es el que fue aPazquaro. (Lagunas 1983[1574]:99) [As the adverb Ys means 'thus' or 'in this way', and sometimes serves for the whole adverb and is also a sign of love or of the memory of something when it appears at the end of a nominative demonstrative pronoun making it mean that one did or said something oneself, for example: Hys nipihca Echero, that is, 'I myself am the one that went to Mexico'. And if it is oblique patient it means the person or thing to which something is done or said, for example: Thurenis hurhendaca, that is, 'I myself am the one you taught'. Yndes nipihti phazquarho 'That person is the one that went to Patzcuaro'.] The identification of -s as "meaning the same one who did or said some­ thing", associated with the adverb 'ys' is analyzed as the result of the conditioning context or in the following word: Y tambien es muy linda elegancia la S y quasi general, puesta entre la final vocal de una diction quando la que se sigue comiença aspirada o en y, ypsilon, vt: Hyquinis hurhendahaca, Yo propio soy el que te enseño. (Lagunas 1983[ 1574] :98-99) [And also of great elegance is the S and quasi-general, placed between the last vowel of a diction when the next one begins with an aspirate or y, ypsilon, for example: Hyquinis hurhendahaca 'It is I myself who is teaching you'.]

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In most cases, the analysis sustained on a base form obscures the reality of the language; for example in the case of the clitic -s, mentioned above, or the reference to said clitic in the figure of the paragoge, where Lagunas states that a letter is added to the end of the diction in 'Hiquinis', thus giving the impression that the 'hiquini' form cannot stand on its own or is an alternative that implies no change in meaning. In only a few cases does he illustrate rather than explain the phonological or morphophonological processes of the language; for example, the syncope mentioned in the quotation illustrates the process of fusing the plural 'echa' with the noun and the resulting loss of the noun's final vowel. 8. Style of presentation As we have seen in several quotations, the presentation of phonological aspects in the Artes of both friars is supported by contrasting examples, either in columns that permit a rapid visualization of differences, or in sequential form, in which the counterposed examples were usually separated by a Latin conjunc-tion. This type of paradigm is the most common one, as can be seen in the presentation of free and conditioned variation, or spelling variations, and in the contrasts of stress and consonants and homophony cited above. There are, however, continuous paradigms in which the grammatical com­ mentary constitutes a non-explanatory affirmation, because the contrasts them­ selves illustrate, and allow us to deduce, the related grammatical rule as, we suppose, was the author's intention: Ay otra manera de phrasis o ornato en esta lengua que es trocando algunas consonantes por otras... Exemplo de d por h: hundi por hurahati, ahandi por arahati. (Gilberti 1987[1558]: 216-217) [There is another manner of expression or embellishment in this language based on changing some consonants for others....Example of 'd' for 'h': hundi for hurahati, ahandi for arahati.]

This tactic is utilized when the author considers a base form from which a shorter word is deduced. 9. Conclusion The Spanish conquest is inseparable from the counter-reformation and the convertion of a new population of speakers of languages unknown to Euro­ peans. The franciscan order was the first to arrive to conquered land. In New Spain, in what is now known as the state of Michoacan, the friars Matutino Gilberti and Juan Baptista de Lagunas dedicated part of their energies to elaborate Artes with the purpose of establishing an orthographic system for the

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representation of Tarascan and its grammar. Their phonetic and phonological descriptions are partially different. As we have seen Lagunas was more accurate in perceiving and registering most of the sounds of Tarascan while Gilberti showed a lesser capacity of perception: for instance he failed to register the aspirated oclusive [ph] and [kh] and the simple trilled retroflex This however, does not mean that he lacked knowledge of the principles of phonological description. As we have seen, he carefully describes the position of the tongue with respect to teeth and palate, and the expelling of the air and muscular relaxation in his attempt to convey the articulation of the four affricates Knowledge of graphic conventions in other languages such as Greek most probably allowed Gilberti to use for while as we have mentioned for the four affricates of Tarascan he provided a detailed explanation of their articulation as well as selected graphs and to justify the creation of new graphs and . Furthermore he used to represent the aspiration. Lagunas in turn showed an open mindedness with respect to the biunivocal principle of correspondance between sound and letter held at the time by grammarians. He allowed himself to take from Greek the letter and associate it with a different sound, while , also from Greek, was preserved for the same sound as in Greek. Furthermore he observed that the new graphs created to represent Tarascan sounds contained as in , he concluded that, on such basis, should be used as a means to create new conventions, and thus he established for the retroflex tap. The influence of Spanish in the perceptive capacity of the friars resulted in the systematic registration of the Tarascan allophones [b, d, g], however the more the friars acquired a mastery of the language the less were they able to remember to write and sometimes are, though seldom, registered. Also the sounds represented by and were taken for granted by both friars on the basis undoubtedly of Spanish speech. Latin was the language of most influence, mainly because grammar was equated with Latin grammar. The letters associated to the sounds were con­ sidered by Lagunas as identical to the ones described by Martianus Capella who lived in the 4th-5th century. Processes, phonological and morphophonological, as well as contrasts, conditioned sounds and free variation were all treated for Tarascan. Lagunas further reconstructed what he assumed was the base form of a root or word to explain the processes observed. The Latin grammars' form of presentation undoubtedly influenced the Tarascan Artes as can be seen in the order of presentation of the parts of speech and the use of paradigms in sequence or in column to illustrate the analysis or

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to imply from such contrast the intended analysis. The Artes that these friars have bequeathed, are, as is made evident in this paper, a rich source of knowledge for the understanding of 16th century Taras­ can. And even shed insights into 16th Spanish phonology. REFERENCES A. Primary sources Anonymous. 1977[1555]. Vtil y breve institvcion para aprender los principios y fundamentos de la lengua Hespañola. Lovaina: Bartholome Gravio. Ed. de Antonio Roldán. Madrid: Consejo Superior de Investigaciones Científicas. Anonymous. 1977[1541]. Relation de las ceremonias y ritos y poblacion y gobierno de los indios de la provincia de Michoacan. Transcripcion de Jose Tudela, estudio preliminar de Jose Corona Núñez. Morelia, Michoacan: Balsas Editores. Covarrubias, Sebastian de. 1998[1611]. Tesoro de la lengua castellana o española ed. by Martín de Riquer. Barcelona: Alta Fulla. Gilberti, Matutino. 1987[1558] Arte de la lengua de Michuacan compilada por el muy Reverendo padre fray Maturino Gylberti, de la orden del Seraphico padre sant Francisco, de regular observancia. Año de 1558. Introduccion historica con apendice documental y preparacion fotografica del texto por, J. Benedict Warren. Morelia, Michoacan: Fimax Publicistas Editores. Gilberti, Maturino. 2004[1559]. Thesoro spiritual en lengua de Mechuacan. Mexico: Juan Pablos impresor. Presentacion y transcripcion de Pedro Marquez Joaquín. Zamora, Michoacan: El Colegio de Michoacan. Gilberti, Maturino. 1559. Dialogo de doctrina christiana en lengua de Mechuacan. Mexico: Juan Pablos impresor. Gilberti, Maturino. 1997[1559] Vocabulario en Lengua de Mechuacan. Mexico: Juan Pablos impresor. Introduccion y transcripcion de Agustín Jacinto Zavala. Zamora, Michoacan: El Colegio de Michoacan. Gilberti, Maturino. 2003[1559] Grammatica Maturini. Mexico: Antonio de Espinosa. Introduccion, edicion, traduccion y notas de Rosa Lucas Gonzalez. 2 Vols. Zamora, Michoacan: El Colegio de Michoacan. Gilberti, Maturino. 1575. Thesoro espiritual de pobres. Mexico: Antonio de Espinosa. Lagunas, Juan Baptista de. 1983[1574] Arte y Dictionario: con otras obras, en lengua Michuacana. Co[m]puesto por el muy R.P Fray Iuan Baptista de Lagunas, Praedicador, Guardian de Sanct Francisco, de la ciudad de Guayangareo, y Diffinidor de la prouincia de Mechuacan, y de Xalisco. Mexico: Casa Pedro Balli. Introduccion historica con apendice documental y preparacion fotografica del texto por, J. Benedict Warren. Morelia, Michoacan: Fimax Publicistas Editores. Also the first part published in 2002 under the title Arte en

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lengua Michuacana. Transcripcion por Agustín Jacinto Zavala, revision del texto por Benedict Warren. Zamora, Michoacan: Fondo Teixidor & El Colegio de Michoacan. Nebrija, Antonio de. 1984[1492]. Gramatica de la lengua castellana. Estudio y edicion de Antonio Quilis. Madrid: Editorial Nacional. Nebrija, Antonio de. 1981 [1481]. Introductiones Latinae. Edicion facsimilar. Salamanca: Universidad de Salamanca. Nebrija, Antonio de. 1540. Introductiones Latinae. Garnatam [sic] Quintiliano, Marco Fabio. 1997[ca. 95]. Institutionis Oratoriae. Traduccion y comentarios de Alfonso Ortega Carmona. Salamanca: Publicaciones Universidad Pontificia & Salamanca & Caja Salamanca. B. Secondary sources Alonso, Amado. 1955. De la pronunciacion medieval a la moderna en español. Madrid: Gredos. Alonso, Amado. 1992. "Examen de las noticias de Nebrija sobre antigua pronunciacion española". Estudios Nebrisenses ed. by Manuel Alvar, 159259. Madrid: Ediciones de Cultura Hispanica. Arias alvarez, Beatriz & Gloria Estela Baez. 1996. "Reconstruccion del siste­ ma de sibilantes del español a traves de la transliteracion de nahuatlismos". Estudios de Lingüística Aplicada 23/24:16-28. Errandonea, Ing. SJ. 1945. "¿Erasmo o Nebrija?" Revista de Filología Española 29:65-96. Frago García, Juan Antonio. 1994. Andaluz y español de America: historia de un parentesco lingüístico. Sevilla: Junta de Andalucía. Frago García, Juan Antonio. 1999. Historia del español de America. Madrid: Gredos. Lapesa, Rafael. 1997. Historia de la lengua española. Madrid: Gredos. Lucas Gonzalez, Rosa. 2003. "Edicion, traduccion y notas". Matutino Gilberti (1559). Monzon, Cristina. 1997. "La influencia de Nebrija en la gramatica p'urhepecha de Gilberti". Ignacio Guzmán Betancourt y Eréndira Nansen Díaz (eds.). Memoria del Coloquio La obra de Antonio de Nebrija y su Recepcion en la Nueva España, 107-119. Mexico: Instituto Nacional de Antropología e Historia. Monzon, Cristina. 1999. "Innovations in a Vernacular Grammar: a Comparison of Fray Maturino Gilberti's Latin and Tarascan Grammars". David Cram, Andrew Linn and Elke Nowak (eds.). History of Linguistics 1996: Papers from the Seventh International Conference on the History of the Language Sciences. Oxford, 12-17 September 1996. Vol 1.145-154. Amsterdam & Philadelphia: John Benjamins. Padley, G.A. 1985. Grammatical Theory in Western Europe 1500-1700:

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Trends in Vernacular Grammar I Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. Parodi, Claudia. 1995. Orígenes del español americano. Mexico: Universidad Nacional Autonoma de Mexico. Quilis, Antonio. 1984. "Estudio y edicion". Antonio de Nebrija (1492), 9-92. Warren, J. Benedict. 1983. "Introduccion historica con apendice documental". Juan Baptista de Lagunas (1574), XI-XXIII Warren, J. Benedict and Cristina Monzon. 2004[1549]. "Carta de los principales de Patzcuaro al obispo Vasco de Quiroga, 10 de marzo de 1549." (=Archivo general de Indias, ramo de justicia, legajo 33.) Introduccion de Benedict Warren y Cristina Monzon. Relaciones, Estudios de historia y sociedad. n°99.177-212.

LA REPRESENTACIÓN ESCRITURAL DEL MAYA DE YUCATaN DESDE LA ePOCA PREHISPÁNICA HASTA LA COLONIA PROYECCIONES HACIA EL SIGLO XXI

RAMoN ARZaPALO MARÍN Universidad Nacional Autonoma de Mexico / Universidad Autonoma de Yucatan

ABSTRACT One very important aspect of the Mayas of the Yucatan Peninsula, emphasised in this paper, is the fact that since pre-Hispanic times they had written records with lasting information on their mathematical, chronological, medical and historical knowledge and experience. These people have left us beautiful literary pieces and narratives, which bear witness to the high degree of linguistic and literary knowledge they possessed. Shortly after the Conquest, the Mayas were persecuted, and the use of their native writing was prohibited, since this was considered by the missionaries as an expression of paganism and a certain means of communicating with the devil. A ciphered message found in the Chilam Balam of Chumayel, a document of the utmost importance for the culture and history of these people, presents not only a case of resistance toward acculturation during the initiai smashing process of cultural destruction, but offers in a coded manner a clear example of their writing system. The Europeans adequately adapted the Latin alphabet to the phonology of the Mayan language and used it to substitute the old writing system. We analyse this policy in terms of its convenience and efficiency for the religious purposes of the missionaries; at the same time, we study the negative consequences of the policy for the development of the ethnic group.

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1. Introduccion El objetivo de la presente exposicion es el de señalar los principales factores sociolingüísticos que han intervenido para la conformacion y posterior evolucion del sistema escritural de los mayas de Yucatan. Se analizan por lo tanto, las diver­ sas estructuras sígnicas empleadas para el registro documental de su historia y se presentan los cambios tanto violentos como graduales para cuestionar el grado de persistencia o de cambio en su sistema de escritura, íntimamente ligado a la per­ cepcion de su entorno social. El acercamiento es semiotico, entendido este como teoría de los signos (Sebeok 1986) y la perspectiva de analisis es diacronica. De esta manera, tendremos un panorama general del desarrollo que ha tenido la compleja escritura de este grupo humano, desde la epoca prehispanica hasta nuestros días, pasando por el abrupto cambio sufrido durante el primer contacto con los europeos en el Siglo XVI. El alfabeto que el obispo Diego de Landa (1521-1579) intento ofrecernos resulta ser un claro ejemplo de la mentalidad misionera de la epoca; demostramos por lo tanto, las bases etnocentricas de su metodo; mas adelante se corroboran los principios logo- e ideograficos y, a menudo fraseo-graficos, presentes en el texto cifrado del Chilam Balam de Chumayel (ver p. 103). Los grandes aciertos de los misioneros en el ambito del alfabeto empleado para transcribir el maya con bases escriturales latinas sin embargo, van quedando en el olvido. De ahí, la pertinencia de nuestro Cuadro Comparativo de Alfabetos (ver p. 101). Basta con comparar la habil y economica REPRESENTACIÓN del sonido africado alveolar glotalizado, a traves de la "c" invertida /  / durante la Colonia y la subsecuente proliferacion de grafías que la vinieron a sustituir: para indicar la glotalidad. 18 Citamos por la edicion de 1700, con las correcciones de Juan de Figueredo.

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sibilantes: "Todos los vocablos, que al sonido escribieramos con dos SS, o Z, se han de escrebir con ç y virulilla [sic], V.g. çiça. La flor, çaccmani. Amoxiconear, çiqquini Arrancar" (f. 82r), haciendose cargo, creemos que en buena opcion, de la oposicion quechua entre sibilantes.19 Respecto a las oclusivas describe los siguientes sonidos, a los que hacemos anteceder las letras que los representan ortograficamente: Normales: C /k/ Q(ui) IkJ

caru "lejos" quiru "diente"

P T

/p/ /t/

puncu "puerta" tuta "noche"

Modificados: CC /q/ CHH /chV QQ(ue) /q7 TT /tV

ccasa "hielo" chhahuani "ordeñar" qquencorini "rodear" ttanta "pan"

KC PP QQ(ui) TH

/k'/ /p'/ /k'/ /th/

kcaçuscca "corrupta" ppacha "ropa" qquiçuni "raer" thuta "carcoma"

A efectos del latín y de la ortografía castellana que hereda los modos de escritura latinos, distingue a la manera de TR los sonidos de