Phonology and Phonetics

Orthography

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Lacandon does have an orthography, and is based on Mayanist orthographic conventions. Two versions of the orthography were introduced to the Lacandon communities by Philip Baer and Robert Bruce. The one introduced by Bruce is employed in this documentation. It corresponds to Mayanist conventions except for the use of <h> instead of <j> for the glottal fricative. The charts below show the correspondences between Bruce's orthography and those of the American Phonetic Alphabet and the International Phonetic Alphabet. Vowel length is distinctive, although it is often not pronounced in the speech of Lacandones.

Lacandon Orthography	International Phonetic Alphabet	American Phonetic Alphabet
ʔ (7)	ʔ	ʔ
ts	ts	c
ch	ʧ	č
x	ʃ	š
y	j	y
ä	ə	ə

Consonants	Labial	Alveolar	Alveopalatal	Palatal	Velar	Glottal
Voiceless stops	p	t			k	ʔ
Voiced stops	b
Glottalized stops	p'	t'			k'
Voiceless affricates		ts	ch
Glottalized affricates		ts'	ch'
Voiceless fricatives		s	x			h
Nasals	m	n
Laterals		l
Approximants				y	w

Consonant Samples
Segment	Sample Word	English Gloss

Vowels	Front	Central	Back
High	i i:		u u:
Mid	e e:	ä	o o:
Low		a a:

Vowel Samples
Segment	Sample Word	English Gloss

Phonological Processes

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Phonological processes refer to both the phonetic variation of Lacandon phonemes and the morphophonemic alternations of these phonemes. These processes are seen in the course of word formation where morphemes are juxtaposed and when words appear in different positions in sentences.

Firm vs Soft glottal-initial roots

The basic shape of the Mayan word is CVC. No phonological words begin with a vowel. Hofling (2000:11-12) distinguishes "firm" glottal onsets, which do not delete when preceded by set A person markers, from other ("soft") glottal onsets, which appear as glides w or y when they occur with set A person markers. When these roots occur without a set A person marker they are preceded by a glottal onset.

Adopting this terminology, in Lacandon, the initial glottal onsets are soft in some words, e.g., 7im 'breast,' 7ich 'eye,' 7och 'food,' 7okót 'dance,' 7ok'úr 'drink,' 7áak'a7 'night.' The glottal onsets are hard in 7ulum 'turkey,' and 7ek' 'black.' There are other situations where this contrast is shown. For example, xik' 'wing' is presumably a derivation: (x- Instr.(?) +-ik' '-wind'.) If ik' were 7ik' the expected form would be x7ik'.

Loss and alternation of h and 7

7 and h are frequently lost word medially.

toan ~ towan /to7an/ dónde
baik ~ bayik /ba7ik/ cómo (Bruce 1968:35)

k'u.nah. templo (casa santo) but k'uh. dios
tu.me.ta.k'an /t-u men-t-ah k'an/ Hizo una hamaca. Compare: tu.me.tah./ t-u men-t-ah/ Lo hizo. (Bruce 1968:35)

Morphemes that end in glottal stop like -a7 passive may show the following alternations in word final position: -a7 ~ -ah ~ a. These shapes can be seen in the following examples:

bäha7. split (bäh. split)
häxah. Twisted (häx. twist)
kucha. Carried (kuch. Carry)

Assimilation and Dissimilation (Bruce 1968:36)

/m/ becomes /n/ before /s/, e.g., /tu kim-s-ah Juan Pedro/ [tu kin-s-ah Juan Pedro] 'he killed Juan Pedro' or /in kim-s-ik/ [in kin-s-ik] 'I am killing it.'

/n/ becomes /m/ before /b, p, p'/, e.g., /chan pek'/ [cham pek'] 'little dog,' /kin päkächtik/ [kim päkäxtik] 'I will make (my tortillas),' /kin butik ich lek/ [kim butik ich lek] 'I will fill up the plate.'

/k'/ occurs before front vowels /i, e/, and k' becomes [q'] elsewhere: o, u, a, ä, e.g., k'ik 'blood', k'ek'en 'wild pig', [q'ooch] 'neck, throat' [u q'ur ]'his drink,' and q'ak' 'fire,' [q'äp] 'hand.'

Glottal stops /p', t', k'/ occurring intervocalically (between vowels) often lose their ejective quality and become voiced, e.g., /k'ak-il'/ [k'agi] 'fire' /xok'-ol/ [xogo] 'close.'

/ch/ becomes x before /t, t', k, k'/, e.g., /hach tohäy/ [hash tohäy] 'it's true,' /ich kol/ [ish kor] 'in the milpa,' and /kin bin ich k'aash/ [kin bin ish k'ash] 'I will go into the forest.' (esp. k and k')

/ch/ becomes /t/ before/ x/, e.g., /hach xok'ol [hat xok'ol] 'very near.'

l~r alternation

In this analysis, /l/ is treated as basic, with [l] and [r] as allophones, because historically proto-Maya *r went to y in the languages of the western branch and was not replaced. Proto-Maya *l did not change (Campbell 1979:933.) In Lacandón, /l/occurs word-initially, e.g., lek 'plate,' looch 'scorpion.' When it occurs word-finally it is often lost or becomes [r], e.g., /in tsikbal/ [in tsikba, tsikbar] 'I speak, my talk/my recounting,' or is replaced by glottal fricative, e.g., u tal [u tah] 's/he/it comes.' When it occurs word-medially, it becomes a tap, /wilik/ [wiDik], e.g., 'to see it,' /tolok/ [toDok] 'lizard,' /xila/ [xiDa] 'man.'

l~n alternation

/l/ may becomes /n/ word-initally, e.g., le7 'leaf' becomes [ne7]

l~d alternation

/l/ may become [d] word-initally, e.g., lek 'plate' becomes [dek]

Phonetic Processes

Aspiration

/t, k, k'/ are strongly aspirated when they occur word-finally, e.g., /7awat/ [7awath] 'screech, scream,' /ch'ik/ [ch'ikh] 'thumb,' /lak'/ [lak'h] 'spouse.'

Labialization

Velar stops are often labialized when they precede and follow rounded vowels, e.g. /ne nuk/ [ne nukw] "very big", /yuk/ [yukw] "goat deer," /tolok/ [to.Dokw] "lizard" (cf.nuki winik [nu.ki.winik.) Labilalization may also occur when /u/ follows velars, e.g., /kuk/ [kwukw] "squirrel."

Palatalization

Velar /k, k'/ are often palatalized when they follow /i/, e.g., /ik'/ [ik'y] "wind," /xik'/ [xik'y] "wing."

Assimilation

/n/ becomes velar N when it occurs immediately before a velar, e.g., in k'ak' [iN q'ak'] "my fire." The sequence /n w/ becomes [Ngw], as in /tsoy in wol/ [tsoy iN gwor] "I am content," and /in wak/ [7iN gwak] "my tongue."

Spanish influences

/b/ is often pronounced [B] when it occurs intervocalic ally, e.g., /k'aba7/ [k'aBa7] "name," /chibal/ [chiBa] "mosquito."

/j/ is often pronounced [dz], e.g., /jan u nalil/ [dzan u naDi] "there is corn."

/f/ in Alfredo is pronounced as /p/ , since it is the closest approximation to /f/, which is not in the Lacandon consonantal inventory. Alfredo "a man's name" would be pronounced [7aD.pDé.Do].

Stress

Primary stress may fall on either the ultimate or penultimate syllable of a root. The alternation appears to be stylistic rather than phonemic, e.g., [péta7] 'lake', [7uDún] 'turkey', [tóDok] 'lizard', [äkná7] 'moon', [áak'a7] 'night'. In compounds, main stress tends to fall on the root of the second word, but it may also fall on both words, e.g., [hach.winik] 'true person', [lé.lóbi] 'leaf of a weed, bush', [lé.ché7] 'leaf (of a) tree.' In compounds that include the abstract suffix -il/-in, which conveys possession of a quality (Bruce 1968:65), both roots are stressed equally, e.g., pék-i(l)-k'áash Lit. 'dog of the forest', kán-i(l)-há7 Lit. 'snake of the water.'

Tone

Yucatec proper generally has a phonemic tonal distinction for long vowels (long high falling and long low). But the presence (or absence) of tone in Yucatecan languages depends on the dialect. Fisher (1973) and Fox (1978) discuss tone in Yucatec languages at some length. Both show with comparative data that Lacandón does not have the pitch contours found in Yucatec proper. However, it appears that tone does occur in some Lacandón dialects. A southern dialect spoken in San Quintin has tone (Canger 1970); another southern dialect spoken in Lacanhá may not--but could (Hofling, 2000, personal communication). Tone does not seem to be contrastive in the northern dialect spoken in Naha. Its presence serves stylistic rather than grammatical ends (Bruce 1968). Itzaj, a closely related Yucatecan language, does not have tone (Hofling 1998, 2000).