Vocales glotalizadas y aspiradas en el mazateco de San Lorenzo Cuaunecuiltitla

Abstract

Laryngealized vowels have been reported in Puebla Mazatec, specifically the variant spoken in San Lorenzo Cuaunecuiltitla (Carrera 2014). The present study confirms the existence of laryngealized vowels in this variant and suggests that they may be divided into two types: interrupted glottalized vowels (VʔV) and interrupted aspirated vowels (VhV). Such a proposal is supported by comparative linguistic, morphophonemic and acoustic phonetic evidence. This demonstrates that the analysis presented in this article is 1) typologically motivated, 2) provides an adequate description of the morphophonemic behavior of these vowels and 3) offers a more comprehensive account of laryngeal contrasts in the language.