Defining the problem Looking at Huichol Conclusions

Huichol (Wixárika) Word AccentTypology, Interactions, and Implications

Robin Banerji

Haverford College

April 18, 2015

Robin Banerji Haverford College

Huichol (Wixárika) Word Accent

Defining the problem Looking at Huichol Conclusions

1 Defining the problemWhat we knowModelling tone-stress interactions

2 Looking at HuicholPreliminariesData

3 Conclusions

Robin Banerji Haverford College

Huichol (Wixárika) Word Accent

Defining the problem Looking at Huichol Conclusions

What we know

Stress languages

We know how languages like English and Bengali work:

(1) a. (σ́)(Pàw)(túcket)

b. (σ́σ)(Mı̀ssis)(śıppi)

c. ((σ́σ) σ)((Chéro)(kee)) (Selkirk 1980)

(2) rájarking.gen

chóbirpicture.gen

jónnofor

tákamoney

‘money for the king’s pictures’ (Truckenbrodt 2002)

Robin Banerji Haverford College

Huichol (Wixárika) Word Accent

Defining the problem Looking at Huichol Conclusions

What we know

Tone languages

We know how languages like Yòrúbà work:

(3) a. d́ı‘to block’

b. di‘to become’

c. d̀ı‘to tie’

(4) a. awó‘guinea fowl’

b. awo‘secret’

c. awò‘eyeglasses’

d. àwo‘plate’

(Courtenay 1971)

Robin Banerji Haverford College

Huichol (Wixárika) Word Accent

Defining the problem Looking at Huichol Conclusions

What we know

. . . Other languages

But what about a language like Japanese, with both tone andstress?

(5) a. mákura ga ‘pillow.nom’b. kokóro ga ‘heart.nom’c. atamá ga ‘head.nom’d. sakana ga ‘fish.nom’ (Hyman 2009)

Robin Banerji Haverford College

Huichol (Wixárika) Word Accent

Defining the problem Looking at Huichol Conclusions

Modelling tone-stress interactions

Three models

Currently, three major theoretical frameworks are prevalent in thestudy of prosody:

Isolation of tone and stress as independent phenomena(Inkelas and Zec 1988, among others). This approach is alsotaken in the pioneering work of Grimes (1959) in Huicholphonology.

The “property-driven” approach (Hyman 2006; 2009;2014), highly descriptive and considering each language’sstress and tone systems as self-contained, with a list ofdefinable properties.

The “accentual” approach, which posits an underlyingmark of prominence on certain syllables (Abercrombie 1976;van der Hulst 2014).

Robin Banerji Haverford College

Huichol (Wixárika) Word Accent

Defining the problem Looking at Huichol Conclusions

Modelling tone-stress interactions

The accentual approach

Bears out the possibility of different phonetic andphonological effects of “prominence” in different languages.

Tokyo Japanese accented syllables are realized with a HLcontour docking to a single unpredictable, lexically underlyingsyllable in each word as seen in (5)

Also accounts for English and Bengali observations

Robin Banerji Haverford College

Huichol (Wixárika) Word Accent

Defining the problem Looking at Huichol Conclusions

Preliminaries

Contextual background

Uto-Aztecan, about 44,788speakers (INEGI 2010)

Most recent previous work inHuichol tone, prosody, andintonation: Grimes (1959)

Posits 4 level tones4-way tonal contrast isonly realized in thenucleus of thephonological phrase; 2can be realized onnon-nuclear syllables

Figure 1: Location of the Huicholhomeland in Mexico

Robin Banerji Haverford College

Huichol (Wixárika) Word Accent

Defining the problem Looking at Huichol Conclusions

Preliminaries

Methodology

7 days of fieldwork withHuichol-speakingconsultants in Mexico City

Words elicited in isolation bylexical category

Data recorded ashigh-quality audio recordings Figure 2: Elicitation with Estrella, a

Huichol speaker living in Mexico City

Robin Banerji Haverford College

Huichol (Wixárika) Word Accent

Defining the problem Looking at Huichol Conclusions

Data

Data

Huichol words have noticeable higher pitch on one syllable perelicited word

3 minimal pairs in the data:

(6) a. tàmétooth‘tooth’

b. támè1pl‘we’

(7) a. nèPénàhear.1sg‘I hear’

b. nèPènáhear.1sg.fut‘I will hear’

(8) a. nàkáear‘ear’

b.nákà(vulgar)

(Carrillo and Banerji 2014)

Robin Banerji Haverford College

Huichol (Wixárika) Word Accent

Defining the problem Looking at Huichol Conclusions

Data

Paring apart (8)

(9) wàkár̀1cf. Spanish /"Baka/ vaca‘cow’

(10) kàpúràcf. Spanish /"kabRa/ cabra‘goat’

(Carrillo and Banerji 2014)

Robin Banerji Haverford College

Huichol (Wixárika) Word Accent

Defining the problem Looking at Huichol Conclusions

Summary of main findings

Huichol is a word-accent language, where the correlate ofaccent is H tone

Accent in Huichol is obligatory and culminative

The mora is Huichol’s minimal prosodic domain and thetone-bearing unit

Like in English (Selkirk 1980), there are two classes of affixesin Huichol:

Type I preserves the accentual structure of the root word,deletes accent on affixType II preserves the accentual structure of the affix, deletesaccent on root word

Robin Banerji Haverford College

Huichol (Wixárika) Word Accent

Defining the problem Looking at Huichol Conclusions

Thank you!

Thanks also to:

My language teachers

Haverford College

The Center for Peace and Global CitizenshipThe Hurford Humanities CenterDr. Brook Danielle LillehaugenThe Tri-College Department of Linguistics

Universidad Nacional Autónoma de México

Dr. Francisco Arellanes ArellanesDr. Lilián Guerrero

Cornell University

Danielle Burgess and the UnderLings

Robin Banerji Haverford College

Huichol (Wixárika) Word Accent

Defining the problem Looking at Huichol Conclusions

References

Abercrombie, David. 1976. Stress and some other terms. Work in Progress 9: 51–53.Carrillo Robles, Diego, and Robindra Nath Banerji. 2014. Audio recordings of spoken Huichol.Courtenay, Karen. 1971. Yoruba: A ‘terraced-level’ language with three tonemes. Studies in African Linguistics

2(3): 239.Grimes, Joseph E. 1959. Huichol tone and intonation. International Journal of American Linguistics, 221–232.Hulst, Harry G. van der. 2014. The study of word accent and stress: Past, present, and future. Word Stress:

Theoretical and typological issues: 3–55. Cambridge University Press.Hyman, Larry M. 2006. Word-prosodic typology. Phonology, 23(02): 225–257.Hyman, Larry M. 2009. How (not) to do phonological typology: the case of pitch accent. Language Sciences,

31(2): 213–238.Hyman, Larry M. 2014. Do all languages have word accent?. Word Stress: Theoretical and typological issues:

56–82. Cambridge University Press.2010. Lenguas ind́ıgenas en México y hablantes (de 5 años y más) al 2010. INEGI. [URL]Inkelas, Sharon and Draga Zec. 1988. Serbo-Croatian pitch accent: the interaction of tone, stress, and intonation.

Language 64. 227–248.Iturrioz Leza, José Luis, Julio Raḿırez de la Cruz, and Gabriel Pacheco Salvador. 1999. Gramática didáctica del

huichol: Vol. I. Estructura Fonológica y Sistema de Escritura. Función: 19–20. Universidad de Guadalajara.de Lacy, Paul. (1999). Tone and prominence. Rutgers Optimality Archive: 333.Selkirk, Elisabeth O. 1980. The role of prosodic categories in English word stress. Linguistic inquiry : 563–605.Truckenbrodt, Hubert. 2002. Variation in p-phrasing in Bengali. Linguistic Variation Yearbook 2(1): 259–303.

For a complete bibliography, contact the author at rbanerji@haverford.edu

Robin Banerji Haverford College

Huichol (Wixárika) Word Accent

http://cuentame.inegi.org.mx/hipertexto/todas_lenguas.htmmailto:rbanerji@haverford.edu

Defining the problemWhat we knowModelling tone-stress interactions

Looking at HuicholPreliminariesData

Conclusions