Myriam Lapierre (University of Washington) will give an in-person colloquium.
Two types of [NT]s in Panãra: Implications for the native speaker and scientific communities
This talk provides articulatory and perceptual phonetic data on Panãra (ISO code: kre), a Northern Jê language of Central Brazil, supporting the existence of a previously undocumented phonological distinction. Maddieson & Ladefoged (1993) note that, while partially nasalized stops are sometimes described as post-oralized nasals and sometimes as pre-nasalized stops, they should have the same phonological representation, as “we know of no language in which these two classes of sounds contrast with each other.” Panãra exhibits a distinction between exactly these two types of [NT] sequences, which arise from two distinct phonological processes, namely (1) post-oralization of underlying nasal consonants [NT], and (2) pre-nasalization of underlying oral obstruents [NT] (Redacted, under review). These [NT]s contrast in surface sequences of the type [ṼNTV], such as in the minimal pair /kjã-ɲi/ → [kjãnsi] ‘big head’ vs. /kjã+si/ → [kjãnsi] ‘skull.’
(1) /m, n, ɲ, ŋ/ → [mp, nt, ns, ŋk] / __ V (2) /p, t, s, k/ → [mp, nt, ns, ŋk] / Ṽ __
I discuss the consequences of these findings for the scientific and native speaker communities. On the one hand, I argue that the pattern cannot be captured with the traditional concept of a segment, and that it requires a decomposition of the segment into temporally-defined subsegmental units, such as those afforded by Q Theory (e.g. Shih & Inkelas 2019, Lapierre 2023). On the other hand, I show how the distinction between the two types of [NT]s was incorporated into a new orthography of the language during a series of literacy workshops held between 2015 and 2024. This new writing system better aligns with native speaker intuitions and, as a result, literacy rates among the Panãra have increased substantially over the last few years.