Texistepec language

Texistepec
Wää 'oot
Native to	Mexico
Region	Vera Cruz
Native speakers	100 (2007)
Language family	Mixe–Zoquean Zoquean Gulf Zoquean Texistepec
Language codes
ISO 639-3	poq
ELP	Texistepec

Texistepec, commonly called ether Texistepec Popoluca or Texistepec Zoque, is a Mixe–Zoquean language of the Zoquean branch spoken by around 400 indigenous Popoluca people in and around the town of Texistepec in Southern Veracruz, Mexico.

Within the Mixe–Zoquean family, Texistepec Popoluca is most closely related to Sierra Popoluca.

Texistepec Popoluca has been documented primarily in work by Søren Wichmann, a Danish anthropological and historical linguist and Ehren Reilly, a former graduate student at Johns Hopkins University. Reilly's work was a part of the larger Project for the Documentation of the Languages of Mesoamerica, under the leadership of the University of Pittsburgh's Terrence Kaufman, and contributed to Kaufman's project of deciphering Epi-Olmec writing.

Less than 100 native speakers of Texistepec Popoluca remained when Søren Wichmann, Ehren Reilly, and Terrence Kaufman conducted their research between 1990 and 2002, and the language was moribund, with no new speakers acquiring the language natively, due to the prevalence of Spanish. Today, all remaining speakers, are elderly, if any survive at all. However, according to a publication from the Program of Revitalization, Strengthening, and Development of the Languages of the Indigenous Nationals, there was a recorded 238 speakers in Vercruz, Mexico INARI

Phonology

The phonemes /l/ and /r/ do not occur natively within the Texistepec language. These two phonemes are borrowed from Spanish phonology and have become integrated into Texistepec phonology (Reilly).

Consonants

Bilabials: stop- /p/, /b/ -nasal- /m/ Alveolar: stop- /t/, /d/ /dʲ/ -nasal- /n/ -lateral, trill- /l/, /r/ Palatal: nasal- /ɲ/ -affricates- /t͡s/ -fricatives-/s/ Velar: stop- /k/ -velar- /ɳ/ Glottal: stop- /ʔ/ -fricatives- /h/

	Bilabial	Alveolar	Palatal	Velar	Glottal
Stop	/p/,  /b/	/t/,  /d/   /dʲ/		/k/	/ʔ/
Nasal	/m/	/n/	/ɲ/	/ɳ/
Lateral, Trill		/l/,  /r/
Affricates		/t͡s/	/t͡ʃ
Fricatives		/s/	/ʃ/		/h/

Vowels

Vowels ɨ, u, ɛ, ɔ, a

Vowels	Front	Central	Back
High		/ɨ/	/u/
Mid-low	/ɛ/		/ɔ/
Low			/a/

Vowel Phonemes

Underspecified	ɛ	ɨ	a	u	o
high		+		+
back			+
round				+	+

Fully Specified	ɛ	ɨ	a	u	o
high	-	+	-	+	-
back	-	+	+	+	+
round	-	-	-	+	+

“Long and short vowels are also contrastive in lexical representations as is evident from the following minimal pair:

t͡ʃɛːɲ ‘honey’

t͡ʃɛɲ ‘shit’

(Reilly 2002, 11)

Morphology

Morpho-Phonological Alterations

Second Person: palatal glide and nasal autosegment

(17)	'key'	'candle'	'bean'	'go'	'honey'
UR:	Nj-jaːpɛʔ	Nj-daj	Nj-sɨk	Nj-dɨk	Nj-t͡ʃ_ːɲ
Metathesis	Njjaːpɛʔ	Ndjaj	Nsjɨk	Ndjɨk	Nj-t͡ʃ_ːɲ
Palatalization	Ndjaːpɛʔ	Ndjaj	Nʃjik	Ndjik	Nt͡ʃj_ːɲ
N-Spreading	ɲaːpɛʔ	ɲjaj	ʒjik	ɲjik	nd͡ʒj_ːɲ
Relinking	—	—	—	—	nd͡ʒjːŋ
j-Deletion	—	—	ʒik	ɲik	—
Peak Filter	—	—	—	—	nd͡ʒiːɲ
SR	ɲaːpɛʔ	ɲjaj	ʒik	ɲik	nd͡ʒiːɲ

“This inventory distinguishes nasal stops /m/ and /n/ from oral stops /b/ and /d/, respectively…/d/ and /b/ occur in complementary distribution with /n/ and /m/, with the oral stops appearing in onsets and the nasals appearing in the codas” (Reilly 2002, 18).

Template:Multicol Nasalization Processes
X. /^N-b/ → [m]

/^N-d/ → [n]

Y. /^N-p/ → [m͡b]

/^N-t/ → [n͡d]

/^N-k/ → [n͡g]

/^N-{ʔ,h}V/ → [{ʔ,h} Ṽ]

/^N-{w,j}V/ → [{w̃, j̃}Ṽ]

/^N-{s, ʃ}/ → [{z, ʒ}]

Template:Multicol-break Palatalization Processes
A. /j-Ci/ → [Ci],/Ci/ → [Cɛ] elsewhere

B. /j-Cɨ/ → [Ci]

C. /j-s/ → [ʃ]

/j-t/ → [tʃ]

/j-d/ → [d^j]

D. /j-[-COR]/ → [Cj]
Template:Multicol-end (Reilly 2005)

Aspect Markers

“The use of a single marker... is sufficient to indicate the persons and grammatical functions... The GFM [Grammatical function morpheme] system in TEX [Texistepec Popoluca] always uses only a single prefix on a given verb.” This shows a more complex pattern than “simple accusative, ergative or aspect-split pattern”. ... ”Group X marks the A as Ergative but leaves P unmarked. Group Y marks the Past Absolutive but leaves the A unmarked. Group Z seems to be a separate and autonomous set. This pattern, where sometimes the P is marked and sometimes the A is marked, is called inverse alternation. (Reilly 2004, 53-54)"

The complete paradigm

Transitive			Intransitive
ERG/NOM			ERG/NOM		ABS
Group X	1/3	N-	1st Person	N-	k-
	1in/3	taN-	1st Person Exclusive	taN-	te-/ta-
	2/3	Nj-	2nd Person	Nj-	kj-
	3/3	j-	3rd Person	j-	Ø
ABS
Group Y	3/1	k-
	3/1in	te/ta-
Group Z	1/2	kN-
	2/1	kNj-

(Reilly 2004, 54)

Comparison of personal marker contrast between Texistepec Popoluca speakers and other Zoque languages:

A	Proto-Zoque	Sierra Popoluca	Texistepec Popoluca	San Miguel Chimal	Chiapas
1ex	*än-	an-	n-	‘än=	(ä) N-
1in	*tän-	tan-	ta=n-	dän, tän	ndä-
2	*min-	iñ-	ny-	‘äm=	(mi) N-
3	*äy-	i-	y-	‘äy=/’ äy	y-
B
1ex	*ä-	a-	k=	dä=	∅
1in	*tä-	ta-	ta	-	tä-
2	*mi-	mi-	k=y-	äm=, 3/2 mi=Ny-
3	*∅-	∅-	∅-	∅=	∅-
Local
1/2	*mi+än	mi+an > miñ	k=n-	mix=, mix+’än	N-
2/1	>*ä+in(ʔ)	a+iñ > an-	k=ny-	mix=	N-

(Wichmann 2004, 209)

Personal aspect markers

“Imperfective aspect is indicated by a proclitic ʔu, and Perfective aspect is indicated by a proclitic maʔ.” ... A third aspect functions very much like a future tense, indicated by a suffix –p(ɛʃ). (Reilly 2004, 36-37)”

“The cross-referencing of core arguments in Texistepec Popoluca employs a paradigm of affixes (Set A) and a paradigm of clitics (Set B).… Also, cross-referencing for first and second persons always aligns with the verb stem, often at the expense of any third person argument in the clause. This is known as “inverse alignment” (Klaiman 1993). In Texistepec Popoluca, inverse clauses … lack subject agreement. (Reilly 2004, 133)”

Subj → Obj (any asp’t)	Subj → Obj (any asp’t)	Subj (imperf.)	Subj (perf.,fut)
1 → 3 1st-A /N-/	3 → 1 1st-B /k+/	1 1st-A /N-/	1 1st-B /k+/
2 → 3 2nd-A /j-N-/	3 → 2 2nd-B /k+j-/	2 2nd-A /j-N-/	2 2nd-B /k+j-/
3 → 3 3rd-A /j-/		3 3rd-A /j-/	3 ∅
1 → 2 /k+N-/; 2 → 1 /k+jN-/ = portmanteau

Cross-referencing morphology for all possible argument structures (Reilly 2007, 1581)

Numbers

Once believed that native words for many numbers had been lost with the assimilation of Spanish, a little known word list compiled by Dr. Eustorjio Calderón in 1892 was lost for some time which now “provides comparative data for number systems used in Oluta, Sayula, and Texistepec, in southern Veracrus, Mexico. The data are surprisingly accurate, considereing that they were collected by a medical doctor who made a hobby of collecting world lists of little-known languages. (Clark 1982, 223)”

Numbers	Calderón’s notations	phonemic script	Clark's forms
1	tum	tum	tum
2	huisna	wisna	wɨsna'
3	tuguná	tuguná	túguna'
4	bacsná	baksná	báksna'
5	bosná	bosná	bósna'
6	tujná	tuhná	túhna'
7	huestujná	westuhná	wɨstúhna’
8	tugtujná	tuhtuhná	tuktúhna’
9	bacstujná	bakstuhná	bakstúhna’
10	bacná	bakná	bákna’
11	bactumná	baktumná	baktúmna’
12	bac’huisná	bakwisná	bakẃɨsna’
13	bactuguná	baktuguná	baktúguna’
14	bacbacsná	bakbaksná	bakbáksna’
15	bacbosná	bakbosná	(bakbósna’)
16	bactujná	baktuhná	(baktúhna’)
17	bac’huestujná	bakwestuhná	(bakwɨstúhna’)
18	bactujtujná	baktuhtuhná	(baktuhtúhna’)
19	bacbacstunjá	bakbakstuhná	(bakbakstúhna’)
20	ipxñá	ipšñá	é'pšña’
21	ipxtumná	ipštumná	(e'pštúmna')
30	ipxcomoc	ipškomok	(e'pškomak)
31	ipxcomoctumná	ipškomoktumná	(e'pškomaktúmna')
40	vusskipx	vuuskipš	(wɨske'pš)
50	vuuskipx comöc	vusskipškomɨk	(wɨske'pškomak)
60	tuguipx	tugu ipš	(tuguk'pš)
70	tuguipx comöc	tugu ipš komɨk	(tuguke'pškomak)
80	bac chipx	bak čipš	(bakské'pš)
90	bac chipx comöc	bak čipš komɨk	(bakske'pšbákna')
100	box	boš	boské'pš
400	bacsnabox	baksnaboš	baksnaboš
1,000	bacnabox	baknaboš	baknaboš

“Where I have not actually heard the forms but can reasonably reconstruct them from other data, these are included in the third column in parentheses. (Clark 1982, 225)”

References

INARI (Instituto Nacional de Lenguas Indígenas). 2009. Programa de Revitalización, Fortalecimiento y Desarrollo de las Lenguas Indígenas Nacionales 2008-2012.

Reilly, Ehren. 2002. A Survey of Texistepec Popoluca Verbal Morphology. Unpublished undergraduate thesis. Carleton College, Northfield, Minnesota

Reilly, Ehren. 2004. Promiscuous Paradigms and the Morphologically Conditioned "Ergative Split" in Texistepec Popoluca (Zoquean). Proceedings of Berkeley Linguistics Society 30, Special Session on the Morphology of Native American Languages. February; 127-138.

Reilly, Ehren. 2005. Choosing just the right amount of over-application: An acquisition puzzle in Texistepec Popoluca. In HUMDRUM Conference on Optimality Theory, University of Massachusetts, Amherst.

Reilly, Ehren. 2007. Morphological and phonological sources of split ergative agreement. 117: 1566-1590.

Wichmann, Søren. 1994. Underspecification in Texistepec Popoluca phonology. Acta Linguistica Hafniensia 27.2: 267-285.

Wichmann, Søren. 2004. La gramaticalización de un paradigma de auxiliares en popoluca de Texistepec. 2:205-220.