TEPEUXILA CUICATEC

Facts
Sources of the data
Orthography
Verbal inflection
Inflectional classes by prefixes
Inflectional classes by tone

Facts

Cuicatec belongs to the Mixtecan branch of Oto-Manguean, together with the Mixtec languages and Triqui. Cuicatec has about 4,200 speakers and it can be subdivided into two main varieties – Tepeuxila Cuicatec and Teutila Cuicatec – with a high degree of mutual intelligibility exisiting between them. The data in this database come from the variety of Santa María Pápalo, a socio-linguistically significant dialect of Tepeuxila Cuicatec.

Sources of the data

Anderson, E. Richard and Hilario Concepción Roque. 1982. Diccionario Cuicateco: Español-Cuicateco, Cuicateco-Español. Mexico City: Instituto Lingüístico de Verano. Available online.

Orthography

We have respected the orthography used in the sources, except where indicated below:

IPA notation	Source notation	Our notation
Laryngeal	’V	ʔV
Nasal	Vn	–
k	c/__a,o,u	k
k	qu/__i,e	k
g	g/__a,o,u	g
g	gu/__i,e	g
kw	cu	ku
ʃ	x	ʃ
tʃ	ch	–
j	y	–
ɒ	a	–

Tone

Cuicatec is a very rich tonal language: it has four level tones and five contour tones.

Monosyllables
4	Very high	lʔin⁴	‘boy’
3	High	ndʔa³	‘worm’
2	Mid	gwan²	‘between’
1	Low	ka¹	‘clothes’
41	Very high > Low	den⁴¹	‘a little of’
31	High > Low	yan³¹	‘village’
23	Mid > High	min²³	‘there’
12	Low > Mid	ku¹²	‘metal’
312	High > Low > Mid	yen³¹²	‘foam’

Disyllables
4–3	dʔi⁴vʔa³	‘sparrow hawk’
4–1	lʔa⁴nda¹	‘flabby’
3–4	le³nge⁴	‘lame’
3–3	yu³ni³	‘path’
3–1	sa³ʔan¹	‘man’
2–3	kwa²ku³	‘straight’
2–2	ka²ka²	‘paper’
1–2	dʔu¹ni²	‘brains’
1–1	nda¹cha¹	‘seven’
3–31	ga³nar³¹	‘win’

Verbal inflection

Verbs in Cuicatec inflect for aspect and mood and for person and number of the subject. The database only presents information about forms inflected for aspect and mood.

Verbs inflect for four main aspect-moods: Potential, Progressive, Completive and Perfect. There is also a Habitual, but not all verbs appear to have this form.

POT	PROG	CPL	PRF	Example
ka³ta¹	yi³ta¹	chi³ta¹	ndi³ta¹	‘get ill’
ku¹chi¹ka²	yi¹chi¹ka²	ka¹chi¹ka²	nchi¹ka⁴	‘stroll’
kʔa³ka³	ʔi³ka³	chʔi¹ka²	ndʔi³ka³	‘clap’
ndu²vi³	yi²ndu²vi³	ndu¹vi¹	nnu³vi⁴	‘praise’
nwa³¹	yi³nwa³¹	nwa³¹	nwa³¹	‘recover’

The inflectional morphology involves changes in prefixes and tones.

Inflectional classes by prefixes

Verbs may select different sets of prefixes to realize the same inflectional information:

POT	PROG	CPL	PRF	Example
ku²-ndu³ku¹	yi²-ndu³ku¹	chi¹-ndu³ku¹	ndi³-ndu³ku¹	‘accompany’
ka³–ta¹	yi³–ta¹	chi³–ta¹	ndi³–ta¹	‘get ill’
ku¹–chi¹ka²	yi¹–chi¹ka²	ka¹–chi¹ka²	n–chi¹ka⁴	‘stroll’
k–ʔa³ka³	Ø–ʔi³ka³	ch–ʔi¹ka²	nd–ʔi³ka³	‘clap’
Ø–ndu²vi³	yi²–ndu²vi³	Ø–ndu¹vi¹	n–nu³vi⁴	‘praise’
Ø–n^wa³¹	yi³–n^wa³¹	Ø–n^wa³¹	Ø–n^wa³¹	‘recover’

Surface morphophonology is complex and at the surface level the degree of variation of inflected forms is enormous giving the impression that each verb selects its own prefix set. If one adopts a more abstract analysis, which is of course always subject to improvement, one can end up reducing this variation. For example, we take the following verbs to instantiate the same prefix set, which we give in capitals.

POT	PROG	CPL	PRF	Example
KU-	YI-	CHI-	NDI-
ku²-ndu³ku¹	yi²-ndu³ku¹	chi¹-ndu³ku¹	ndi³-ndu³ku¹	‘accompany’
kw-ʔa¹nen⁴	Ø-ʔa¹nen⁴	ch-ʔa¹nen⁴	nd-ʔa¹nen⁴	‘shave’
k-ʔu²chi²	Ø-ʔi²chi²	ch-ʔi¹chi²	nd-ʔi³chi²	‘bury’
kw-a²ku³	g-a²ku³	ch-a¹ku¹	nd-a³ku²	‘cry’

Notes:

A prefix surfaces as a consonant before stems begining with a laryngealized vowel, but yi- reduces to Ø-
ku- plus a stem with a laryngealised /ʔiX/ becomes [kʔuX]
yi- becomes g- before plain vowel initial stems.

By applying such morphophonological rules, we are able to reduce this prefix allomorphy to 28 different prefix sets which constitute prefix classes, some more populated than others.

NOTE: In the table below, {CPL}, {POT} or {PRF} indicate the form used for the mentioned value, e.g. for Class 10, in the POT, the form of the CPL is used.

Class	POT	PROG	CPL	PRF
1	Ø-	YI-	Ø-	N-
2	Ø-	YI-	Ø-	Ø-
3	KU-	YI-	CHI-	NDI-
4	KU-	YI-	CHI-	N-
5	KA-	YI-	CHI-	NDI-
6	KA-	YI-	CHI-	N-
7	KU-	YI-	KA-	N-
8	Ø-	YI-	CHI-	N-
9	KA-	YI-	{POT}	N+{CPL}
10	{CPL}	YI-	CHI-	N+{CPL}
11	KU-	YI-	CHI-	NU-
12	KU-	YI-	KA-	NDI-
13	KU-	YI-	CHI-	NI-
14	KU-	YI-	S-	N-
15	{PRF}	YI-	Ø-	N-
16	KA-	YI-	CHI-	Ø-
17	KU-	YI-	CHI-	N+{CPL}
18	Ø-	YI-	S-	N-
19	Ø-	YI-	Ø-	NI-
20	Ø-	YI-	CHI-	NDI-
21	Ø-	YI-	CHI-	NI-
22	Ø-	YI-	CHI-	Ø-
23	Ø-	YI-	Ø-	NDI-
24	Ø-	YI-	KU-	N-
25	KU-	YI-	S-	NU-
26	KA-	YI-	CHI-	NI-
27	KA-	YI-	KA-	NDI-
28	KA-	YI-	KA-	N-

The database not only indicates the prefix class membership of verbs but also gives a concise indication as to what morphophonemic rules apply.

Inflectional classes by tone

Tone plays a very important role in the inflection of some verbs. In the database, tone is encoded as an independent phenomenon from prefix classes, although a closer analysis reveals some interesting correlations (see Feist and Palancar, forthcoming, for more details.

There are various patterns. Note that ‘0’ is given as a placeholder for the first syllable of a monosyllabic inflected form to conform to the prosodic structure of bimoraic forms.

	POT	PROG	CPL	PRF	Example
Verb form	cu²-di³	yi²-di³	chi¹-di²	ndi³-di²	‘fondle’
Tone pattern	2–3	2–3	1–2	3–2
Verb form	cu¹-di²nu²	yi¹-di²nu²	chi¹-di²nu²	ṉ-di³²nu²	‘be encouraged’
Tone pattern	1–2	1–2	1–2	0–32
Verb form	Ø-nte³	yi²-nte³	Ø-nte¹	Ø-nte³	‘restore’
Tone pattern	0–3	2–3	0–1	0–3
Verb form	c-ʔa³ca³	Ø-ʔi³ca³	ch-ʔi¹ca²	nd-ʔi³ca³	‘clap’
Tone pattern	0–3	0–3	0–1	0–3

The tone structure of all forms has been extracted in this way and it is given in the database.

Tonal inflection is very complex. Here we can only attempt a first approach at characterizing it by focusing on the tone found in the first mora of bimoraic forms. For most cases, we have considered that the tone value of that mora in the POT and the PROG is lexical. Verbs fall into four main types attending to the behaviour of that first tone in the CPL and in the PRF (there are also many verbs which behave irregularly with respect to such patterns).

Tone Pattern	POT	PROG	CPL	PRF
Invariable	X–X	X–X	X–X	X–X
A	X–X	X–X	1–X	3–X
B	X–X	X–X	2–X	3–X
C	X–X	X–X	1–X	4–X