XOCHAPA MIXTEC
- Facts
- Sources of the data
- Orthography
- Verbal inflection
- Inflectional classes by affixation
- Stem alternation patterns
Facts
Xochapa Mixtec is a member of the Guerrero subgroup and thus closely related to Yoloxóchitl Mixtec, also a Guerrero Mixtec language. Xochapa Mixtec is spoken by approximately 8,000 people in Xochapa, a village in the municipality of Alcozauca about 60 kilometers north-northeast of Yoloxóchitl. In general, Xochapa Mixtec bears a strong resemblance to Yoloxóchitl Mixtec, though differing in some interesting ways.
Sources of the data
Stark, Johnson, and Guzmán, 2006. Diccionario básico del mixteco de Xochapa, Guerrero. Segunda edición. Mexico City: Instituto Lingüístico de Verano. Available online.
Orthography
We have respected the orthography used in the sources, except for the glottal stop:
| IPA notation | Source notation | Our notation |
|---|---|---|
| Nasality | Vn | – |
| ʔ | ' | ʔ |
| ʃ | x | – |
| j | y | – |
| ʒ | j | – |
| ɲ | ñ | – |
Tone
Xochapa Mixtec has four level tones. To facilitate comparison we have converted the orthography of the original, which uses diacritics, to numbers: 1 (low) to 4 (high), and one falling tone which we have characterized as /42/ or /4↓/.
Verbal inflection
Our database of Xochapan Mixtec from Stark, Johnson, and González de Guzmán (2006) includes 142 verbs with bimoraic and trimoraic lexical stems. For each entry, the authors give three inflected forms: the irrealis (called ‘future’), the completive (called ‘past’) and the incompletive (called ‘present’). Tonal inflection is complex, and deserves further study including more verbs. A first approach is attained in Palancar, Amith and García (forthcoming), available online. For convenience, tone structure has been given in the database to aid possible future analyses.
Inflectional classes by affixation
The verbs of the database fall into three inflectional classes in Xochapa Mixtec, determined by the presence or absence of segmental prefixes. There are also some irregular verbs that do not fit into this pattern.
In Class 1, the default class, the completive is encoded in two complementary ways forming two subclasses:
- Subclass 1.a: Verbs that have a tone /3/ on the first mora in their lexical representation (i.e., irrealis), receive a tone /2/ in the completive.
- Subclass 1.b: Verbs with a lexical tone /1/ on the first mora receive the prefix ndi¹-. The database provides information about both forms and class membership.
| Class | IRR | CPL |
INCPL |
|---|---|---|---|
| Class I.a | – | – | – |
| Class I.b | – | ndi¹- | – |
| Class II | ku³- | xi¹- | – |
| Class III | ku³- | xi¹- | i⁴- |
| Class | IRR | CPL | INCPL | Example | |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Class I.a |
chaʔ³bi³ | chaʔ²bi² | chaʔ⁴bi⁴ | (tr) | ‘pay’ |
| ka³a³ | ka²a² | ka⁴a⁴ | (intr) | ‘bathe (at sweat lodge)’ | |
| Class I.b |
ka¹nda¹ | ndi¹-ka¹nda¹ | ka⁴nda¹ | (intr) | ‘move, tremble’ |
| ku¹ni¹ | ndi¹-ku¹ni¹ | ku⁴ni¹ | (tr) | ‘want’ | |
| Class II |
ku³-na³ni⁴ | xi¹-na²ni⁴ | na⁴ni⁴ | (intr) | ‘be called’ |
| Class III |
ku³-nduʔ⁴u⁴ | xi¹-nduʔ²u⁴ | i⁴-nduʔ⁴u⁴ | (intr) | ‘be seated’ (SG) |
Stem alternation patterns
Like the verbs of Yoloxóchitl Mixtec, a few verbs in the database of Xochapa Mixtec also display stem variance. When they do, the stem of the irrealis may either have the stem formative ku+ or ka+.
| Class | LEX STEM | IRR STEM | Example | |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| ku+ class | xaʔ²ni⁴ | ku+ʔ3ni⁴ | (tr) | ‘kill’ |
| chu²tu⁴ | ku+³tu⁴ | (intr) | ‘fill up’ | |
| ka+ class | xaʔ¹nu¹ | ka+ʔ¹nu¹ | (tr) | ‘cut’ |
| xi²ka² | ka+³ka³ | (intr) | ‘walk’ | |
