AMERINDIA 43: 211-247, 2021 Hortensia ESTRADA RAMÍREZInstituto Caro y CuervoJorge Emilio ROSÉS LABRADAUniversity of Alberta DOI : https://doi.org/10.56551/XDYQ8951 Abstract: Based on new first-hand fieldwork data and on prior descriptions of the language, this article proposes an in-depth analysis of inflectional
Through extensive analysis it can be shown that the organization of the highly complex Meʔpá (Azoyú Tlapanec) verbal paradigms is for the most part transparently based on the expression of grammatical categories, even if these categories are sometimes typologically unfamiliar. There are also phonological principles at work in defining various subclasses, even if these are sometimes also difficult to unravel. However, within one of the grammatically defined classes it is necessary to operate with subclasses that are truly arbitrary. This concerns the tonal paradigms of semantically transitive verbs taking a high-impact (ergative) animate agent and an inanimate undergoer. For these, person inflection is tonal, and 24 different tonal paradigms have been identified. Apart from negative evidence –absence of non-arbitrary phonological, semantic or grammatical determinants of class membership– it is also possible to observe positive evidence that class membership is essentially stochastic. First, the sizes of the classes follow a power-law distribution (with a few large classes, some intermediate ones and many small ones, resulting in a straight line having a negative slope when size is plotted as a function of rank of size using log-log scales). Secondly, the more members a tonal class has, the more similar it is to other classes. Together, these two characteristics bear witness to a diachronic trajectory involving the principle of preferential attachment, which also governs many natural and social phenomena.
Zoochina Zapotec (Zapotecan, Oto-Manguean) has two independent but crisscrossing systems of verbal classification. One is an affixal system and it involves the selection of different sets of prefixal inflections for the incompletive, completive and irrealis. This allomorphy results into four inflectional classes. The other system involves two stem alternation patterns for the irrealis. Affixal classes I and II interact with the stem classes in interesting ways, resulting into four mixed classes. The inflectional system I describe for Zoochina Zapotec is very innovative with regard to other Zapotec languages.
This paper provides a detailed description of inflectional classes of verbs based on TAM-marking morphology in Coatec Zapotec. This description is then used as a standard for comparison with other Zapotec languages spoken in the Southern Sierra region of Oaxaca, Mexico, which is considered by the author to be a diffusion zone. A comparison of 14 varieties belonging to five languages finds that the most diverse TAMmarking systems are found in the western part of the Southern Sierra while the system of inflectional classes greatly simplifies as one moves eastward. Contact and diffusion are considered to be crucial in the retention or loss of conservative features and the spread of innovations such as nasalization of certain prefixes.
In this chapter, we propose that in the inflectional morphology of Chichimec, verbs can be classified attending to two different subsystems. One attending to the prefix set they select for the realization of notions such as tense/aspect/mood/polarity and person of the subject, and another attending to the type of stem alternation pattern they
display. As a result of the interaction of these two inflectional subsystems, one obtains a very complex morphological system which is endemic in the Oto-Pamean branch of Oto-Manguean.
