Unstressed Vowel Deletion in Colonial Valley Zapotec
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2021
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Swarthmore College. Dept. of Linguistics
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en
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Abstract
Many modern Central Zapotec languages have deleted unstressed vowels. I
investigate the historical steps that led to this change by analyzing texts written in Colonial
Valley Zapotec, a historical form of Zapotec. I examine the comparative frequency of vowels
appearing in certain words throughout the texts. I find that vowels tended to delete in the forms
*xiteni and *xi- and did not appear to be deleting elsewhere consistently. Furthermore, I find that
epenthetic vowels were occasionally being inserted word-finally in Spanish names and
loanwords. From this analysis, combined with data from Isthmus Zapotec and Chichicapam
Zapotec, I argue that the first step of vowel deletion in Zapotec was deletion of unstressed
vowels after alveolar fricatives and potentially nasals, and that this process of deletion had
begun by 1578. This analysis builds on the claims of Uchihara (2016) and helps illustrate the
phonological development of the Central Zapotec languages.