Prosody
Stress
 | This section needs expansion. You can help by adding to it. (May 2008) |
Trager analyzes Taos as having three degrees of stress: [25]
- primary
- secondary
- unstressed
Trager describes Taos stress in terms of loudness; however, he also notes in several places where stress has effects on vowel length and vowel quality.
All words must have a single primary stress. Polysyllabic words can, in addition to the syllable with primary stress, have syllables with secondary stress, unstressed syllables, or a combination of both unstressed and secondarily-stressed syllables.
Trager (1946) states that the primary and secondary stress levels are in complementary distribution in low-toned and high-toned syllables. However, his later analysis rejects this.
When two morphemes both with a primary stress in each morpheme are concatenated together, the first primary stress in the leftmost morpheme becomes a secondary stress (while the rightmost morpheme retains the primary stress).
Tone
Taos has three tones: [26]
- high (symbol: acute accent ´)
- mid (symbol: macron ¯)
- low (symbol: grave accent `)
The tonal system is however marginal. Trager describes the tones as being distinguished by pitch differences. The mid tone is by the most commonly occurring tone; high tone is limited to a few stems and suffixes; the low tone is relatively common in stem syllables. The high tone is described as "higher and sharper" than the mid tone while the low tone is "distinctly lower and drawling". Many words are distinguished solely by tonal differences as in the following minimal pairs which demonstrate the contrast between the mid tone and the low tone in stressed syllables:
/ˈtʃũ̄/ ('pass by') /ˈwẽ̄mæ̃/ ('one') /ˈtʃũ̀/ ('suck') /ˈwẽ̀mæ̃/ ('it is real')
There is no tonal contrast in unstressed syllables, which have only phonetic mid tones. [27] Thus, the word /ˌpūluˈlūnæ/ ('plum') has the unstressed syllables /lu/ and /næ/ which have phonetic mid tones resulting in a phonetic form of [ˌpōˑlōˈlōːnǣ].
Trager (1946) initially found the stress level to be predictable in syllables with high and low tones; however, Trager (1948) finds this to be in error with the addition of newly collected data and a different theoretical outlook. (See stress section above.)
In his final historical notes, Trager (1946) suggests that in proto-Taos (or in proto-Tiwa) there may originally have been only a stress system and a contrast of vowel length which later developed into the present tonal-stress system and lost the vowel length contrasts. [28]
Syllables and phonotactics
The simplest syllable in Taos consists of a single consonant in the onset (i.e. beginning consonant) followed by a single vowel nucleus, i.e. a CV syllable. An onset and nucleus are obligatory in every syllable. Complex onsets consisting of a two-consonant cluster (CC) are found only in loanwords borrowed from New Mexican Spanish. The nucleus can have optionally two vowels in vowel clusters (V or VV). The syllable coda (i.e. the final consonants) is optional and can consist of up to two consonants (C or CC). In other words, the following are possible syllable types in Taos: CV, CVV, CVC, CVVC, CVCC (and in loanwords also: CCV, CCVV, CCVC, CCVVC, CCVCC, CCVVCC). This can be succinctly represented in the following (where optional segments are enclosed in parentheses):
- C1 (C2)V1(V2)(C3)(C4<) + Tone
Additionally, every syllable has a tone associated with it. The number of possible syllables occurring in Taos is greatly limited by a number of phonotactic constraints.
A further point concerns Trager's analysis of Taos coda syllables: CC clusters occurring in codas are only possible as a result of vowel elision, which is often apocope. For example, /ˈhīʔæ̃nɡæ̃/ ('why') has a CV.CVC.CV syllable structure, but after the elision of the final /æ̃/ the resulting /ˈhīʔæ̃nɡ/ has a CV.CVCC structure with a CC cluster in the coda of the last syllable.
Onsets
A single onset C1 can be filled by any Taos consonant (except the borrowed /f/) — that is, /p,pʼ,pʰ,b,m,w,t,tʼ,tʰ,d,n,l,ɬ,tʃ,tʃʼ,s,ɾ,j,k,kʼ,kʷ,kʷʼ,ɡ,x,xʷ,ʔ,h/ are possible onsets. The onset /ɾ/, and the onsets /b,d,ɡ/ word-initially, are only found in Spanish borrowings. In a loanword two-consonant C1C<2 cluster, C can be filled only by voiceless stops /p,t,k,f/ while C2 can be filled only by /ɾ,l/ in the following combinations: [29]
C2 C1 ɾ l p pɾ pl t tɾ – k kɾ kl
Of the onsets, /p,pʼ,pʰ,t,tʼ,tʰ,tʃ,tʃʼ,k,kʼ,kʷ,kʷʼ,ʔ,ɬ,x,xʷ,h,pɾ,pl,tɾ,kɾ,kl,fɾ/ can only occur as onsets (and not as codas).
Rimes
Within the syllable rime, any single Taos vowel — /i,ĩ,e,ẽ,æ,æ̃,ɑ,ɑ̃,ɤ,u,ũ/ — may occur in the nucleus. In complex nuclei consisting of vowel clusters, the following combinations are possible:
Vowel nucleus clusters Final component Initial
componente ẽ æ ɑ i ie – iæ – ĩ – ĩẽ – – u ue† – – uɑ ɤ – – – ɤɑ - † - only in loanwords
The /ue/ cluster was found only in a single word /ˈpūēlɑnæ̃/ ('frying pan' from hypothetical Spanish *puela probably from French poêle ). [30]
A subset of Taos consonants consisting of voiced stops and sonorants — /b,d,ɡ,m,n,l,ɾ,w,j/ — can occur in coda C4 position. There is a restriction that high vowels cannot be followed by a homorganic glide (i.e., /ij,uw/ do not occur). Not all VC combinations are attested. The attested sequences of V + glide are listed in the vowel diphthong section above. Additionally, /s/ may appear in coda position in loanwords. [31]
In complex two-consonant C3C4 codas, Trager (1946) states that the final consonant C4 can consist of a voiced stop /b,d,ɡ/ and be preceded by a consonant C3 consisting of a non-liquid sonorant /m,n,w,j/. [32] However, Trager (1948) states that the following are the only attested coda clusters:
- /nɡ,lɡ,jɡ/
Trager does not discuss the combinatory possibilities between segments and tones, although he does for stress and tone.
