SIERRA POPOLUCA SPEECH—FOSTER AND FOSTER 3) 
PHONOLOGY 
1. PROSODIC FEATURES 
1.1. Sylabic structure. Two basic types of 
syllables are found in Popoluca, (1) open or free 
and (2) closed or checked.* They correspond to 
the following patterns. (Syllabic division is indi- 
cated by a period.) 
(1). .CV hi.kum fireplace, ?4-.pa mother 
(2). CVC hon bird, ?ép.8i bright reddish 
CVCC _ so?k fodder 
CVCCC  *ta?ps twist rope 
A syllable may begin with any consonant. 
The syllabic is always a single vowel.* 
The syllable may terminate in a vowel, con- 
sonant, or consonant cluster. 
1.2. Most commonly the morpheme  corre- 
sponds to the syllable. Disyllabic morphemes are 
also frequent, and in some cases the morpheme 
consists only of a consonant. 
1.3. The word. The word is a minimum free 
form composed of one or more syllables. It may 
be distinguished as such on the morphophonemic 
level by means of patterns of stress and internal 
sandhi. It may be distinguished on the morpho- 
logic and syntactic levels by means of patterns of 
affixation and phrasal position. It exhibits the 
following phonetic characteristics: 
All words begin with a consonant. 
Medial consonant clusters may consist of as 
many as four consonants, of which not more than 
three are parts of a single syllable. 
Since a syllable may not begin with a vowel, 
there are no vowel clusters. 
A word terminates in a long or short vowel, a 
consonant, or a consonant cluster. 
8 Elson lists an additional “special type’’ of syllable, so classed because of 
its infrequent occurrence. This type consists of syllables with an initial 
consonant cluster. His examples, which apparently include the only two 
clusters he has noted, are CCVC, tréy.ti lad and CCVCC kri?y.ti quail. 
Our data show two initial clusters only, both limited to the single morpheme. 
These are the clusters tr in the word trin.16?ka¢ a kind of witch, and kw in 
the form ?in.kwas.tak both of you (the syllable kwas appears in several 
contexts) <?in- 2d. per. pos. p. pref. + ku- numerical prefix + was stem of 
“two’’ + -tak numerical suffix added only to derivatives of “two.” On the 
phonetic level, at least, the u of the prefix ku is pronounced so lightly, if at 
all, that the cluster appears to exist. Since this apparently is a unique case, 
we were unable to devise a test to determine the true phonemic nature of 
this construction. Our data suggest the strong possibility that r occurs in 
Popoluca only in loan words, except in one case (2.9) in which it varies freely 
with n. Since except for the cluster kw, the true phonemic nature of which 
is uncertain, all initial clusters have r as the second consonant, we have 
hesitated to set up an additional syllable type. Elson gives the form 
ru'tuhé"pkay having bumps on the skin, to illustrate a syllable-initial r. 
Hence, it may well be that ris a true, though deficient, Popoluca phoneme, 
4 The nasals and y occur as nonphonemic syllabics (2.6, 2.7). 
1.4. Stress. There are three levels of stress, 
loud (’), medial (‘), and weak (no accent). Loud 
stress is characterized by the force with which it is 
uttered, in contrast to the other two stresses. 
Medial stress, uttered with slightly less force, is a 
displaced loud stress. Thus, ?ikk&? he killed him, 
when given a final loud-stressed suffix, becomes 
ikka?yahta they were killed. Both loud and weak 
stress are inherent in certain morphemes, e. g., 
some suffixes, such as the locative -hom, are 
loud-stressed, while others, such as the incom- 
pletive -pa, are always weak-stressed. Noun 
and verb stems have an inherent loud stress. The 
loud stress in a word shifts under certain conditions 
of suffixation, compounding, and phrasal juxta- 
position. Thus, ké-bak head > ko-baktak hat 
(ké6-bak + tak house) > ko-baktakhém in the hat 
(-hom loc. suf.) > ko-baktakh6?m {tpa zt is in the 
hat (?itpa itis). (Single syllable morphemes with 
inherent loud stress, such as -hom, when in isola- 
tion have not been written with stress. ) 
1.5. Phrase melody. Phrase melody is some- 
what similar to that of English. A statement ends 
with a falling pitch on the final syllable. A ques- 
tion usually ends with a slightly rising pitch. A 
phrase-final syllable is accompanied by a falling 
pitch and followed by a pause. 
1.6. Vowel length. One of the most difficult 
aspects of the Popoluca vowel is that of length. 
Both long and short vowels occur in free accented 
and unaccented and checked accented and un- 
accented syllables. Stress changes may result in 
the lengthening of a short vowel or the shortening 
of a long vowel. Our data are not adequate to 
permit fine phonetic distinctions, e. g., whether 
a stress-shortened long vowel is phonetically iden- 
tical to a stress-lengthened short vowel, but the 
general tendencies may be pointed out. 
(1) A long vowel in either a free or checked 
syllable which receives loud stress as a free form 
loses some of its length, especially in rapid speech, 
when through affixation the loud stress shifts to 
another syllable. This is particularly noticed in 
compounding words. 
pu‘éytkma on the garbage (pu’é- comb. form of 
pwéi garbage + yukma locator) 
sa‘kkX?m to the daughter-in-law (sa*k- comb. form of 
si‘ki daughter-in-law + -ka?m loc. suf.) 
éiéahém in the cradle (éi:éa cradle + -hom loc. suf.) 
