SIERRA POPOLUCA SPEECH—FOSTER AND FOSTER 11 
4.28. A tendency has been noted in the case of 
syllables consisting of pa or ba, when followed by 
?i, for the a to assimilate to the quality of i. Our 
data do not permit more accurate definition of the 
conditions under which this phenomenon occurs. 
di ?ihédon he doesn’t know it (da neg. at. + ?ihédon 
he knows it) 
si di ?inkup<kpa if you don’t believe it (si if [Sp.] + 
da + ?inkupX<kpa you belzeve it) 
wanpi ?ilibrohém he reads his book (wanpa he reads) 
4.29. Phrase stress cuts across word stress to 
the extent that the loud stress in an utterance 
tends to come as nearly as possible at the end of 
the utterance, within the limitations fixed by the 
presence of any inherently weak-stressed syllables 
in utterance final position. Thus, other loud- 
stressed syllables in words preceding that with 
the final loud stress usually are given medial 
stress. Groupings of words into utterances with 
one final loud stress and other medial stresses tend 
to be groupings of noun or verb with preceding 
modifying words, e. g., ¢ug itu¢ rat’s tail, tingam 
hama another day, hému?m i?iS there he saw tt. 
Gerundial clause constructions also follow this 
pattern, with the final (gerundial) verb receiving 
the loud stress and the preceding (main) verb 
receiving a medial stress, e. g., moh ihds he began 
to think, tiksob iS? he continues hitting. Modi- 
fying elements following the word which they 
modify retain their loud stress, e. g., ttih p{mbak 
hard rain. Jn an utterance in which a noun 
subject or object follows a verb the noun is 
characterized by loud stress, while the loud stress 
of the verb, if on the final syllable which is not the 
stem, shifts back to the stem leaving a medial 
stress on the final syllable, e. g., ?ikunukta*p he 
came to where they were + tahwii minnows > 
Vikuntiktap tahwinh he came to where the minnows 
were. 
MORPHOLOGY 
5. GENERAL REMARKS 
5.1. Word classes. Popoluca words fall into 
four major classes: verbs, pronouns, substantives, 
and enumeratives. This classification is based on 
purely formal criteria, and words of each class have 
their own paradigmatic sets. Pronouns partake 
of a small part of verb inflection, but because pro- 
nominal themes are free while those of the verb 
class are always bound, and because pronoun 
inflection is much less extensive than that of the 
verb, pronouns have been considered as con- 
stituting a separate form class. The substantive 
class includes nouns and attributives. Attributives 
are largely analytic, but some may partake of a 
part of noun inflection, often in stereotyped form. 
Enumeratives likewise partake of a part of noun 
inflection, but also have their own inflectional 
system. A few attributives may be given a part 
of the enumerative inflection. 
5.2. Morphological processes. There are three 
processes involved in the formation of Popoluca 
words: affixation, compounding, and reduplication, 
Affixation includes prefixation and suffixation, of 
which the latter is more widely used. It is con- 
venient for purposes of analysis to distinguish two 
levels of Popoluca morphology: theme formation, 
and word formation or inflection. All of the 
morphological processes are used in the formation 
of the theme, while only affixation is used in the 
formation of the word. The processes of theme 
and word formation are more complex for verbs 
than for words of the other form classes. 
5.3. Theme formation. Themes may consist of 
a simple stem or root morpheme, a reduplicated 
stem morpheme, a simple or reduplicated stem 
plus thematic affixes, or a compound of two or 
(rarely) more themes. Every stem or theme be- 
longs inherently to one form class, and must be 
given special suffixes to change it to a theme of 
another form class. Thus, verb themes may be 
formed from substantive themes by the addition 
of certain thematic verb suffixes, and noun themes 
may be formed from verb themes by the addition 
of certain thematic noun suffixes. In addition, 
one theme may become a new theme of the same 
form class by the attachment of thematic prefixes 
and/or suffixes of that form class. Themes may 
be bound or free, i. e., they may be words in 
absolute (or theme) form, or may become words 
only through the attachment of nonthematic 
affixes. Themes of the substantive and pronoun 
classes are free themes, while most enumerative 
and all verb themes require nonthematic affixes 
(which phonetically may be zero). 
5.4. Word formation. Word formation pro- 
