Resumo

UCHIHARA, Hiroto. Clusters vs. units in Otomanguean: the cases of Tlapanec (Mè’phàà) and Zapotec (Dixsa:). Cuad. Lingüíst. Col. Méx. [online]. 2021, vol.8, e224.  Epub 06-Dez-2021. ISSN 2007-736X.  https://doi.org/10.24201/clecm.v8i0.224.

Since the pioneering work of Trubetzkoy (1939), there have been various proposals as to how to distinguish consonant clusters and units in individual languages. In this paper, I will look at the cases of Malinaltepec Tlapanec (Mè’phàà) and Teotitlán del Valle Zapotec (Dixsa:), two Otomanguean languages. I will look at general and language-particular criteria to distinguish clusters and units in these languages. I will show that in both cases the criteria do not always converge: some sequences are judged to be clusters by certain criteria but as units by others. Based on these observations, and drawing insights from Canonical Typology (Brown et al. 2012), I argue that the distinction between clusters and units is not dichotomous, but multidimensional: individual cases may simultaneously resemble clusters in some aspects but units in others, thus the typology of behaviors is richer than a simple binary opposition.

Palavras-chave : complex segments; Canonical Typology; Tlapanec; Zapotec.

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