Western Tlacolula Valley Zapotec

Consonants Most stops occur to be realized as fricatives and may fluctuate as well; /p b d ɡ/ become [ɸ β ð ɣ~x]. Rhotic consonants are voiceless when preceding a voiceless consonant; /ɾ~r/ ~ [ɾ̥~r̥]. Most consonants may also be geminated (ex. /t/ ~ /tː/). Approximant consonants are phonetically realized as [j̟] and [w̟]. Voiceless stops generally have a slight aspiration. Some sounds are only found in loanwords (/f/ and /j/). The following is represented in the San Juan Guelavía dialect: Vowels Tlacolula Valley Zapotec vowels are classified as modal, creaky (á), checked (a'), or breathy (ah). Vowels may also occur as pharyngealized /vˤ/ or glottalized /vˀ/. Vowels may be differentiated by phonation and tone. Tlacolula Valley Zapotec has four tones: level high, level low, rising, and falling. Vowels differing in phonation often occur together in the same syllable as diphthongs. While a given vowel complex will always have the same tone, there are no tone contrasts for the same vowel complex. The chart the level high, level low, rising, or falling the tone makes that the syllables make in the vowels of the word. Speakers take notice of the vowel complex, in the chart most words are spelled in the same way. ==Morphology==

Foreman and Lillehaugen (2017) provide data showing that positional verbs in CVZ have unique morphological properties and participate in a defined set of syntactic constructions, showing that positional verbs formed a formal class of verbs in Valley Zapotec as early as the mid-1500s. This work contributes to the typological literature on positional verbs, demonstrating the type of morphosyntactic work that can be done with a corpus of CVZ texts, and contributes to our understanding of the structure and development of the modern Zapotec positional verb system with implications for the larger Zapotec locative system. Though the most basic order has the verb at the beginning of the sentence, all Zapotec languages have a number of preverbal positions for topical, focal, negative, and/or interrogative elements. The following example from Quiegolani Zapotec shows a focused element and an adverb before the verb Laad - foc ʂ-unaa-poss-woman Dolf-Rodolfo d͡ʒe - already z-u - prog-stand nga - there = Roldofo's wife was already standing there. Word order variation Zapotec languages also show the phenomenon known as pied-piping with inversion, which may change the head-initial order of syntactic phrases including noun phrases, adpositional phrases, and quantifier phrases. The use of these specific determiners is extremely similar to that of the demonstrative adjective and the definite article in English and Spanish. These four main determiners are: =rè (the proximal), =kang (the medial), =re (the distal), and =ki (the distal/invisible). The three spatial determiners each have their own specific usages: =rè (the proximal) is used to reference something close to the speaker, =re (the distal) has the same purpose for things that are slightly further away, but generally still visible, and =ki (the distal/invisible) is for referents that are not visible at all to the speaker at the time of utterance. It is possible that =kang (the medial) can be used to signify a medium distance between =rè and =re, but it is more likely that its main function is actually indicative. Also, research in the last decade has revealed that the distal =ki is typically the most commonly used determiner, since its function of denoting the past tense is required when telling folktales, local legends, or recounting personal narratives. At this time, there is still no evidence to suggest that the speaker's position relative to that of the referent's carries any significance in any of these scenarios. == Syntax ==

Here are a few syntax terminology that are relevant to this section: Below is a relevant lexicon for the sentence examples. == Orthography ==

Very few Tlacolula Valley Zapotec speakers are literate in the language. Of the two main orthographies used, twelve consonant sounds are generally agreed upon by both: p, t, c/qu, b, d, f, g/gu, j, ts, z, r, rr, and y. Six vowel sounds are generally agreed upon: a, e, i, o, u, and ë/ɨ. More complicated systems exist, which include contour tones and broader differentiation of vowel types. However, more recent analysis of the New Testament reveals that vowel types are differentiated orthographically to a greater extent than current vowel orthography systems suggest (for example, using an acute accent on single vowels to differentiate different words spelled the same way). ==References==