The dissertation is a basic description of segmental phonology, tone, and the functions of tone in the San Juan Quiahije (SJQ) variety of Eastern Chatino. Chatino languages are spoken in the southern part of Oaxaca, Mexico. Chatino languages form a subgroup that is coordinate with the Zapotec languages in the Zapotecan family of the Otomanguean linguistic stock. The dissertation focuses on the sound system of SJQ Chatino, its system of tones, and the lexical, morphological, and syntactic functions of the tone system. SJQ Chatino is of special interest because it is a Chatino variety that has reduced nearly all historic simple stems to monosyllables, leaving behind complex consonant clusters; it has an exceptionally large tone system and complex system of tonal sandhi; the tones mark significant grammatical contrasts in addition to lexical units; and tone sandhi is significant in cuing syntactic and discourse structure. This description starts with an introduction to the language, its language family, a typological overview, a brief history of my fieldwork, and the methodology undertaken in this study. The work then describes the segmental phonology, including syllable structure and the distribution of the consonant and vowel phonemes, and the tones and tone sandhi, arguing for a system of fourteen contrastive tones at the lexical level. The work then turns to the functions of tone, including the restrictions on the lexical tone system according to the part of speech, with special emphasis on numeral words; the use of tone in marking possessor person and number in inalienably possessed nouns, and in marking aspect and subject person and number in verb; and tone in Spanish loan words. The description and analysis of these aspects of Quiahije Chatino is based on data gathered through elicitation and oral texts as well as my own intuitions as a native speaker of SJQ Chatino. / text

This report presents a classification of the verbs of Zenzontepec Chatino (ZEN) based on which allomorphs of the aspect markers they select. The selection of aspect markers is determined by the semantics of the verbs, derivational morphology, and phonological factors. Before now, aspect marking in Chatino has proven opaque because previously documented varieities have undergone considerable phonological and morphological reduction, wiping out some of the earlier patterns. ZEN, on the other hand, is conservative in this respect. There are three verb classes, each with a few sub-classes, and they line up well with the verb classes that Kaufman (1993) has proposed for Proto-Zapotec. In addition to describing the verb class system for ZEN in synchronic terms, this study provides insight into the Proto-Zapotecan verb class system and documents in Chatino several derivational morphemes reconstructed for Proto-Zapotec, proving that they are of Proto-Zapotecan vintage. / text

The verb in a Chatino language bears a value for Aspect (a grammatical category of Zapotecan verbs which indicates a bundle of aspectual and modal features), marked with a prefix, a tonal change, or both. There is a moderate amount of allomorphy among the Aspect prefixes, and when verbs of Tataltepec Chatino are grouped according to in which particular forms a given verb’s Aspect prefix appears, generalizations about the verbs can be made. For example, verbs with one set of allomorphs are are generally transitive; verbs with another set are generally intransitive, and so on. Attempts to meaningfully classify the verbs of contemporary Tataltepec Chatino are complicated by the effects of a few incomplete processes, such as the syncopation of historically disyllabic roots. To overcome this difficulty, a more conservative form of Tataltepec Chatino was constructed from an analysis of the lexical entries of a bilingual dictionary published in 1970 and from my own field notes. This pre-1970 Tataltepec Chatino shows the Aspect prefixes quite clearly and allows for a ready classification of the verbs. When the verb classes which can be identified for Tataltepec Chatino are compared to those found for other Chatino languages, we can see the development of several subclasses being brought about by various morphophonemic processes, such as the syncopation of Aspect prefix vowels, the deletion of similar consonants, and the merger of coronal and velar stops before laterals. This verb classification also corroborates those undertaken for Zenzontepec Chatino and the Eastern Chatino of San Marcos Zacatepec, as this verb classification scheme is largely in concord with them or if not, convincing explanations of Tataltepec Chatino’s deviance can be found. / text

Thesis (Ph. D.)--University of Texas at Austin, 1998. / Vita. Includes bibliographical references (leaves 378-392). Available also in a digital version from Dissertation Abstracts.

This dissertation is an analysis of aspects of the phonology and morphology of Zenzontepec Chatino (ISO 639-3: czn), a Zapotecan (Otomanguean) language spoken in a remote area of Oaxaca, Mexico (16°32"N, 97°30"W). There are an estimated 8,000 speakers of the language, but its vitality is weakening due to accelerating shift to Spanish. The phonological analysis begins with the segmental inventory. After that, the autosegmental contrasts are treated, with the highlight being the tone system. The tone bearing unit is the mora, which may bear high tone /H/, mid tone /M/, or no tone Ø. In tone systems with a three-way contrast, the unspecified category is usually the mid-level one. Therefore, Zenzontepec Chatino is typologically unusual in this respect. Special chapters are devoted to phonotactics and phonological processes, including a play language of "speaking backwards" that sheds light on crucial phonological questions, such as the status of glottalization and the limits of prosodic domains. There are also chapters on special topics in phonology: regional variation, Spanish loanwords, and sound symbolism. Another chapter bridges the phonology and the morphology, defining and comparing the phonological word versus the grammatical word, and outlining the basic morphological building blocks: roots, affixes, clitics, and particles. After that, lexeme classes are defined using morphosyntactic criteria, providing a syntactic sketch of the language. The language is strongly head-marking with somewhat agglutinating and synthetic morphology. Another chapter gives an overview of verbal morphology, which is the locus of most of the language's morphology. The dissertation is the beginning of a full descriptive grammar and is part of a larger project to document Zenzontepec Chatino, complementing a dictionary and a documentary text corpus recorded in the community with native speakers. The theoretical approach is one in which the language is explored as much as possible on its own terms using naturalistic textual data supplemented by lexicographic and elicited material. The analysis is not bound by any formal framework, but it is informed by socio-cultural and diachronic considerations. It is situated in a typological perspective to offer more of a contribution to the scientific understanding of the structure of human language. / text

Teotepec Chatino is a Zapotecan language of the Otomanguean stock, spoken in the Southeastern Sierra Madre, in the state of Oaxaca, Mexico. Although other varieties of the Chatino language family have been described - Panixtlahuaca (Pride, 1963; Pride and Pride, 2004), Yaitepec (Rasch, 2002), Quiahije (Cruz, E, 2004; Cruz, E. et al., 2008), Tataltepec (Pride and Pride, 1970; Pride, 1984), Zacatepec (Villard, 2008), Zenzontepec (Campbell, 2009; Carleton, 2000) - there are no previous descriptions of Teotepec Chatino. Among the many interesting features of Teotepec Chatino is an inventory of twelve lexical tones. These tones distinguish between lexical items and have grammatical func- tions. The basic word order is VSO, however the language exhibits the alternative orders of SVO and OVS. These orders have specific semantic and pragmatic functions. The language has aspectual prefixes and some derivational patterns. There is verbal and nominal com- pounding which plays an important role in the formation of complex concepts. Animate direct objects are optionally marked by 7įᴿ ‘to’. The presence or absence of this marker with nominal constituents encodes whether an object is alienably or inalienably possessed. Teotepec Chatino has a vigesimal number system - a common areal feature of other languages in the region. There is a complex set of motion verbs that encode spatial orientation and reference. There are several constructions that result in complex sentences. These include relative clauses, complement clauses, adverbial clauses and conjunctions. There are a number of interesting temporal adverbs that are used to define different time events. The description and analysis of these aspects of Teotepec Chatino is based on data gathered through elicitation and oral texts. This work is a preliminary sketch of the language and should not be considered exhaustive. / text

This thesis is a case study about three textile cooperatives made up of women from three indigenous ethnic groups in the Mexican state of Oaxaca: Galvain Cuy (Zapotecs, Teotitlán del Valle community), Jiñi Ñuu (Mixtecs, San Juan Colorado community) and Kee Nshií (Chatino people, Santiago Yaitepec community). Together with other Oaxaca handcraft cooperatives, these are connected with the community firm Color y Cultura, which looks after the sales and promotion of their products. This paper maps the cooperative work of the indigenous women who are involved in handcrafted textile production in the above-mentioned three communities, and how the umbrella firm Color y Cultura residing in Oaxaca de Juárez operates. It examines how these women perceive the cooperative business model and the Color y Cultura community firm, which they are connected with, as well as the advantages and weaknesses of this model of a work organisation. It also treats their ethnic self- perception in relation to their actual handcraft work and the promotion thereof. The membership in Color y Cultura makes it possible for the women in the cooperatives studied to avoid dealing with a middleman thanks to its brick and mortar shop in Oaxaca. This brings them a higher profit, creative freedom and direct contact with the customer....

When a society experiences a collapse, political authority becomes decentralized, large settlements often become abandoned, economic specialization decreases; and monumental building projects, artistic, and literary achievements slow drastically. The Rio Verde Valley, a coastal floodplain located in the region of Oaxaca in Southwest Mexico, experienced such a collapse at the end of the Terminal Formative period (150 BC to 250 AD). A period of decentralization followed, with regional centers becoming the main seats of authority throughout the region. My aim is to understand how this collapse affected residential population mobility in the lower Rio Verde Valley between the pre-collapse Terminal Formative and post-collapse Early Classic periods. I seek to answer the question: could this political collapse have caused intra-regional migration amongst the people of Ancient Oaxaca? To answer this, I analyzed the stable 18O and 13O isotopes in a set of 21 samples of human long bone excavated from the Terminal Formative archaeological site of Yugüe and the Early Classic site of Charco Redondo. Oxygen isotope analysis is based on the principle that bone apatite and tooth enamel hold traces of oxygen isotopes found in the water that people drink, and that varying values of those isotopes reflect that the water was obtained from different sources. Based on literature surrounding the process of political collapse in ancient Mesoamerica and beyond, I expected to find evidence that intra-regional population mobility increased after the Terminal Formative period collapse. Instead, I found evidence of little to no mobility in both the Terminal Formative period site and the Early Classic period site, showing that the political collapse likely did not affect intra-regional mobility. These findings provide valuable insight into how human migration patterns correspond with political changes, both in the archaeological record of past civilizations and in modern societies.

This study investigates worldview and ideology during the late Terminal Formative period (A.D. 100 – 250) in the lower Río Verde Valley of Oaxaca, Mexico, through an analysis of iconography found on grayware ceramic serving vessels. The sample includes 457 vessels and sherds from 17 lower Verde sites obtained through excavations and surface collections between 1988 and 2009. Drawing upon theories of semiotics and style, this thesis identifies a suite of icons suggesting that ceramics were a medium for expressing regionally shared beliefs. Chatino potters carved common Formative period Mesoamerican themes into the walls of graywares, such as depictions of maize and climatic phenomena, which may have been part of a religious worldview rooted in the belief that humans and non-human deities shared a reciprocal relationship. People at Río Viejo, including elites, may have attempted to exploit this relationship, thought of as a ―sacred covenant‖ or agreement between humans and deities, to create a more centralized political entity during the late Terminal Formative Chacahua phase. By using iconographic graywares in socially and politically significant ritual activities such as feasting and caching events, elites imbued graywares with a powerful essence that would have facilitated the spread of the coded messages they carried. Based on statistical analyses of the diversity of iconographic assemblages from various sites, I argue that the assemblage of icons at Río Viejo, a late Terminal Formative political center in the lower Verde, indicates ideas likely originated at or flowed through this site.