Nivaĉle [niβaˈ
e] (ISO 639-3: cag) is a Mataguayan language spoken in the Argentinean and Paraguayan Chaco by approximately 16,350 speakers in Paraguay (DGEEC 2012) and 553 in Argentina (INDEC 2004–2005).
The word Nivaĉle means ‘human being’ in a broad sense (Chase-Sardi Reference Chase-Sardi1990: 7); for the Nivaĉle people, it means ‘person’ and ‘man’ (Fritz Reference Fritz1994: 35). The Nivaĉle language has also been referred to in the literature as Gentuse/Wentusi/Wentusix (Greenberg Reference Greenberg and Wallace1956, Loukotka Reference Loukotka1968, as cited in Stell Reference Stell1989: 20), Ashlushlay (Nordenskiöld Reference Nordenskiöld1910, Henry Reference Henry1936, Wicke & Chase-Sardi Reference Wicke and Chase-Sardi1969, Stell Reference Stell1972), Chulupí (Junker, Wilkskamp & Seelwische Reference Junker, Wilkskamp and Seelwsiche1968, Stell Reference Stell1989) and Chunupí or Suhin (Hunt Reference Hunt1915, Reference Hunt1924), among other names.Footnote 1 While Chulupí is commonly used in Argentina, Nivaĉle is the term used in Paraguay. Here I adopt the name Nivaĉle, rather than Nivaclé, Nivakle, or Niwakle, following the conventions established during the II Nivaĉle Linguistic Conference (Uj'e Lhavos, Paraguay, 3–5 December 2010).
Besides Nivaĉle, the Mataguayan (Swadesh Reference Swadesh1959, Najlis Reference Najlis1984, Fabre Reference Fabre2005, Nercesian Reference Nercesian, Lieber and Štekauer2014a) language family comprises three other languages: Chorote, Maká, and Wichí. This language family has also received alternative names in the literature, such as Mataco (Loukotka Reference Loukotka1968: 53–55; Voegelin & Voegelin Reference Voegelin and Voegelin1977: 223–224), Mataco-Mataguayan (Tovar Reference Tovar1951: 400; Reference Tovar1961), Mataco-Maka (Kaufman Reference Kaufman and Payne1990: 46), and Matacoan (Campbell Reference Campbell, Campbell and Grondona2012).
The location of the Mataguayan languages and peoples span across Northeastern Argentina, Southeastern Bolivia, and Southwestern Paraguay – a region known as the Gran Chaco (from Quechua chaku ‘hunting land’). The Gran Chaco comprises about 1,000,000 square kilometers divided between Northern Argentina, Eastern Bolivia, West of Paraguay and South-East of Brazil. Approximately twenty-nine languages belonging to seven language families with different degrees of vitality (Arawakan, Guaycuruan, Lule-Vilela, Mataguayan, Tupí-Guaranían, Maskoyan (or Enlhet-Enenlhet) and Zamucoan) and two language isolates, Chiquitano (or Besiro) and Guató, are spoken in this region (Golluscio & Vidal Reference Golluscio and Vidal2009–Reference Golluscio and Vidal2010).
Priest Seelwische's Nivaĉle grammar (Seelwische Reference Seelwische1975), and his Nivaĉle-Spanish dictionary (Seelwische Reference Seelwische1990) are the standard references on the language available to the Nivaĉle communities. The current phonemic orthographic system, which has been revised by the Linguistic Committee of the Nivaĉle People (Comisión Linguística del Pueblo Nivaĉle, CLPN), is based on his works. In the Paraguayan Chaco, Nivaĉle writing and reading skills are taught until the sixth grade of primary school.
According to Chase-Sardi (Reference Chase-Sardi1981) and Stell (Reference Stell1989), there exist five dialects: (i) chishamnee lhavos ‘the highlanders/Upriver’, (ii) shichaam lhavos ‘the lowlanders/Downriver’ (both of these groups are known as tovoc lhavos ‘people of the (Pilcomayo) river’), (iii) yita’ lhavos ‘people of the scrubland’, (iv) jotoy lhavos ‘people of the sandy spot’, and (v) tavashay lhavos ‘people from the inland’. Stell (Reference Stell1989) and Campbell & Grondona (Reference Campbell2007) worked with the chishamnee lhavos variety. Also, Stell (Reference Stell1989) worked with some shichaam lhavos speakers. I have worked with shichaam lhavos and yita’ lhavos speakers. During my fieldwork, I mostly found lexical differences between the chishamnee lhavos and the shichaam lhavos varieties, and some phonological dialectal differences between the yita’ lhavos and the other varieties. For instance, in the yita’ lhavos variety, there is no low back unrounded vowel /ɑ/, and the sequence /ʔ/ is pronounced as [kʼ], rather than [ʔ], in comparison with the shichaam lhavos variety.Footnote 2 Further, I have documented a number of lexical and morphosyntactic differences that have been arising between younger and older generations, currently under study.
The data for this illustration come from two shichaam lhavos speakers: a 72-year-old male speaker, Félix Ramírez (FR), and a female 50-year-old speaker, Teresita Sánchez (TS). Both FR and TS were raised in the shichaam lhavos variety and now live in Uj'e Lhavos, a Nivaĉle community located 1 km from Filadelfia, Boquerón Department, Paraguay. Nivaĉle is their native first language and they continue to speak it in their community. They are also bilingual in Spanish; FR learned it when he started Catholic Boarding School at Misión San Leonardo, Fischat, at the age of 7. TS also learned Spanish during primary school. Both FR and TS are Nivaĉle teachers and members of the Nivaĉle Linguistic Team (ELN). Recordings for this illustration were made in a quiet room using a Zoom HN4 handy portable digital recorder and a Countryman lapel microphone (phantom power).
Consonants
Instances of phonemic contrasts for onset and, in some cases, coda position, are given through the following illustrative minimal and near-minimal pairs:
Nivaĉle has 21 phonemic consonants. These consonants contrast in five places and five manners. Similarly to other Mataguayan languages, Nivaĉle has a two-way laryngeal distinction in non-continuant obstruents (plain vs. ejectives) – except for the complex segment [
] – and no voicing contrast (voice vs. voiceless) within the obstruent class. Ejective [p’] is not as frequently found as [t’] and [k’]; labial is the most marked place of articulation in this language; for example, there are no labial–labial consonant clusters. The series of stops tend to be aspirated word-finally.
Fricatives contrast in four places, and there is a lateral fricative. A remarkable contrast with Chorote, Maká and Wichí is that Nivaĉle has a palato-alveolar fricative [ʃ] and a palato-alveolar affricate [ʧ].Footnote 3 Besides the existence of roots with [ʃ] and [ʧ], there exists an alternation between Nivaĉle palatal and velar-initial suffixes: [ʧ] ~ [k], [ʃ] ~ [x]. The palatal vs. velar realization of the consonant-initial suffix is motivated by the vowel quality of the rightmost vowel of the preceding root.Footnote 4 If there is a front vowel, the palatal variant is used. In that regard, it can be observed that whereas [a] patterns with front vowels, [ɑ] patterns with back vowels (see ‘Vowels’ section below). It can be also noted that a small number of stems with [ʧ] and [k] spirantize to [x] in the context of pluralization. However, this is a marginal phenomenon that is not present in other areas of the grammar.
The sound /w/ has both labial and dorsal properties and hence is listed under both place of articulation columns. In the shichaam lhavos variety, [β] and [ʋ] appear to have replaced the use of /w/. However, the latter can still be found preceding back vowels /ɑ o u/. Further, in the variety described here, the alternation between velar and uvular places of articulation is mostly based on the vowel quality present in the immediate environment of the consonant: front /i e a/ vs. back /ɑ o u/ vowels, respectively. Nevertheless, uvular articulations can sometimes be found before front vowels as well.
Laterals
One of the marked characteristics of the Nivaĉle phonological inventory is the absence of a sonorant lateral /l/; a language with one or more laterals typically has one voiced lateral approximant. According to Maddieson (Reference Maddieson, Dryer and Haspelmath2013), only 1.4% of the 567 surveyed languages have no /l/, but nonetheless have lateral obstruents. Nivaĉle shares this marked phonological feature with genetically unrelated (and areally remote) languages like Athna (Athabascan), Kutenai/Ktunaxa (isolate), Nuu-chah-nulth (Wakashan), Tlingit (Na-Dene), Kiowa (Kiowa Tanoan), Chukchi (Chukotko-Kamchatkan), Kabardian (Northwest Caucasian), and Tigak (Austronesian).
The Nivaĉle lateral system is comprised of the alveolar lateral fricative /ɬ/ and the complex segment //. These two sounds are interesting from both typological and theoretical perspectives in that:
(i) To the best of my knowledge, /
/ is neither attested in any of the genetically related languages, nor in other indigenous languages of the area.(ii) On the one hand, /
/ has been described as a non-homorganic affricate that involves a ‘simultaneous articulation and release of a velar stop and a dento-alveolar lateral’ (Stell Reference Stell1989: 58; my translation from Spanish – AG). Interestingly, the articulators do not agree in voice and the lateral release is not fricated. On the other hand, /ɬ/ has been described by Stell (Reference Stell1989: 58) as ‘a voiceless dento-velar fricative’.(iii) As originally pointed out by Maddieson (Reference Maddieson1984: 77) ‘velar laterals are extremely rare . . . the three complex laterals segments reported to have both velar and dental/alveolar articulations are all somewhat obscurely described. All three are voiceless and fricative or affricate, being interpreted as /xɬ/ /kɬ/ (Ashuslay [Nivaĉle], 814) and /kɬ’/ (Zulu, 126)’.
(iv) A language with two or more liquids is expected to have a contrast of a lateral and a non-lateral. Nevertheless, in Nivaĉle, both liquids are laterals and there are no non-lateral liquids (that is, there are no ‘r’ sounds).Footnote 5
(v) A language with two or more laterals contrasts them either in place or in manner and voicing, but not both (Maddieson Reference Maddieson1984: 88). However, the two Nivaĉle laterals – /ɬ/ and /
/ – contrast both in place (coronal vs. dorsal, respectively) and manner of articulation [continuant] (Gutiérrez Reference Gutiérrez2015).
As can be seen in (1), comparative data show that Nivaĉle [] corresponds to /l/ in other Mataguayan languages, and that it must have developed from Proto-Mataguayan *l.
(1)
Gutiérrez (Reference Gutiérrez2014) argues that // is the diachronic result of lateral hardening, where ‘hardening’ is defined in terms of the amount of contact between active and passive articulators, and duration of the contact (Keating Reference Keating, Harrington and Tabain2006).Footnote 6 Regarding the phonetic explanations behind the historical development of //, Gutiérrez (Reference Gutiérrez2015) hypothesizes that the lateral approximant was realized with a brief stop closure which was misinterpreted as a real stop burst and reanalyzed as a laterally released stop. Further, the development of *l into [] and not into [tl] can be explained by the ambiguous nature of laterals in consonant clusters; it has been shown that the lateral release has a substantial effect on the acoustics of coronal stops, shifting them acoustically closer to velars (Kawasaki Reference Kawasaki1982, Hallé, Best & Bachrach Reference Hallé, Best and Bachrach2003, Flemming Reference Flemming2007).
Prosodic structure
The Nivaĉle prosodic system consists of the following structures: C, CV, CVC, and CCV(C). The only consonant that can be syllabic is the lateral fricative [ɬ]. Contra Stell (Reference Stell1989), I claim that there are no onsetless syllables in the language. Onset is undominated; an epenthetic glottal stop is inserted word-initially or intervocalically to comply with this constraint. All Nivaĉle consonants may appear in singleton onsets. At most, there can be two heterosyllabic consonants in word-internal position. Complex onsets are allowed in the language but only word-initially. Ejectives /p’ t’ k’ ʦ’ ʧ’/ cannot occur as the first member of a complex onset, but can occur as the second member, e.g. [tʧ’akfaj] ‘s/he is married (with children)’.Footnote 7
While closed syllables are very common, complex codas are not allowed in this language. It has been extensively observed that certain marked structures are banned in coda (Itô Reference Itô1986, Reference Itô1989) position. In Nivaĉle, all consonants may appear in coda position except for the ejectives /p’ t’ k’ ʦ’ ʧ’/ and the complex segment //. The affricates /ʦ/ and /ʧ/ marginally occur in coda position.Footnote 8 The affricate /ʦ/ simplifies to [s] and to [t] in coda position, except before [x].
The contrast between plain and ejective non-continuant obstruents only occurs in onset position. Steriade (Reference Steriade1997) claims that the timing of the laryngeal constriction in ejective obstruents is tied to their release. Thus, ‘an optimal identification of an ejective . . . will depend on the nature of the right hand context’ (Steriade Reference Steriade1997: 78); ejectives neutralize in the absence of a following sonorant. In (2a), it can be observed that Nivaĉle ejectives lose their [constricted glottis] feature when not followed by a vowel, see (2b).
(2)
a. -qɑˈʦʼex
‘diarrhea’
b. -ˌq
ʦxe-ˈnaxdiarrhea-resFootnote 9
‘person that has diarrhea’
In turn, the complex segment // in (3a) also neutralizes (delateralizes) to [k] in coda position, see (3b).
(3)
a. βosoˈ
-isbutterfly-pl
‘butterflies’
b. βoˈsok
‘butterfly’
Figures 1 and 2 show the alternation found in (3a) and (3b), that is, between [] and [k], respectively. In Figure 2, no trace of the lateral realization is present; the complex segment delateralizes to [k] and not to [l] in coda position. The fact that [] neutralizes to [k], and not to [l], indicates that:
(i) the synchronic underlying representation is /
/; the dorsal component is a major articulator phase. In other words, it is not the case that // is a prestopped lateral, but rather, it is a laterally released velar stop (Gutiérrez Reference Gutiérrez2015).(ii) /
/ is not a consonant cluster. During fieldwork and workshops on the Nivaĉle language, my consultants indicated the importance of differentiating Nivaĉle [] from Spanish consonant clusters [kl] or [ɡl]. Further, they also claimed that the two components cannot be separated by any (excrescent) vowel, as it may be the case of Spanish obstruent + liquid consonant clusters (Colantoni & Steele Reference Colantoni, Steele, Gess and Rubin2005). There is no independent lateral approximant segment in Nivaĉle and speakers do not identify [l] as a native sound in their language (though they acknowledge that there are few words with [l]); this sound is present in few loanwords such as [ele] ‘missionary’, and [palaβaj] ‘Paraguay’.
Figure 1 Waveform and spectrogram of [βosoˈis] ‘butterflies’ by male speaker FR.
Figure 2 Waveform and spectrogram of [βoˈsokh] ‘butterfly’ by male speaker FR.
Vowels
There are six vowels in Nivaĉle: /i e a ɑ o u/. In Figure 3 the vowel plots for a male (FR) and a female speaker (TS) are presented. Each of the six Nivaĉle contrastive vowels /i e a ɑ o u/ were recorded in the context of a preceding alveolar stop in a stressed syllable.
Figure 3 Nivaĉle vowels charted in a two-dimensional F1 F2 space, male speaker (FR) in black, female speaker (TS) in grey.
Each speaker was recorded pronouncing at least five tokens of the words listed in (4) below. For some vowels, six tokens were recorded (e.g. for vowel [i], see Figure 3). Words were recorded in isolation, that is, no carrier phrase was used.
(4)
Vowels were segmented using Praat (Boersma & Weenink Reference Boersma and Weenink2014) for Mac. The midpoint of each vowel was estimated in Praat using Linear Predicting Coding (LPC) analysis with a series of overlapping Gaussian 50 ms windows and a 25 ms step size. Formant values are given in Hertz.
Table 1 below presents the mean and standard deviation values for the first and second formant of each vowel. Because vowels were not normalized, the values are presented separately for each speaker.
Table 1 F1 and F2 mean and standard deviation (SD) values for each Nivaĉle vowel.
Glottalized vowels
Stell (Reference Stell1989: 97) postulates a phonemic distinction between plain vowels /i e a ɑ o u/ and ‘glottalized’ vowels /ỉ ẻ ả ɑ ỏ ủ/, yet vowel laryngealization or creakiness is not reported for other Mataguayan languages as being contrastive. In this sense, and if accurate, Nivaĉle exhibits an innovation in the language family. I discuss this possibility below.
In Gutiérrez (Reference Gutiérrez2010, Reference Gutiérrez, González and Gualdieri2012, Reference Gutiérrez2013), I argue that Nivaĉle glottalized vowels are underlying vowel–glottal stop /Vʔ/ sequences, where the glottal stop is specified for the feature [constricted glottis]. On the basis of my fieldwork, I confirm that this postulated /Vʔ/ sequence has two realizations, depending on prosodic context: (i) rearticulated vowels, represented variably as [Vʔ
] ~ [] (Figures 4 and 5, respectively) and (ii) vowel–glottal coda, represented as [Vʔ] (Figure 6).
Figure 4 Waveform and spectrogram of [-ˈsaʔ
ʃ] ‘hair’ by male speaker FR.
Figure 5 Waveform and spectrogram of [-ˈsʃ] ‘hair’ by male speaker FR.
Figure 6 Waveform and spectrogram of [jiˈtaʔ] ‘scrubland’ by male speaker FR.
It has been noted in the literature that the implementation of glottalized vowels is subject of variation within and between speakers across languages (Avelino Reference Avelino2004, Gerfen & Baker Reference Gerfen and Baker2005). The Nivaĉle rearticulated vowels follow this trend; they tend to consist of:
(i) a modal vowel portion followed by a full or short glottal closure released into a short voiceless or creaky vowel [Vʔ
] ~ [Vʔ] (see Figure 4), or(ii) a period of laryngealization/creak [
] (see Figure 5).
In the case of rearticulated vowels, stress is consistently realized on the first, not the second (or rearticulated) portion of these sequences. Given this observation, I hypothesize that the rearticulated portion does not constitute a second, separate syllable. Rather, these rearticulated vowels constitute a single complex syllabic nucleus. The description of rearticulated vowels is similar to what are sometimes referred to as echo vowels, which have the same vowel quality as the vowel preceding the glottal stop, but their formants are weaker (Gerfen & Baker Reference Gerfen and Baker2005), that is, lower in amplitude.
The alternation between rearticulated and creaky vowels seems to be mostly due to speech style factors. Whereas the rearticulated variant [Vʔ
] is typically used in careful speech, the creaky variant – [] – is heard in fast or casual speech. It is worthy of mention that the loss of a glottal closure in rearticulated /Vʔ/ sequences is a common cross-linguistic process.
In turn, Figure 6 illustrates the Nivaĉle vowel–glottal coda, represented by [Vʔ] when there is no (other) coda consonant in the syllable. It consists of a modal vowel portion followed by a glottal closure. The last part of the vowel can be creaky due to the adjacency with the glottal stop.
Non-modal phonation types have been commonly associated with longer duration relative to modal phonation types (Gordon & Ladefoged Reference Gordon and Ladefoged2001: 18; Blankenship Reference Blankenship2002: 185, 189). Interestingly, Gerfen (Reference Gerfen1999: 49) posits a correlation between vowel glottalization in Coatzospan Mixtec and stress, more specifically, that it is licensed by stress.
Given the above generalizations, there are several important observations about the distribution and characteristics of Nivaĉle glottalized vowels. First, duration is a statistically significant acoustic property that differentiates modal from rearticulated vowels in Nivaĉle; rearticulated vowels are (almost) twice as long as their modal counterparts. Five repetitions of each word listed in (5)–(10) were recorded in isolation; duration measurements were done in Praat.
(5)
(6)
(7)
(8)
(9)
(10)
Figure 7 presents the duration results for the rearticulated and modal vowel pairs.
Figure 7 Duration results for rearticulated vs. modal vowel pairs: male speaker FR.
It can be observed that the durational difference between the six modal [i e a ɑ o u] and rearticulated [
] vowels in the context of near-minimal pairs and minimal pairs shows significant values for the male speaker FR. A one-sided t-test confirmed that the glottalized vowels (M = 186, SD = 34) were longer than the modal vowels (M = 80, SD = 21; t(56.33) = 15.4, p < .001). Further, and concomitantly, glottalized vowels are always stressed.Footnote 10 I thus propose that Nivaĉle glottalized vowels are underlyingly bimoraic and are licensed by the head of an iambic foot (Gutiérrez Reference Gutiérrez2015).
Stress
Stress in Nivaĉle can be associated with the following phonological and phonetic properties. First, all lexical words have lexical prominence or primary stress (‘obligatoriness parameter’) with one syllable bearing the highest degree of prominence – ‘culminativity parameter’ (Hyman Reference Hyman2006). Second, stressed vowels are longer than unstressed vowels. As previously mentioned, glottalized vowels always occur under stress and are double the duration of modal vowels, hence my analysis of them as bimoraic.
In terms of metrical structure, I propose that (i) the Nivaĉle foot type is iambic, and (ii) the Nivaĉle language has a quantity-sensitive stress system, where the moraic weight of the feature [constricted glottis] is consistently correlated with stress prominence.
Stress assignment in the nominal domain varies across the alienable vs. inalienable paradigm. In alienable nouns, primary stress is final. Iambs are formed from the right edge of the Morphological Root, as in (11a) or the Morphological Stem, as in (11b) unless there is a preceding heavy syllable, as in (12).
(11)
a. siˈse
‘cane’
b. sisɪ-ˈʧat
cane-col
‘cane field’
(12) xiˈβeʔ
ə‘moon’
In inalienable nouns, the presence of an obligatory possessive prefix impacts the domain of stress assignment, as shown in (13). Prefixes define the leftmost edge of the Prosodic Word; foot formation proceeds from this edge.
(13)
a. ji-ˈs
ʃ1.poss-hair
‘my hair’
b. ji-ˈka-saʃ
1.poss-poss.class-hair
‘my wool’
Note that the vowel /e/ in (11a) above gets reduced in (11b) because it is unstressed; this is a tendency Nivaĉle unstressed vowels undergo. Note also that the underlying glottalized vowel of the root /sʃ/ (13b) above gets deglottalized (and thus gets shortened) because it is no longer in a prominent position.
Transcription of a recorded passage
Below I present a relatively narrow phonetic transcription of a spontaneous description of a traditional Nivaĉle game (juc'aj), spoken and translated by Félix Ramírez Flores. As previously mentioned, unstressed vowels tend to reduce (or get deleted); this is indicated in the transcription. The symbol || indicates a pause or the end of an utterance, and | indicates shorter pauses or the end of a phrase.
Semi-narrow phonetic transcription
Community orthography
juc’aj. vooi lhca juc’ax ti tem, chi yu’ yu’ papi yitsjôi chi papi ôcjeĉlôi papi nich’acshane lhĉles, lhutsja lhĉles yu’ shita, taj ti ve’lha pa lhavo’esh pa chitishshaam na cotsjaat taj niapatoja c’oya ni apatoja c’oya lhôn pa. meelh ti chivaclhitesh pa chivômjatshane jum, pa lhamôqu’esh pa cotsjaat pa chiyafavatjulh pa niyôc chamashi lhôse pa lhechesh pa chifiich tima chifiich, chincaatsham pa ti cotsjaat pa chi, pa chinei lhac’o’, meelh ti yivaclhitesh taj ti yiĉlamaminatesh apee, pa yivaclhitesh pitesh nôque avolheishane pa vooishane vooishane vooishane, caaj ti pitejesh caaj ti nipitojesh ɬôn. meelh ti chivan yivan ja ve’lha yichenesh ja lhnavanic yiĉlôi lhĉles navani lhĉles nipitesajô nôque palhavjôi.
Free translation
This game is called juc'aj. Women and men play the game, and female and male teenagers too. Someone prepares the soil; they dig the ground – but not very deep – and hide a ring (made of caraguata thread). This person then tamps down the soil, until a dusty area is formed. The players have a stick with a hook at the end and they need to hook the ring. The person that directs the game says, ‘Look for it, look for it’. Players try to find the ring with their sticks; they look for it all around until someone finds it and wins the game.
Acknowledgements
My special gratitude to my consultants Félix Ramírez Flores and Teresita Sánchez for teaching me their language with patience and generosity. Many thanks to Molly Babel and Patricia A. Shaw for valuable feedback and comments on drafts of this work. I also thank an anonymous reviewer and Adrian Simpson for their useful comments. Any remaining errors are my own. This research was supported by a Small Grant (2012) from the Endangered Languages Documentation Programme, School of Oriental and African Studies, University of London. It was conducted and submitted for publication in JIPA while I was a Ph.D. student at the University of British Columbia.
