The Mixtec couplet is not a consistent grammatical unit

Bibliographic Data

ID22130807
AuthorsBen Eischen (0009-0005-2515-3681, University of California, Los Angeles), R Bennett (0000-0001-6160-7007, University of California, Santa Cruz), Ryan Thomas Bennett (University of California, Santa Cruz)
Year2025
Volume10
Issue1
Publication date2025-12-10
Peer ReviewedYes
Open AccessYes
TypeARTICLE
VenueGlossa a journal of general linguistics (JOURNAL)
Journal identifiersISSN: 2397-1835 • E-ISSN: 2397-1835
PublisherOpen Library of the Humanities (PUBLISHER)
DOI10.16995/glossa.18740
OpenAlexW4416299533
LanguageEN
References cited33

This is an accepted article with a DOI pre-assigned that is not yet published.Nearly every piece of research on the phonology of Mixtec languages makes reference to the couplet, a term used to describe the shape of canonical roots and to explain the domain of numerous phonological processes. Despite its ubiquity, scholars disagree over whether the couplet should be defined in prosodic terms as a bimoraic foot, or in morphological terms as a root. In this paper, we describe and analyze three patterns in San Martín Peras Mixtec that are commonly attributed to the couplet in the Mixtec literature, namely the distribution of laryngeals, tones, and nasality. We show that, in San Martín Peras Mixtec, the foot is necessary to explain the distribution of laryngeals and rising tones, while the root is needed to explain the domain of phonotactic restrictions on nasality. We conclude that the Mixtec couplet does not correspond to a single grammatical category across all varieties, and that the couplet in San Martín Peras Mixtec is an emergent category that arises out of the interaction of (at least) the bimoraic foot and the morphological root

Couplet · Grammar · Natural language · Linguistics and language evolution · Phonetics and Phonology Research · Syntax, Semantics, Linguistic Variation

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