Coronal codas and phonotactics in Tupi-Guarani languages

Abstract

This paper discusses the phonotactic organization of conservative Tupi-Guarani languages, and of Proto-Tupi-Guarani, by focusing on the analysis of the word-final/pre-pausal coronal approximant [j]. After illustrating how confusion prevails in currently accepted analyses of this segment, which is often considered both a consonant and a member of a diphthong, I argue that the analysis of [j] as a consonant is preferable. This claim, coupled with the auxiliary hypothesis that Proto-Tupi-Guarani phonotactics was subject to a version of the Syllable Contact Constraint, helps explain two otherwise disparate facts about Tupi-Guarani phonotactics: The impossibility of having complex -jC final codas, and the limitation of medial codas to -j.

Keywords

• tupi-guarani languages
• phonotactics
• syllable structure.