This project supports study of the Zapotec language spoken in San Lucas Quiavin, Oaxaca, Mexico (and by immigrants to the Los Angeles area), a language that is gradually losing speakers and thus threatened with eventual extinction. The project will produce the most extensive dictionary of any Zapotec language, along with a text collection and theoretical accounts of the language's syntax, morphology, phonology, and phonetics. Like other Zapotec languages, San Lucas Quiavin Zapotec (SLQZ) has an unusual phonological structure, with fortis/lenis consonant contrasts and a complex syllable template. Up to three vowels, individually specified as breathy, creaky, checked (glottal), or plain (modal), may occur in the "vowel complex" of a single syllable; contrasting tone patterns appear to be predictable from the sequence of vowel types in a vowel complex. SLQZ verbs display considerable paradigmatic complexity: for example, there are six basic verbal aspects, which may be inflected for eighteen different combinations of person, number, and formality features. The language has verb- subject-object word order. Data will be collected from speakers both in Los Angeles and in Oaxaca. The first year of the project will focus on SLQZ morphophonology and syntax, especially verb structure. The second year will address the phonetics of SLQZ, developing rules for the realization of surface tone. Work on the dictionary and text collection will continue throughout the project. Publications resulting from the grant will provide an important resource for general linguistic theory, for the study of the relationships among the different Zapotecan languages, and for the SLQZ people. Results will be produced in as accessible a format as possible, to provide resources for the development of literacy materials for users at all levels.
