Adelaar Willem, Muysken Pieter. The languages of the Andes
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54 2 The Chibcha Sphere
As might be expected, not all northern Andean languages can be assigned to one
of the four widely extended families discussed so far. In addition to the two extinct
Venezuelan families mentioned earlier, there are at least two local families, Barbacoan
in the southern departments of Cauca and Nari˜no (as well as in Ecuador) and Chocoan
in the Pacific region. There are five living Barbacoan languages: Awa Pit (Cuaiquer),
Cha
palaachi (Cayapa), Guambiano, Totor´o and Tsafiki (Colorado). Cha
palaachi and
Tsafiki are only spoken in Ecuador. Chocoan is represented by two languages: Ember´a
and Waunana. The P´aez language of Cauca and Huila is either an isolate or the surviving
member of a small family. On the eastern slopes Kams´a or Sibundoy and Andaqu´ı (the
latter extinct) are isolates, and so are Yurumangu´ı and Esmeralde˜no,extinct languages
of the Pacific region of Colombia and Ecuador.
In the following sections we will discuss some general characteristics of the principal
documented languages of the Colombian and Venezuelan Andes, as well as the north-
western part of Ecuador. Because of its historical importance, Muisca will be treated
in somewhat more detail. Demographically important languages, such as Guajiro and
P´aez, will also receive particular attention. The final section of this chapter contains
an overview of the languages of the eastern lowlands that are adjacent to the northern
Andes.
2.2 Research on the native languages of Colombia
Among the precursors of academic studies concerning the languages of the northern
Andes two scholars must be mentioned, the natural scientist and physicist Jos´e Celestino
Mutis (1732–1808) and the linguist Ezequiel Uricoechea (1834–80). After his arrival in
New Granada in 1761, Mutis became an enthusiastic collector of descriptive material
of difficult accessibility concerning the indigenous languages of the Spanish American
domain. In 1787 he received the commission to make a collection of indigenous language
materials as the result of a request addressed by Catherine II of Russia to the king of Spain.
The empress needed these materials for her ambitious project to document the languages
of the world in Saint Petersburg. Mutis carried out his assignment with great care, making
copies so as to avoid losses. As it appears, most of Mutis’s materials never reached
Russia (Ortega Ricaurte 1978: 102), but copies remain in Madrid. Born in Colombia,
Uricoechea, a man of wide interests, spent part of his life in Belgium, where he held
a professorship in the Arabic language. He was the founder of the series Biblioth`eque
Linguistique Am´ericaine (1871–1903), in which much early work on the indigenous
languages of the Americas, including his own on Muisca, was brought together. In
more recent times, the Frenchman Paul Rivet (1876–1958) collected and published
material on numerous languages of Colombia and the Venezuelan Andes, including
extinct languages of which only a minimum amount of data could be found. Landaburu
2.2 Research on the native languages of Colombia 55
(1996a, 1998, 1999) has published substantial parts of Rivet’s Colombian archive, kept
at the Mus´ee de l’Homme in Paris.
In Colombia a number of important studies, both descriptive and historical, have
appeared, especially in recent decades. In 1965 Sergio El´ıas Ortiz published a survey of
the Colombian indigenous languages. The Instituto Caro y Cuervo in Bogot´a, a venerable
institution originally dedicated to Hispanic studies, issued several works of indigenous
linguistic interest. Among these are a history of studies dedicated to the Colombian
native languages (Ortega Ricaurte 1978), a history of the fate of the indigenous languages
in colonial society (Triana y Antorveza 1987), an overview of historical-comparative
efforts concerning these languages (Rodr´ıguez de Montes 1993) and two fundamental
works on Muisca (Gonz´alez de P´erez 1980, 1987; see section 2.9 on Muisca). A most
remarkable achievement is Lenguas Ind´ıgenas de Colombia: una visi´on descriptiva
(Indigenous Languages of Colombia: a Descriptive Vision) (Gonz´alez and Rodr´ıguez
2000), a monumental book containing descriptive sketches and information by different
specialists on all the native languages spoken in Colombia today.
In 1984 the Universidad de los Andes in Bogot´a, in co-operation with the French
Centre National de la Recherche Scientifique (CNRS), initiated a programme for the
training of descriptive linguists under the direction of Jon Landaburu, in order to study
and document the indigenous languages of Colombia in a systematic way. The institution
harbouring this programme, the Centro Colombiano de Estudios de Lenguas Abor´ıgenes
(CCELA), issues a series of descriptive studies and dictionaries, which have appeared
regularly since 1987. Up to now, the series includes work on Achagua, Cuna, Ember´a,
Chimila, Damana, Guambiano, Guayabero, Kogui, P´aez, Sikuani and Ticuna. Most of the
contributions in Gonz´alez and Rodr´ıguez (2000) have been written by linguists trained
in the CCELA programme.
Members of the Summer Institute of Linguistics, which has deployed activities in
Colombia for several decades, have produced descriptive studies, inter alia,ofAchagua,
Ember´a, Ika and several Tucanoan languages. Also worth mentioning is a useful com-
parative vocabulary of Colombian indigenous languages, compiled by Huber and Reed
(1992).
The journal Estudios de Ling¨u´ıstica Chibcha, published by the University of Costa
Rica at San Jos´e, contains much data and discussion concerning the reconstruction of
earlier stages of Chibchan in particular. Other important work by the Costa Rican school
is Constenla’s dissertation on the reconstruction of Chibchan phonology (Constenla
Uma˜na 1981) and his book on the typology of the Intermediate Area (Constenla Uma˜na
1991). Morphosyntactic reconstruction of Colombian Chibchan languages is attempted
in Ostler (2000).
The indigenous literature of the northern Andean area is mainly confined to collec-
tions of folkloric text. An overview of the traditional literature in the Chibchan languages
56 2 The Chibcha Sphere
can be found in Constenla Uma˜na (1990a). Two Chibchan languages, Cuna and Kogui,
are well represented in this respect. Many Cuna texts were collected in the first half
of the twentieth century by researchers of the Ethnographic Museum in G¨oteborg
(Nordenski¨old 1928, 1930a, 1938; Holmer 1951; Holmer and Wass´en 1953). An eval-
uation of the literary value of these texts is provided by Kramer (1970). More recent
text material and an extensive study of Cuna discourse and speech styles can be found
in Sherzer (1983, 1986). A rich corpus of Kogui folkloric text was collected by Preuss
in 1915 and published in different issues of the journal Anthropos (Preuss 1921–5; cf.
also Fischer and Preuss 1989). Further information on Kogui traditional literature can
be found in Reichel-Dolmatoff (1950–1). Of great interest is an extensive collection of
Huitoto myths, transcribed and with a vocabulary and a German translation, again by
Preuss (1921–3). Finally, Howard and Sch¨ottelndreyer (1977) present some texts in
Kams´a and in Cat´ıo (Choc´o), respectively.
2.3 Chocoan
The Chocoan language family is located on the Pacific side of Colombia and eastern
Panama.
3
It consists of two languages, Ember´a and Waunana. The Waunana language
has its principal location in the lower part of the San Juan river valley in the Colombian
department of Choc´o. Additionally, a substantial number of Waunana speakers have
migrated to coastal areas adjacent to Panama and to the Darien region of Panama itself.
The Ember´a constitute a flexible and expanding population, which have colonised new
territories whenever external or demographic pressure incited them to do so. At present,
the Ember´a not only inhabit Darien and the Choc´o, but also parts of Antioquia, Cauca,
C´ordoba, Nari˜no, Risaralda and Valle del Cauca, thus occupying areas both to the north
and to the south of the Waunana. In recent times some Ember´ahave reached Ecuador,
and others have crossed the Andes into the Amazon region (department of Caquet´a).
Chocoan presence is easily traceable by the frequent occurrence of the ending -d´o ‘river’
in place names (e.g. Apartad´o, Baud´o, Docampad´o, Opogad´o). The number of Ember´a
speakers in Colombia is estimated at more than 70,000, while that of the Colombian
Waunana has been calculated at ca. 8,000 (Arango and S´anchez 1998).
4
3
Loukotka (1968) reports the existence of an extinct language isolate in the area of Bah´ıa de
Solano (northern Choc´o), which he calls Idabaez.Itisbased on a report concerning a short-lived
missionary adventure of the Franciscans between 1632 and 1646 (Rowe 1950a). Only one word
(tubete ‘medicine-man’) and the name of a chief (Hijuoba)were recorded, too little to attribute
a separate identity to this group on linguistic grounds only.
4
The population numbers supplied by Arango and S´anchez (1998) often seem to be inflated in
relation to figures taken from other sources. It has nothing to do with a difference in number be-
tween speakers of the language and members of the ethnic group. In many Colombian indigenous
groups the ancestral language is used by all members.
2.3 Chocoan 57
In their expansion the Ember´ahave settled in areas formerly occupied by other peo-
ples who became extinct during the process of colonisation. Ember´aisknown under
different names according to the region where it is spoken (Cat´ıo in central Antioquia
and C´ordoba, Cham´ı in southern Antioquia and Risaralda, Saija in the area south of
Buenaventura, Samb´u in the Panamanian border area). At least in one case, such a
name (Cat´ıo) originally designated a Chibchan people who preceded the Ember´ain
the same area (central Antioquia). Whether or not there has been any continuity be-
tween the modern Choc´o and extinct societies such as the Quimbaya and Sin´u, re-
mains an open question.
5
A connection that certainly seems promising is that between
Chocoan and the language of the Cueva people, who inhabited central and eastern
Panama at the beginning of the sixteenth century (Loewen 1963a; Constenla and Margery
1991).
Constenla and Margery (1991) point out a number of lexical and morphological
similarities between the Chocoan and the Chibchan languages, which may indicate
historical contact or a possible genetic relationship. It seems useful to observe that there
are a number of close lexical similarities with the Barbacoan languages as well, e.g.
Proto-Barbacoan (Curnow and Liddicoat 1998) *kim-
ϕu ‘nose’, Guambiano (Curnow
1998) kalu,Awa Pit (Calvache Due˜nas 2000) kail
y
‘ear’; Proto-Chocoan (Constenla
and Margery 1991) *k˜eb´u ‘nose’, *k
w
r´
‘ear’. Greenberg (1987) links Chocoan with
Barbacoan and P´aez. Rivet’s proposal of a genetic link between Chocoan and Cariban
(Rivet 1943b) has been rejected upon several occasions (cf. Pardo and Aguirre 1993:
278–92).
The difference between the two Chocoan languages, Ember´a and Waunana, is in the
first place lexical. Ember´a itself is best treated as a dialect continuum. From a phonolog-
ical point of view, the Chocoan languages are complex and show a considerable amount
of internal variation. Comparative studies of the phonology of the different varieties can
be found in Loewen (1963b), and Pardo and Aguirre (1993). Llerena Villalobos (1995)
contains the views of different authors on the phonology of several Ember´avarieties.
Waunana has many syllable- and word-final obstruents, whereas Ember´a has a preference
for open syllables. All varieties of Chocoan present three series of stops, which can be
either voiceless aspirated/voiceless unaspirated/voiced lax (Waunana, Saija), or voice-
less plain (somewhat aspirated)/voiced tense/voiced implosive (the northern dialects of
Ember´a). In addition to these basic distinctions, there is much allophonic variation; in
5
In a discussion of Rivet (1943b), Constenla and Margery (1991) refer to a short word list collected
by Bastian (1878) among possible descendants of the Quimbaya. It seems relatable to Chocoan.
Considering the late date, so long after the recorded extinction of Quimbaya, one has to take into
account the possibility that the interviewed persons were Chocoans who had migrated into the
area. A closer analysis of the place and circumstances under which this word list was collected
can possibly throw light on the matter.
58 2 The Chibcha Sphere
Table 2.1 Overview of the consonant inventories of Chocoan languages and dialects
(adapted from Pardo and Aguirre 1993)
Atrato,
Upper San Antioquia,
Waunana, Saija Lower Baud´o Juan N. Choc´o
Stops Aspirated p
h
t
h
k
h
p
h
t
h
k
h
p
h
t
h
k
h
p
h
t
h
k
h
Plain p t k ʔ ptk
Voiced b d g b d b d b d
Implosive /ð
Affricates Voiced z d
ˇz
and β
Fricatives Voiceless ˇcsh
Vibrants r rr
Resonants l m n
Approximants w y
a nasal environment the stops generally have prenasalised allophones. The dialect of
the lower Baud´oriver is unique in that it presents four series in the labial and dental
articulations (voiceless aspirated/voiceless unaspirated/voiced lax/voiced implosive). A
constant feature of all the Chocoan languages is a phonemic opposition between a sim-
ple (r) and a multiple vibrant (rr), both of which occur in intervocalic and syllable-final
position. The number of affricates and fricatives varies according to the dialect. Only
the southern varieties have a phonemic glottal stop.
Table 2.1 contains a synopsis of the consonant systems of Waunana and a number of
Ember´a dialects.
Constenla and Margery (1991) propose a reconstruction of Proto-Chocoan phonology.
In spite of the rather elaborate inventories of stops found today in the Chocoan varieties,
they reconstruct a stop system with voiced (b, d ) and voiceless (p, t, k) elements only.
This reconstruction is claimed to be valid for Proto-Ember´a, as well as for Proto-Chocoan
in its totality.
The minimal vowel inventory found in all present-day varieties comprises three high
vowels (i,
, u), two mid vowels (e, o) and one low vowel (a). In addition, Waunana has an
extra row of lowered (open) high vowels; Saija has an extra central vowel (
). A nasality
opposition is relevant for all six vowels. Progressive nasal spread can affect whole words
unless checked by an opaque consonant (one of the obstruents, or rr). In an analysis of
2.3 Chocoan 59
Saija (Harms 1994), the nasal consonants are treated as allophones of b and d before a
nasal vowel. Also in Saija stress can be contrastive.
Two detailed and recent studies address the structure of Ember´avarieties. Harms
(1994) deals with the Saija variety of Nari˜no, Cauca and Valle, whereas Aguirre Licht
(1998, 1999) describes the Cham´ı dialect of Cristian´ıa (southwestern Antioquia). Llerena
Villalobos (1994) treats predication in the Cham´ı dialect of the Upper And´agueda
(interior of Choc´o). In Gonz´alez and Rodr´ıguez (2000), Hoyos Ben´ıtez presents a sketch
of the Napip´ıriver dialect (in the Baud´o hills, coast of north-central Choc´o) and Mej´ıa
Fonnegra a sketch of Waunana. A detailed study of loan words in Waunana by Loewen
(1960) documents language contact with Spanish.
Chocoan word forms present an agglutinating structure which is mainly based on
suffixes. Prefixes are exceptional. Nominal suffixes refer to case and number. Verbal
suffixes refer to aspect, tense, number and mood. The verbal morphology furthermore
includes suffixes for causative, directionality and other derivational categories. Auxil-
iaries and copula verbs play an important role in the grammar. There is a rich choice of
compound verbs, including some cases of object incorporation.
In a genitive construction a possessor precedes its head without any special marker.
This is also the case when the modifier is a demonstrative pronoun. Adjectives and
numerals, however, follow their heads. Personal reference is indicated by pronouns,
which precede a noun (when referring to a possessor), or a verb (when referring to
subject and object). There is no indication of personal reference in the verb form itself,
except that Waunana has a set of auxiliary verbs reflecting person-of-subject, which are
limited to stative constructions (Mej´ıa Fonnegra 2000).
All Chocoan languages are ergative. The case system comprises an ergative marker
which is obligatory with agents of transitive constructions. Objects of transitive verbs
and subjects of intransitive verbs remain unmarked. The preferred constituent order is
Agent–Patient–Verb. For instance, in Waunana, we find:
(1) k
h
um-au su:rr bu:rr-pi-hi-m
jaguar-E deer fall-CA-PA-DV
‘The jaguar caused the deer to fall down.’
(Mej´ıa Fonnegra 2000: 89)
(2) su:rr bu:rr-hi-m
deer fall-PA-DV
‘The deer fell down.’
(Mej´ıa Fonnegra 2000: 89)
A special ergative marker is used with singular pronouns:
(3) mu-a p-rik binʔʔe de:-hi-m
I-E you-DA medicine give-PA-DV
‘I gave medicine to you.’
(Mej´ıa Fonnegra 2000: 90)
60 2 The Chibcha Sphere
When plurality is marked on the verb in Ember´a, it refers to the agent, regardless
of whether the latter is in the ergative or in the absolutive case. Examples from Saija
(southern Ember´a) are:
(4) eper˜a:-r˜
´
a-pa p
h
ok
h
´ura
6
k
h
o-pa-ˇci-d´a
person-PL-E toasted.corn eat-HB-PA-PL
‘The Epena used to eat toasted corn.’
(Harms 1994: 98)
(5) mwarr´a-r˜aˇc˜o:-pa-ˇci-d´a
I son-PL fight-HB-PA-PL
‘My children used to fight.’
(Harms 1994: 103)
Ember´a has a series of copula verbs used in adjectival and locative constructions. They
(lexically) encode such distinctions as number, aspect, honorific and size. In example (6),
also from Saija, ˇci-to:n-a- is the honorific plural past stem of the copula verb. A past-
tense marker (-ˇci-)isthen still required.
(6) ˇcupr´ıa ˇci-to:n-a-pa-ˇci-d´a
poor be.HN-PL-PA-HB-PA-PL
‘They were very poor.’
(Harms 1994: 32)
The following examples from Cham´ı illustrate a predicative construction with a
dual copula verb (7), and a locative construction with a possessive interpretation (8),
respectively.
(7) d´ai ˜ep˜
´
era pan´u-ma
we Ember´a be.D-DV
‘The two of us are Ember´a.’
(Aguirre Licht 1999: 55)
(8) ˇci w´ar mar´ıa-e ´u
DC child Mar´ıa-L be.SG
‘The child belongs to Mar´ıa.’
(Aguirre Licht 1999: 56)
2.4 Yurumangu´ı
Yurumangu´ı is the name of a group of Indians who inhabited the upper reaches of the
Cajambre, Nava and Yurumangu´ırivers. These rivers descend to the Pacific Ocean from
the mountain range Los Farallones de Cali, situated southwest of the modern town of
Cali in the department of Valle del Cauca. The Yurumangu´ıwere visited between 1765
and 1768 in two expeditions organised by a local prospector, Sebasti´an Lanchas de
Estrada. He left a diary and a list of words and expressions in the language, as well as
some interesting ethnographic notes. These materials were published in 1940 by Arcila
6
Intervocalic k
h
has a fricative pronunciation [x].
2.5 Cuna 61
Robledo (cf. Ortiz 1946). The fate of the Indians of Yurumangu´ı after the two visits of
the 1760s is unknown. There have been no further records of their existence.
Rivet (1942) made a study of the language data recorded by Lanchas and concluded
that Yurumangu´ıwas not visibly related to any other language of the area. He proposed
a genetic relationship with the Hokan languages of North America, leaving Yurumangu´ı
as the only language with such an exclusive connection outside South America. The
suggestion was explicitly followed by Greenberg (1960a, 1987: 132). Jij´on y Caama˜no
(1945) proposed both a Hokan and a Chibchan affinity. Many other researchers (e.g.
Kaufman 1990, Constenla Uma˜na 1991) prefer to treat the language as an isolate.
The data on Yurumangu´ı are very limited and probably unfit to establish genetic
connections that are not particularly close. Its simple sound system with a preference for
open syllables does not plead in favour of a North American connection. Even though
the Yurumangu´ı territory was situated along rivers descending to the Pacific, it was an
inland tribe, one of the reasons for which the group could remain unnoticed for so long.
Instead of speculating about a marine origin for the Yurumangu´ı, it would probably be
more logical to consider them as survivors of one of the groups of the Cali region who
may have fled exploitation by the cruel Belalc´azar and his men.
Some morphological elements can be deduced from the Yurumangu´ı data, such as a
suffix -sa that characterises the citation form of several verbs (e.g. anga-sa ‘to sleep’,
sai-sa ‘to die’, ulsa-sa ‘to take out’) and a prefix ca(i)- that occurs frequently in kinship
terms and words referring to body parts (e.g. cai-g´ı ‘mother’, cai-enai´e ‘grandmother’,
cai-cona ‘head’, cai-lusa ‘hair’). Assumedly, ca(i)- may have been one of the possessive
personal reference markers. Interrogative pronouns began with c [k], as, for instance,
cana ‘what?’, and cu or co ‘where?’ (cu-na ‘where is it?’, cu-cae ‘where are you?’,
co-cobica ‘where do you come from?’, co-cuebiquen ‘where are you going?’). Constenla
Uma˜na (1991: 53) observes word order preferences to the effect that a genitive must
precede its head, and an adjective must follow its head, characteristics that the language
shares with Chocoan.
Alexical item worth mentioning is chuma ‘to drink’ (e.g. in chuma-´e ‘drink!’). Ortiz
(1946: 25) observes that it is used in southern Colombian Spanish to denote drunkenness,
suggesting that it could be a loan from Yurumangu´ı. However, the same expression is
widely used in Ecuador and northern Peru. Its most likely source is Mochica c
ɥ
uma-
‘(get) drunk’ (cf. section 3.4). The case suggests that, notwithstanding their apparent
isolation, the Yurumangu´ıwere not entirely free of contact with neighbouring speakers
of Spanish.
2.5 Cuna
In Colombia approximately 1,000 Cuna (autodenomination Tule) occupy two villages
near the Gulf of Urab´a: Arqu´ıa (department of Choc´o) and Caim´an Nuevo (department of
62 2 The Chibcha Sphere
Antioquia). A majority of the Cuna people (over 40,000) inhabit neighbouring Panama,
where they occupy an autonomous region or comarca, comprising the archipelago of
San Blas in the Caribbean and parts of the Darien mainland. The Cunas of Panama
obtained their autonomy as a result of the 1925 uprising led by the nele (‘shaman’)
Kantule.
7
Notwithstanding their present homeland, the Panamanian Cuna are origi-
nally from Colombian territory. They were probably chased from the Atrato river valley
and the adjacent Pacific region by their hereditary enemies, the Ember´a. On the coast
of northern Choc´oaplace name Jurad ´o means ‘river of the Cuna’ in Ember´a, sug-
gesting that Cuna once may have inhabited that area (cf. Rowe 1950a). During the
seventeenth and eighteenth centuries they moved eastward, attacking the Spanish set-
tlements on the Sin´uriver (Fals Borda 1976), and westward, occupying empty areas in
the Darien region, which had been inhabited by the extinct Cueva people. In 1681 the
Darien Cuna were visited by the English ship’s doctor Lionel Wafer, who stayed with
them for a while and published a word list of the language (Friedemann and Arocha
1985).
8
The Cuna language belongs to the Chibchan family, of which it constitutes a separate
branch (Constenla Uma˜na 1993: 119). Descriptive material on the Cuna language can be
found in Holmer (1946, 1947, 1951, 1952), Sherzer (1975, 1978) and Llerena Villalobos
(1987, 2000). The sound inventory of Cuna, which is relatively small, is subject to
morpheme-internal allophonic variation and an elaborate set of sandhi rules operating
at morpheme boundaries. The language has five vowels (a, e, i, o, u) and a series
of diphthongs or, rather, vowel sequences. Vowels are automatically long in stressed
open syllables (stress is normally on the penultimate). Extra-long vowels, analysable as
sequences of same vowels, occur as well, in particular, in monosyllabic words (Holmer
1946: 186).
Within the consonants there is a distinction between geminate (tense) and simple
(lax), as can be seen in table 2.2.
Geminate consonants only occur intervocalically; the geminate stops pp, tt, kk and
kk
w
are always voiceless. By contrast, the plain stops p, t, k and k
w
occur in all positions.
They are normally voiced between vowels or when adjacent to a voiced consonant; in
word-initial position voicing is optional. The affricate ˇc is always voiceless and acts
7
The kantule, literally, ‘flute (kammu) man (tule)’, is the name of the central figure at girls’ puberty
rites (Sherzer 1974).
8
Loukotka (1968: 238–9) apparently treated Wafer’s Cuna word list as a specimen of the Cueva
language. The mistaken view that the Cuna are close relatives or even direct descendants of the
Cueva is still upheld in literature (e.g. Greenberg 1987: 117; Whitehead 1999: 887). Cuna lan-
guage and culture are very different from those of the unfortunate Cueva, who were exterminated
during the early years of Spanish colonisation (Romoli 1987; Constenla Uma˜na 1991: 47).
2.5 Cuna 63
Table 2.2 Cuna consonant inventory
Labial Alveolar Palatal Velar Labiovelar
Stops Simple p t k k
w
Geminated pp tt kk kk
w
Affricate ˇc
Fricative s
Nasals Simple m n
Geminated mm nn
Laterals Simple l
Geminated ll
Vibrant r
Approximants w y
as the geminate counterpart of s.Asaresult, the two are usually not distinguished in
loan words, where ˇc is banned from positions reserved for non-geminates. The sound r
is a trill and has no geminate counterpart. It cannot occur in word-initial position, and
neither does l,which is automatically replaced by n in that position.
The existence of separate labiovelar phonemes k
w
and kk
w
is defended in Holmer
(1947: 13; 1951: 35) and Sherzer (1975: 49), but rejected by Llerena Villalobos. The
existence of an opposition between kue ‘to be, to become’ and k
w
a (classifier for seed-
like objects and also a frequent multifunctional suffix) seems to favour the former
position.
Sandhi in Cuna mainly consists in the syncope of morpheme-final and word-final
vowels and syllables, sometimes accompanied by other processes, such as replacement
of l by r (9) and various types of fusion (for an account of the possible changes see
Llerena Villalobos 1987: 209–16). Particularly frequent is the suppression of final e
in polysyllabic morphemes, when followed by any other morpheme. Voicing may be
preserved, even where the triggering intervocalic context has disappeared as a result of
syncope (10).
(9) mola-makke
[morm´akke]
cloth-prick
‘to sew’
(Llerena Villalobos 1987: 26)
(10) ape-takke
[ab
d´akke]
want-see
‘to await’
(Llerena Villalobos 1987: 216)