Tarascan dialectal and generational differences around aspirated stops

Abstract

The Tarascan or phurépecha language contrasts aspirated stops from non-aspirated word initially, but this contrast was hardly heard in Hiwatzio, a lake dialect (Friedrich 1971:177). We measured the length of the aspirated feature following stops and vowels /i a u/'s formants F1 and F2 so as to identify differences among subjects. The results show that adult men speakers from a mountain dialect make an aspiration shorter than men from a lake dialect. The opposite pattern applies for women belong to the same dialects. Regarding generational differences, a young man from a lake dialect does a shorter aspiration than the older men do and a young girl’s F1 and F2 of /i, a, u/ tend to be higher than older women.