Re-analysis of controversial aspects of spoken chedungun phonology in alto biobío: the phonetic-phonolical status of the voiceless alveopalatal fricative phone[ʃ]

Abstract

This paper focuses on the study of mapudungun segmental phonology in general, and the phonetic-phonological status of the voiceless alveopalatal fricative phone [ʃ] in the ched-ungun spoken in the Alto Bío-Bío, in particular. Thus, in order to determine its occurrence and distribution, an adapted lexical list from Croese (1980) was applied to a total of 30 chedungun and Spanish bilingual adults collaborators belonging to 10 pehuenches villages of this com-mune (3 collaborators of each one). Through quantitative, spectrographic and distributional evidence, it is concluded that such phone occurs with a very low frequency, and in such cases it constitutes an allophonic variant of the voiceless alveopalatal affricate phoneme /t͡ʃ/.