Tonal Dialects and Consonant-Pitch Interaction in Yucatec Maya

33

Table II-9 Percentage of GLOTTALIZED vowels produced with

glottalization by onset type and coda type

ejective
glottal stop
implosive
vcls. obstruent
vcd. sonorant

onset
63%
62%
78%
72%
78%
Rao-Scott 2 = 20.4
p = .0004

coda
48%
86%
67%
74%
77%
Rao-Scott 2 = 37.9
p < .0001

3.3 Pitch
Figure 2 shows the average pitch contours (as defined by five normalized
time points: initial, 25% of vowel duration, medial, 75% of vowel
duration, and final) for groups of participants divided by location and
gender (numerical values for means and standard deviations are given in
Appendix B). When males are compared to females within each location,
there are few differences in the general shape of the pitch contours and the
relationships among the pitch contours of different vowel shapes. For
example, with Mrida females and males, both SHORT and LOW TONE
vowels show low steady pitch, HIGH TONE vowels start with higher pitch
and end with the same pitch as LOW TONE vowels, and GLOTTALIZED
vowels start with even higher pitch and end with low pitch. The only
striking differences based on gender are SHORT vowels in Santa Elena
(which have relatively high pitch for females and relatively low pitch for
males) and GLOTTALIZED vowels in Sisbicchn (which show a dramatic
decrease in pitch in the middle for females but not for males7). Because
gender does not seem to heavily influence the shapes of and relations
among the pitch contours, future graphs will show both genders averaged
together.
The pitch contours for Mrida and Santa Elena are very similar, but
Sisbicchn presents a marked contrast to both of these locations. All vowel
shapes in Sisbicchn show roughly the same rising contour. The
distinctions between Mrida/Santa Elena and Sisbicchn are made clear in
Figure 3, where we see graphs that make use of data averaged among all


7

The pitch differences in GLOTTALIZED vowels between males and females from
Sisbicchn are related to glottalization, as will be discussed in more detail below
(see Fig. 5).