THE STATUS OF [5] IN GUATEMALAN SPANISH1

Laura MartinCleveland State University

1. INTRODUCTION.The contemporary presence of the voiceless palatoalveolarfricative [s] in Spanish dialects has been widely observed. Since [s] is not normallyanalyzed as belonging to the set of modem phonemes in any variety of standard Spanish,its appearance naturally engagesthe attention of scholars and lexicographers. Severalpossibilities have been offered to account for its anomalous presence. First,' the soundmay be a strictly allophonic variant of /e / or Is/. Sometimes the conditioning factorsfor such variation are obvious, but often the variation seems to be quite free.Throughout the Caribbean (e.g. Jimenez Sabater 1975, Hammond1976, Guitart 1980)as well as in such dispersed settings as Chile (Oroz 1966), EI Salvador (Rivas 1969),and New Mexico (Espinosa 1909:124), [s] is well attested as part of overall consonantweakeningprocessesas a deaffricativized allophonic variant of /e /: noche> [n6se]. InNew Mexican Spanish Is] also results from palatalization of /si/ sequences: mis yerbas> [mls~rb9s] (Espinosa 1909:124). Throughout northern Central America and Mexico,Is] varies with both [e] and Is] as part of what Lope Blanch (1979) calls the'polymorphism' inherent in all languages.

Another common claim suggests that contemporary [s] is a reflex of the OldSpanish sibilant qontrasts which, at the time of the initial European contact with theAmericas, were in shift through merger and changes in place of articulation from afifteenth century dental/alveolar/palatal series to the modem system of alveolar/velaror alveolar/glottal contrasts in American varieties of Spanish. Thus the items in whichthe palatal is found today are held to be archaisms dating from early enough in thecontact period that the sibilant shift had not applied to them.2

Finally, and most often, words with [s] are thought to be loans from localindigenous languages. This claim is preferred in precisely those geographic areas whereIs] occurs most frequently: Guatemala and the contiguous regions of Mexico (thesouthernmost Mexican state of Chiapas and the Yucatan peninsula). In fact, Lope Blanch(1975) considers the presence of [s] in the Yucatanto be one of the few documentableevidences of indigenous influence in Mexican Spanish. All of the relatively few sourcesthat specifically treat Guatemalan (e.g. Predmore 1945, Lentzner 1938:231f) orChiapas Spanish (Francis:n.d.) inevitably remark on the presence of [s] and ultimatelyassign its presence to the effect of influence from local Mayan languages, more than 2 5of which are spoken there today.3 .

This study further explores the presence of [s] in Guatemalan Spanish(henceforth GS), to propose etymologies for a small set of previously undocumentedexample words collected there, and to discuss the possible role of the sound within the

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72 I Martin

Le. an Indian.' A good indication of the salience of the combined negative and indigenousconnotations of these words occurred during my early checking of the list with aneducatedupper-class woman from the capital. During our conversation, she suggestedseveral additional words. Of eight new words, half referred insultingly to Indians or topersons of low social status, including kukuxque 'badly dressed person, person of thelower class' (S has 'dirty, beggar' among his definitions); xebo 'fool'; xuma 'Indianperson (despective)'; and ixto 'Indian'.

These, some of which are otherwise undocumented, are among many found in thedictionaries that are applied negatively to indigenous persons, including xcamparic'Indian (= ixchoco)' (S), ishcoroco 'adult Indian (despective) (= ishpaco)' (A), and ixto'Indian (S)' or 'Indian child (insult)' (A). (All of these involve the clearly indigenousprefix [i5 - 5 -].) The general despective orientation seen in this set pervades my owncorpus and produces semantic overtones of negativity or disapproval, even in words notdirectly linked to an indigenous meaning.

A related meaning associated with [5] words is diminutive size. Most often, sizeor shape meanings are also somewhat negative, with an implication of unattractiveness.Consider the following series: pi/ixte 'raqulquito, pequeno' ('rickety, little') (B);'desmedrado' ('withered') (A); pilixque 'pequeno' ('little') (S); pexte 'flaco' ('skinny')(S); pisirico 'pequeno' ('little') (A); posoroco 'gallo corpulento, persona fornida' ('fat(non-fighting) rooster, stout person') (A).

Lexical items containing [5] are readily available for metaphoric extension 0 rexploitation. Nixtamal, the term for corn kernels cooked with lime during the process oftortilla production, produces nixtamalero to refer to a person who gets up early as wellas to the Morning Star. This extension reflects the fact that women rise at dawn to grindthe nixtamal into dough (cf. Samayoa Chinchilla 1965). Cacaxte, the term for thewooden backrack on which pottery products are carried to market, has widespreadmetaphoric application to persons who are extremely thin, verging on skeletal.Derivation and semantic extension seem to account for many of the otherwise non-documented items in my set.

Finally, there is a special class of words in which [5] is especially prominent:personal nicknames. In this category, [5] clearly associates phonologically with both/c / and Is/. Of the sixteen nicknames listed by B, fourteen contain [c] derived fromoriginal /s/ as in Chilo from Basilio and Chole from Soledad. Likewise, of A's sevennicknames with [c] or [5] (e.g. Chepa from Jose'a and Max from Tomas), all are derivedfrom an original Is/. Sandoval includes 177 nicknames, of which 81 cOl'1tain[c] andseven have [5]. All but five of the former and all of the latter are based on names with anoriginal Is/. Examples include Lax/Laxa from Nicolas/Nicolasa, Tix from Beatriz, Nexfrom Ines for [5], and Candudla for Candelaria and Chomofor Jer6nimo for non -/ s/-derived [c]. This subset of [5] words may reflect the same sorts of semantic overtonesseen in other subcategories: diminutive size, informal tone, even slight negativeimplication, as when names are abbreviated for purposes of insult.

Interestingly, though, the association of palatal fricatives with nicknames, andindeed with specific sorts of affective meaning, is not limited to GS. De Reuse ( 1 986)discusses the patterns of sound symbolism that affect [5] in Santiago de Estero Quechuaand finds that words and suffixes with this sound carry 'particular emotionalconnotations, chiefly diminutive or augmentative' and 'affective and deprecatory value,and not mere size, is the determining factor'.7 (See also Hardman-de-Bautista 1982.)

GS [5], then, is rather unlike [5] reported in other Spanish dialects. It is not theproduct of regular allophonic variation, conditioned or not. The lexical items in which itoccurs do not readily sort into archaisms or very early borrowings in which the reflexof Old Spanish [5] might still be found. Furthermore, [5] words that are atypical forloans appear to cluster according to semantic criteria.

84 1 Martln

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