Laryngealized vowels in Yánesha’: a phonetic description and subsegmental analysis

Abstract This paper addresses the phonetic and phonological status of laryngeals in Yánesha’(Arawakan), showing that they are features associated with vowels, rather than following consonants or free-standing segments. Based on phonetic findings, I propose that [+spread glottis] and [+constricted glottis] are contrastive features associated with the rightmost subsegments of aspirated and glottalized vowels, respectively, within a Q-Theoretic framework. This analysis is supported by distributional and durational patterns and interactions between weight and stress, as quantified in the phonetics description. Yánesha’s laryngealized vowels are subsequently considered in light of areal trends, and an analytical extension to closely related Chamicuro is proposed. This paper contributes to our empirical understanding of a typologically rare segment type in an understudied language.