The description of the Secoya /d/ is odd. A preceding vowel is laryngealized, uneless the /d/ has its nasal or flap allophone. But if there is a preceding vowel, it will have its nasal or flap allophone. In the examples of laryngealization, a /d/ only occurs after a glottal stop, so where do we see its effect on the preceding vowel? Indeed, word-medial [d] can only occur after a glottal stop. Am I missing something? — kwami (talk) 00:16, 27 January 2026 (UTC)
- @Kwamikagami I don't think you're missing anything, the source seems to be internally inconsistent; it also explicitly says that the tap and nasal allophones do not cause a laryngealization effect, so both can't be true. I would imagine based on the statements that the glottal stop is reduced to laryngealization and is the cause for which medial [d] can occur, rather than the effect of it, but that is speculation and the opposite of the source's claim.
- Diverging from speculation, there are some further inconsistencies. The vocabulary (which includes Johnson as one of the authors) published a few years later (1992) seems to imply that intervocalic [ʔ(.)ɾ] (orthographic 'r) sequences can exist, and do frequently, while I had a hard time finding any of the same for [ʔ(.)d] (orthographic 'd) sequences: https://www.sil.org/system/files/reapdata/45/18/22/45182210810967105773484595727635825421/VocabSecoya_32461.pdf
- An earlier (1962) source from Johnson provides a much more complex syllable structure, indicating that this may be the actual process where laryngealization is arising: https://www.sil.org/system/files/reapdata/10/90/68/109068958899866727148615373226661887957/11230.pdf
- Meanwhile, Vallejos (2013) gives a different account, noting [ɾ] is the default intervocalic realization but not obligatory, and is somewhat skeptical of Johnson's 1990 report: https://periodicos.sbu.unicamp.br/ojs/index.php/liames/article/view/1532
- None of those three sources imply the same behavior. I think we need to look at more besides the 1990 report, which seems to be questionably reliable ~ oklopfer (💬) 03:30, 27 January 2026 (UTC)
