Ayacucho Quechua
Encyclopedia
Ayacucho is one dialect of the Quechua language, spoken in the Ayacucho region
of Peru
, as well as by immigrants from Ayacucho in Lima
. With roughly a million speakers, it is one of the largest dialects of the language along with Cusco Quechua
. The literary standard of Southern Quechua
is based on these two closely related Quechua varieties.
Ayacucho Quechua uses only three vowels: /a/, /i/, and /u/, which are rendered by native speakers as [æ], [ɪ], and [ʊ] respectively. When these vowels appear adjacent to the uvular fricative /χ/, they are lowered (with [æ] instead being produced further back), yielding [ɑ], [ɛ], and [ɔ] respectively. For bilingual speakers, the Spanish vowels, [a], [i], and [u] may also be used.
Bold type indicates orthographic representation. Phonetic pronunciation, if different, is indicated by IPA symbols in brackets.
Notable differences from Cusco Quechua:
Ayacucho Quechua has borrowed hundreds of words from Spanish, and some speakers (even monolinguals) approximate the Spanish pronunciation. For such speakers, /f/ /v/ /b/ /d/ /ɡ/ /e/ /o/ are phonemes in borrowed words like libru (from Spanish libro "book") or servey (from Spanish servir "to serve")
All phonemes appear in word initial position, though vowel clusters are not allowed, and word initial consonant clusters occur only in words borrowed from Spanish (these clusters are br-, bw-, by-, pl-, pr-, dy-, gr-, gw-, kr-, kl-, kw-, tr-, fr-, sp-, sk-, and sy-). The consonants h, ñ, t, ll, and r cannot occur in words final position (as well as Spanish borrowed consonants b, g, and f). This leads to a minimal possible syllable of V (only word initially) and a maximal native syllable of CVC ñan (with the prohibited consonants unable to appear in the final position), and a maximal possible syllable of CCVC kreyey (from Spanish creer "to believe").
, and Quechua nouns can be modified by many affix
es (mostly suffixes) which can mark the case of a noun (substantive) or derive a new word. Some suffixes are possible in combination, such as -pa + -ta, ñuqapata, "to my place". Pronouns are marked with the same suffixes as regular nouns, as in -ñuqa "I", -ñuqa-pa "my".
The first person plural pronouns Ayacucho Quechua are divided into inclusive and exclusive pairs
. Ñuqanchik, the inclusive pronoun, means "we" and includes the person to whom the speaker is talking, as in "you and I". The exclusive pronoun, ñuqayku, also means "we", but does not include the listener, meaning approximately "we but not you".
s, which are also conveyed through the use of suffixes. These suffixes may be placed onto nouns, numerals, pronouns, and with an adverbial meaning, on adjectives and adverbs.
for nouns, Quechua verbal morphology is much more complex. Verbs are conjugated for person
and number of both the subject and the object. Subject suffixes precede explicit object suffixes as in riku-y-ki-ku "We see you", in which the first person -y appears before the second person -ki (ku, in this case pluralizes the first person). However, even the subject markers are preceded by the suffixes -wa and -su which indirectly convey the direct object of the verb, as in riku-wa-n-ki "You see me". Explicit personal markers are preceded by one of the tentatively titled "aspect
" morphemes. The simple present tense is marked by the suffix -n-, apart from first-person subject and second-person object, where there is no suffix.
). It appears as -n following a vowel, and -nin following a consonant. -chik refers to a group which includes the addressee. It appears as -nchik following a vowel, -ninchik following a consonant, and -chik elsewhere (as when it follows the -n- morpheme). -ku refers to a group which excludes the addressee. It has no allomorphy. -wa indicates that the speaker is the object of second or third person action -su indicates that the addressee is the object of action by the third person (when followed by the second person ending).
Below is shown the verb rikuy, "to see", fully conjugated in the simple present tense. The persons are shown accompanied by their coirresponding Quechua pronouns declined into the appropriate cases. Blocks which are left empty are either instances in which the object is the same as the subject, which requires the reflexive marker -ku-, as in riku-ku-y "I saw myself", or cases where such a statement is logically impossible, as in the intersection between a second person subject and a first person plural inclusive object, which would mean, approximately "You helped you and I".
With respect to smaller constituents, the order is much more fixed. Modifiers, such as adjectives, preadjectivals, adverbials and attributive nouns all occur before the head which they modify (including possessive nouns marked with -pa). Prepositions, when they occur, are also placed before their noun phrases.
Ayacucho Region
Ayacucho is a region of Peru, located in the south-central Andes of the country. Its capital is the city of Ayacucho. The region was one of the hardest hit by terrorism during the 1980s during the guerrilla war waged by Shining Path known as the internal conflict in Peru.A referendum was held on...
of Peru
Peru
Peru , officially the Republic of Peru , is a country in western South America. It is bordered on the north by Ecuador and Colombia, on the east by Brazil, on the southeast by Bolivia, on the south by Chile, and on the west by the Pacific Ocean....
, as well as by immigrants from Ayacucho in Lima
Lima
Lima is the capital and the largest city of Peru. It is located in the valleys of the Chillón, Rímac and Lurín rivers, in the central part of the country, on a desert coast overlooking the Pacific Ocean. Together with the seaport of Callao, it forms a contiguous urban area known as the Lima...
. With roughly a million speakers, it is one of the largest dialects of the language along with Cusco Quechua
Cusco Quechua
Cusco Quechua is a dialect of the Southern Quechua language, more specifically Qusqu-Qullaw Quechua, spoken in city and the department of Cusco....
. The literary standard of Southern Quechua
Southern Quechua
Southern Quechua , or only Quechua, is the most widely spoken of the major regional groupings of mutually intelligible dialects within the Quechua language family, with about 5 million speakers...
is based on these two closely related Quechua varieties.
Vowels
| Front Front vowel A front vowel is a type of vowel sound used in some spoken languages. The defining characteristic of a front vowel is that the tongue is positioned as far in front as possible in the mouth without creating a constriction that would be classified as a consonant. Front vowels are sometimes also... |
Back Back vowel A back vowel is a type of vowel sound used in spoken languages. The defining characteristic of a back vowel is that the tongue is positioned as far back as possible in the mouth without creating a constriction that would be classified as a consonant. Back vowels are sometimes also called dark... |
|
|---|---|---|
| High | i | u |
| Low | a | |
Ayacucho Quechua uses only three vowels: /a/, /i/, and /u/, which are rendered by native speakers as [æ], [ɪ], and [ʊ] respectively. When these vowels appear adjacent to the uvular fricative /χ/, they are lowered (with [æ] instead being produced further back), yielding [ɑ], [ɛ], and [ɔ] respectively. For bilingual speakers, the Spanish vowels, [a], [i], and [u] may also be used.
Consonants
| Labial Labial consonant Labial consonants are consonants in which one or both lips are the active articulator. This precludes linguolabials, in which the tip of the tongue reaches for the posterior side of the upper lip and which are considered coronals... |
Alveolar Alveolar consonant Alveolar consonants are articulated with the tongue against or close to the superior alveolar ridge, which is called that because it contains the alveoli of the superior teeth... |
Palatal Palatal consonant Palatal consonants are consonants articulated with the body of the tongue raised against the hard palate... |
Velar Velar consonant Velars are consonants articulated with the back part of the tongue against the soft palate, the back part of the roof of the mouth, known also as the velum).... |
Uvular Uvular consonant Uvulars are consonants articulated with the back of the tongue against or near the uvula, that is, further back in the mouth than velar consonants. Uvulars may be plosives, fricatives, nasal stops, trills, or approximants, though the IPA does not provide a separate symbol for the approximant, and... |
Glottal Glottal consonant Glottal consonants, also called laryngeal consonants, are consonants articulated with the glottis. Many phoneticians consider them, or at least the so-called fricative, to be transitional states of the glottis without a point of articulation as other consonants have; in fact, some do not consider... |
|
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Plosive | p | t | k | |||
| Affricate Affricate consonant Affricates are consonants that begin as stops but release as a fricative rather than directly into the following vowel.- Samples :... |
ch [tʃ] | |||||
| Fricative Fricative consonant Fricatives are consonants produced by forcing air through a narrow channel made by placing two articulators close together. These may be the lower lip against the upper teeth, in the case of ; the back of the tongue against the soft palate, in the case of German , the final consonant of Bach; or... |
s | q [χ] | h | |||
| Nasal Nasal consonant A nasal consonant is a type of consonant produced with a lowered velum in the mouth, allowing air to escape freely through the nose. Examples of nasal consonants in English are and , in words such as nose and mouth.- Definition :... |
m | n | ñ [ɲ] | |||
| Lateral Lateral consonant A lateral is an el-like consonant, in which airstream proceeds along the sides of the tongue, but is blocked by the tongue from going through the middle of the mouth.... |
l | ll [ʎ] | ||||
| Trill Trill consonant In phonetics, a trill is a consonantal sound produced by vibrations between the articulator and the place of articulation. Standard Spanish <rr> as in perro is an alveolar trill, while in Parisian French it is almost always uvular.... |
r | |||||
| Approximant Approximant consonant Approximants are speech sounds that involve the articulators approaching each other but not narrowly enough or with enough articulatory precision to create turbulent airflow. Therefore, approximants fall between fricatives, which do produce a turbulent airstream, and vowels, which produce no... |
w | y [j] |
Bold type indicates orthographic representation. Phonetic pronunciation, if different, is indicated by IPA symbols in brackets.
Notable differences from Cusco Quechua:
- There are no ejective stopsEjective consonantIn phonetics, ejective consonants are voiceless consonants that are pronounced with simultaneous closure of the glottis. In the phonology of a particular language, ejectives may contrast with aspirated or tenuis consonants...
. See Cusco Phonology for examples of ejective consonants. - q represents the uvular fricative /χ/ rather than the uvular stop /q/ of Cusco. The q grapheme is kept merely to allow for easy comparison due to its use with other Quechua languages.
- Ayacucho Quechua lacks the characteristic spirantizationLenitionIn linguistics, lenition is a kind of sound change that alters consonants, making them "weaker" in some way. The word lenition itself means "softening" or "weakening" . Lenition can happen both synchronically and diachronically...
of stops at the end of a syllable; compare Cusco ñuqanchis with Ayacucho ñuqanchik "we/you and I".
Ayacucho Quechua has borrowed hundreds of words from Spanish, and some speakers (even monolinguals) approximate the Spanish pronunciation. For such speakers, /f/ /v/ /b/ /d/ /ɡ/ /e/ /o/ are phonemes in borrowed words like libru (from Spanish libro "book") or servey (from Spanish servir "to serve")
Stress Rules and Syllable Structure
Quechua primary (strong) stress regularly falls the penultimate syllable (if a word has more than one syllable). It may also occur on the final syllable, in which case it is directly indicated by the acute diacritic. In slow speech, weak stress tends to fall on the first syllable of a word.All phonemes appear in word initial position, though vowel clusters are not allowed, and word initial consonant clusters occur only in words borrowed from Spanish (these clusters are br-, bw-, by-, pl-, pr-, dy-, gr-, gw-, kr-, kl-, kw-, tr-, fr-, sp-, sk-, and sy-). The consonants h, ñ, t, ll, and r cannot occur in words final position (as well as Spanish borrowed consonants b, g, and f). This leads to a minimal possible syllable of V (only word initially) and a maximal native syllable of CVC ñan (with the prohibited consonants unable to appear in the final position), and a maximal possible syllable of CCVC kreyey (from Spanish creer "to believe").
Overview
Quechua is a largely agglutinative languageAgglutination
In contemporary linguistics, agglutination usually refers to the kind of morphological derivation in which there is a one-to-one correspondence between affixes and syntactical categories. Languages that use agglutination widely are called agglutinative languages...
, and Quechua nouns can be modified by many affix
Affix
An affix is a morpheme that is attached to a word stem to form a new word. Affixes may be derivational, like English -ness and pre-, or inflectional, like English plural -s and past tense -ed. They are bound morphemes by definition; prefixes and suffixes may be separable affixes...
es (mostly suffixes) which can mark the case of a noun (substantive) or derive a new word. Some suffixes are possible in combination, such as -pa + -ta, ñuqapata, "to my place". Pronouns are marked with the same suffixes as regular nouns, as in -ñuqa "I", -ñuqa-pa "my".
Personal Pronouns
| Singular Grammatical number In linguistics, grammatical number is a grammatical category of nouns, pronouns, and adjective and verb agreement that expresses count distinctions .... |
Plural Grammatical number In linguistics, grammatical number is a grammatical category of nouns, pronouns, and adjective and verb agreement that expresses count distinctions .... |
||
|---|---|---|---|
| 1st Person Grammatical person Grammatical person, in linguistics, is deictic reference to a participant in an event; such as the speaker, the addressee, or others. Grammatical person typically defines a language's set of personal pronouns... |
ñuqa | ñuqanchik | ñuqayku |
| 2nd Person Grammatical person Grammatical person, in linguistics, is deictic reference to a participant in an event; such as the speaker, the addressee, or others. Grammatical person typically defines a language's set of personal pronouns... |
qam | qamkuna | |
| 3rd Person Grammatical person Grammatical person, in linguistics, is deictic reference to a participant in an event; such as the speaker, the addressee, or others. Grammatical person typically defines a language's set of personal pronouns... |
pay | paykuna | |
The first person plural pronouns Ayacucho Quechua are divided into inclusive and exclusive pairs
Clusivity
In linguistics, clusivity is a distinction between inclusive and exclusive first-person pronouns and verbal morphology, also called inclusive "we" and exclusive "we"...
. Ñuqanchik, the inclusive pronoun, means "we" and includes the person to whom the speaker is talking, as in "you and I". The exclusive pronoun, ñuqayku, also means "we", but does not include the listener, meaning approximately "we but not you".
Case Marking
Ayacucho Quechua substantives are marked for eleven grammatical caseGrammatical case
In grammar, the case of a noun or pronoun is an inflectional form that indicates its grammatical function in a phrase, clause, or sentence. For example, a pronoun may play the role of subject , of direct object , or of possessor...
s, which are also conveyed through the use of suffixes. These suffixes may be placed onto nouns, numerals, pronouns, and with an adverbial meaning, on adjectives and adverbs.
- -ta marks the object or goal of a transitive verbTransitivity (grammatical category)In linguistics, transitivity is a property of verbs that relates to whether a verb can take direct objects and how many such objects a verb can take...
. This includes the direct object in sentences like wasita qawan "he watches the house", and also the goal of a motion verb if the actor is human, as in wasita rin "he goes to the house". -ta also has an adverbial function with adjectives, numbers counting hours, adverbs, and adverbial nouns such as allin "good" → allinta "well" or punchaw "day" → punchawta "by day").
- -pi marks locationLocative caseLocative is a grammatical case which indicates a location. It corresponds vaguely to the English prepositions "in", "on", "at", and "by"...
in, on, at or within the noun to which it is attached such as wasipi "in the house". When attached to an adverbial noun, -pi acquires the meaning "during" as in setembripi "during september". When suffixed to a nominalized verbal, it means "while", as in suyasqampi "while he waited". Additionally, -pi can be affixed to adjectives to indicate an adverbial function like katulikapi kasarakunqa "they'll get married in a catholic church"
- -pa marks the genitive caseGenitive caseIn grammar, genitive is the grammatical case that marks a noun as modifying another noun...
, such as wasipa "the house's". A number of adverbials can also be formed from nouns + -pa; waqta "side" → waqtapa- "on its side, sideways"
- -man marks the direction towards a noun for a non-human actor, kay ñanmi ayakuchuman riq "this road goes to Ayacucho".
- -manta (which is not composed of the individual suffixes -man and -ta) marks motion away fromAblative caseIn linguistics, ablative case is a name given to cases in various languages whose common characteristic is that they mark motion away from something, though the details in each language may differ...
a noun, wasimanta "from the house". It is also used for a number of other relational meanings such as "about", "instead of", or "made of", firumantam "made of iron", or wasimanta riman "he speaks about the house".
- -wan marks accompaniment, as in ñuqawanmi rin, "he goes with me", or indicates the means by which an action is performed, as in lampawan llamkachkan, "he is working with the hoe".
- -paq indicates the beneficiary of an actionBenefactive caseThe benefactive case is a grammatical case used where English would use "for", "for the benefit of", or "intended for", e.g...
as in, amikumpaqmi rimapunqa, "he'll speak on behalf of his friend". When attached to a verbal, it means "about to", as in, mikuypaq kachkan, "he is about to eat".
- -rayku indicates causality, as in ñuqarayku "because of me", munasqayrayku, "because I want to"
- -kama marks motion up to but not farther than the object (or, in the case of a verbal, passage of time until the affixed verbal), as in wasikama "up to the house".
- -pura indicates the location of an object among others of its kind, kikinchikpura qunakuranchik papakunta, "we exchanged potatoes amongst ourselves".
- -nka implies equal distribution among members in a group, iskayninka* quwanchik, "he gives us two each". *This suffix appears as -ninka following a consonant
- -kuna pluralizes the noun to which it is attached as in wasikuna "the houses". It can be used in conjunction with other suffixes and precedes all other suffixes except the personal markers, as in wasikichikkunaman "to your (pl.) houses". -kuna is not an obligatory suffix and can be left off is the meaning is clear without it, as in runa and runakuna which both mean people (runa may also mean a single person).
Verbal Conjugations
In contrast to the fairly simple morphologyMorphology (linguistics)
In linguistics, morphology is the identification, analysis and description, in a language, of the structure of morphemes and other linguistic units, such as words, affixes, parts of speech, intonation/stress, or implied context...
for nouns, Quechua verbal morphology is much more complex. Verbs are conjugated for person
Grammatical person
Grammatical person, in linguistics, is deictic reference to a participant in an event; such as the speaker, the addressee, or others. Grammatical person typically defines a language's set of personal pronouns...
and number of both the subject and the object. Subject suffixes precede explicit object suffixes as in riku-y-ki-ku "We see you", in which the first person -y appears before the second person -ki (ku, in this case pluralizes the first person). However, even the subject markers are preceded by the suffixes -wa and -su which indirectly convey the direct object of the verb, as in riku-wa-n-ki "You see me". Explicit personal markers are preceded by one of the tentatively titled "aspect
Grammatical aspect
In linguistics, the grammatical aspect of a verb is a grammatical category that defines the temporal flow in a given action, event, or state, from the point of view of the speaker...
" morphemes. The simple present tense is marked by the suffix -n-, apart from first-person subject and second-person object, where there is no suffix.
- Verbal Suffixes
Grammatical person
Grammatical person, in linguistics, is deictic reference to a participant in an event; such as the speaker, the addressee, or others. Grammatical person typically defines a language's set of personal pronouns...
). It appears as -n following a vowel, and -nin following a consonant. -chik refers to a group which includes the addressee. It appears as -nchik following a vowel, -ninchik following a consonant, and -chik elsewhere (as when it follows the -n- morpheme). -ku refers to a group which excludes the addressee. It has no allomorphy. -wa indicates that the speaker is the object of second or third person action -su indicates that the addressee is the object of action by the third person (when followed by the second person ending).
Below is shown the verb rikuy, "to see", fully conjugated in the simple present tense. The persons are shown accompanied by their coirresponding Quechua pronouns declined into the appropriate cases. Blocks which are left empty are either instances in which the object is the same as the subject, which requires the reflexive marker -ku-, as in riku-ku-y "I saw myself", or cases where such a statement is logically impossible, as in the intersection between a second person subject and a first person plural inclusive object, which would mean, approximately "You helped you and I".
| 1st ñuqata | 2nd (Qamta) | 3rd (Payta) | 1st Plural (Ñuqanchikta) | 1st Plural (Ñuqaykuta) | 2nd (Qamkunata) | 3rd (Paykunata) | |
| 1st (ñuqa) | riku-y-ki | riku-n-i | riku-y-ki-chik | riku-ni | |||
| 2nd (qam) | riku-wa-n-ki | riku-n-ki | riku-wa-n-ki-ku | riku-n-ki | |||
| 3rd (pay) | riku-wa-n | riku-su-n-ki | riku-n | riku-wa-n-chik | riku-wa-n-ku | riku-su-n-ki-chik | riku-n |
| 1st Plural (ñuqanchik) | riku-n-chik | riku-n-chik | |||||
| 1st Plural (ñuqayku) | riku-y-ki-ku | riku-y-ku | riku-y-ku | riku-y-ku | |||
| 2nd Plural (qamkuna) | riku-wa-n-ki-chik | riku-n-ki-chik | riku-wa-n-ki-ku | riku-n-ki-chik | |||
| 3rd (paykuna) | riku-wa-n-ku | riku-su-n-ki-ku | riku-n-ku | riku-wa-n-chik | riku-wa-n-ku | riku-su-n-ki-chik | riku-n-ku |
Syntax
Ayacucho Quechua has a standard SOV word order, as in (pay) wasitam ruwachkan "he is building a house", but this can be inverted, since the syntactic relationship between nouns is made clear by the overt case markers. However, unlike in other casemarked languages (like Russian or Latin), the inversion of the standard word order in Ayacucho Quechua does not serve to topicalize the word (or phrase) in question since this too is explicitly marked by the -qa discourse topic marker. Primarily then, inversions of word order serve to emphasize words as particularly relevant or salient (particularly verbs). Compare standard wasita qawan "he watches the house" with qawan wasita "he watches the house" (as opposed to feeling it or hearing about it) in which the act of watching is being specifically highlighted.With respect to smaller constituents, the order is much more fixed. Modifiers, such as adjectives, preadjectivals, adverbials and attributive nouns all occur before the head which they modify (including possessive nouns marked with -pa). Prepositions, when they occur, are also placed before their noun phrases.