Labialization of Word-Final Nasals in Yucatecan Spanish and Yucatec Maya: Language Contact, Prosodic Prominence Marking, and Local Identity

Abstract This paper provides a comparative analysis of word-final nasals in Yucatecan Spanish and Yucatec Maya based on speech data from Quintana Roo (Mexico). In Spanish, nasal is often pronounced as [m] if placed at the end word (e.g., Yucatá instead [n]). Since this phenomenon widespread Yucatán Peninsula, but largely unknown other Spanish-speaking regions, it linked to influence indigenous language Maya. Our dataset differs our Mayan one that labialization rate significantly increases with length subsequent pause former, not latter. Thus, even feature was originally transferred seems has taken life its own determined by function marker prosodic prominence.