Boundaries and Lenition in Yuman Languages

phonological analysis whereby v can be accounted for as a variant of p, even synchronically, so that the morpheme -vu can be recognized as a reduced unstressed variant of the demonstrative pu' that one, he. This can only be done by recognizing the unique syntactic environment in which v occurs, since there are two other suffixes in the language with underlying -p which always surface as p.25 This is stated in rule 3 by the restriction that the shape v occurs only at the boundary between a stem and the remaining suffixal material, obviously a boundary different from the ordinary stem-forming boundary or, for that matter, from a root boundary. The following set of contrasting sentences will illustrate the facts. ?oxomay I look for him. ( first-person subject, xomay look for [verb stem]); ?oxu'mayp We look for him. (? first-person subject, xu'mayp [plural verb stem]); ?3xamay-vu mowu'w You saw the one I was looking for. (I-look-for-him-specific-(object case) yousee); 2axu'mayp-vu mowu'w You saw the one we were looking for. Note also that the boundary between the stem and the suffix must be different from word boundary as is clear from the minimal pair: ?i'kwic pu'i that man (man that-subject); ?i'kwicvoc the man (man-specific-subject). 1.2.2. The above discussion has established the need for the additional stem boundary in Dieguefio, as a prelude to a presentation of another aspect of the phonological history of Yuman languages, that is, some peculiarities of the phonetic representation of some of the case morphemes, in particular the subject case marker, for which I propose the reconstruction *c. As described in the Yuman 25 Langdon, A Grammar of Diegueno, pp. 97, 115-17. literature,26 the shape of the subject marker is as follows in the various lan