Accent in Uspanteko

This paper analyzes the interplay of lexical pitch accent and stress in the endangered Mayan language Uspanteko (Guatemala; ~2000 speakers). Based partially on our own fieldwork, it is the first comprehensive analysis of prosodic structure in this language. The paper discusses the morphological and lexical roles played by pitch accent, and analyzes the effects that tone has on stress shift, vowel length, vowel quality, and two deletion processes. Some core findings of this paper are (i) that Uspanteko phonology is sensitive to foot structure, even though stress is not obviously foot-based, and (ii) Uspanteko content words are divided into lexical strata with respect to interactions between prosody and segmental structure.