Occlusive consonants in Ckunsa language and their areal linguistic relationship in the Andes

Abstract

Ckunsa is the language of the Lickanantay people, historically spoken in the Andean territory now shared by Chile, Argentina, and Bolivia. Although it is currently considered a dormant language, recent processes of documentation and systematization have made it possible to advance in the understanding of its phonological structure. This study examines the characterization of ckunsa stop consonants and their typological relationship with other Andean languages. Based on a corpus with morphophonological analysis of the available lexicon, the frequency and distribution of stop phonemes are described, revealing an articulatory system composed of three series: plain, aspirated, and ejective stops. The results show that ckunsa shares certain structural features with languages from the broader Inca linguistic sphere, while also maintaining distinctive characteristics. In particular, the systematic presence of ejective stops suggests that this feature was an original and central component of the language’s historical phonology, whereas aspirated stops appear to be associated with language contact phenomena with a more recent and less stable development, possibly linked to Quechua or Aymara.