This paper presents new experimental data on Quito Spanish /s/-voicing, which has attracted considerable interest from theoretical phonologists owing to the overapplication of voicing to word-final pre-vocalic /s/. Bermúdez-Otero (2011) singles out Quito /s/-voicing as an important test case for discriminating between two competing theories of phonology–morphosyntax interactions: Output–output correspondence and cyclicity. Overapplication in /s/-voicing cannot be captured using correspondence relationship to a base form, which challenges Output–output correspondence as a theory of opacity. However, the argument only holds insofar as word-final pre-vocalic /s/-voicing is considered phonological, as Output–output correspondence can account for /s/-voicing assuming that it only applies in the phonetics (Colina 2009). We discuss the diverging empirical predictions concerning categoricity and gradience in the surface realisation of voicing processes. We further test these predictions based on acoustic data from seven speakers of Quito Spanish. Evidence from speech rate manipulations shows that some speakers produce more voicing during frication at normal speech rate, compared to fast, maintaining a stable voicing ratio across different speech rates. We argue that for these speakers, /s/-voicing is optional but categorical, and so it ought to be analysed as phonological. This result presents a challenge to the Output–output correspondence approach, but can be accommodated within cyclicity.

The Ecuadorian Siona reportative is prima facie an evidential par excellence because it indicates that the information contained in the utterance has been acquired through hearsay. However, the morphosyntactic and semantic behavior of the reportative verb form demonstrates that it is not an evidential. Rather, it is part of the clause-typing system, together with the assertive, interrogative, and imperative. Clause-typing relates to the assignment of authority: the speaker holds the epistemic authority in assertions, the addressee in questions, and a non-speech-act participant in reports. The hearsay reading of the reportative clause type emanates from a shift of epistemic authority.

Subject marking in the Western Tukanoan language Ecuadorian Siona is part of a complex system of portmanteau morphology that also marks tense and clause type. This system shows a remarkable number of regularities that hint that it might be possible to tease apart these functions. Synchronically, it is problematic to posit distinct markers for each of the three relevant linguistic categories, but diachronically, it is likely that these categories were expressed by distinct markers. This article reconstructs the pathway of the formal merger of these three linguistic categories, comparing the expression of Ecuadorian Siona’s system to the expression of these categories in other Tukanoan languages.

This study describes the nasal system in Ecuadorian Siona, an endangered Western Tukanoan language spoken in the Ecuadorian province of Sucumbíos, using the Earbuds Method to analyze nasal events acoustically. This method provides a visual representation of the timing and duration of velum gestures through intensity (dB) and amplitude (Pa) fluctuations in the nasal and oral cavities. The studied events include nasal spreading (nasal harmony), triggers, targets, blockers, and transparent segments. Meanwhile, differences between nasal phonemes and nasal allophones are also identified along with the effects of morpheme boundaries during nasal spreading events. Results reveal that, unlike many other Tukanoan languages, /m/ and /n/ function as individual phonemes independent of their oral counterparts (/p̰/ & /t̰/). In addition, nasal harmony was identified as predominantly rightward spreading apart from syllable-delimited leftward spreading to vocoid segments. Moreover, suffixes responsible for blocking nasal spreading appear to be reminiscent of oral suffixes in Eastern Tukanoan languages. Finally, more blockers were identified in Ecuadorian Siona than in most Eastern Tukanoan languages.

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