Enrique L Palancar

 and in Map 1.

regarding number of speakers. For example, the INALI estimated 250 speakers in 2000 for Tilapa Otomi, but at the time of writing there are fewer than a dozen fluent speakers alive. Within Oto-Pamean, Otomi-Mazahua is the group with the largest number of speakers and the greatest degree of internal diversity. [START_REF] Ring | Elementos de dialectología mazahua[END_REF] proposes that Mazahua consists of at least 12 main dialects as indicated in Table 2. As for Otomi, although at least 22 different linguistic sub-systems have been identified as Otomi, there is no established consensus as to which of them should be treated as independent languages and which as dialects. To circumvent the problem, Otomi has often been talked about as forming a dialectal continuum and the literature has avoided terms such as 'language' and 'dialect' in favor of a cover term such as 'variety'. Against this inertia, the current official stance by the INALI in the CLIN (Sp. Catálogo de Lenguas Indígenas Nacionales) (2008) is to treat Otomi innovatively as forming a linguistic family with nine different languages. Unfortunately, the methodology behind the classification of the CLIN is far from rigorous and it overrates the weight of sociolinguistic factors, so that closely related dialects are treated as different languages. I use Palancar's (2013a) taxonomy here, which advances on the taxonomy in Lastra (2001) 2. Otomi-Mazahua.

Oto-Pamean languages have a clear verb vs. noun word class distinction, but adjectives are rare, if they exist at all (most property concepts are expressed by verbs in small relative clauses or in V+N compounds). All languages are head-marking, and although nouns do not have gender or inflect for case, they fall into different noun classes with interesting consequences for the morphological marking of number ( §4.1) and the marking of possession ( §4.2). Like nouns, verbs also have intricate morphology. They fall into different conjugation classes ( §5.2) and they inflect for the person of subject and for a substantial number of tense/aspect/mood values ( §5.1). They may also bear information about spatial deixis ( §5.4) and negation (Tlahuica and Chichimec) and may carry applicative-like morphology for fronted adverbials (Otomi-Mazahua). All languages have semantic alignment ( §5.5) at least involving the lexicalization of property concepts by means of verbs. The alignment in ditransitives is probably secundative historically, but the system has been considerably rearranged and it is now indirective in most languages. As for diathesis, transitive verbs have an impersonal-passive voice. Derivational morphology involving causativization, antipassivization and middle voice is now unproductive ( §3). There is considerably use of clause-level serialization, which is particularly exploited in complementation contexts. An example of this is shown in (1) in Chichimec, where a notion such as 'I want to work' is conveyed literally as 'I want I would work'. The meaning of 'work' is itself conveyed by the serialization of two synonymic, inflected verbs. Another example of the same structure is given in (2) in Tilapa Otomi. When an example comes from a text, this is indicated as 'Txt'.

(1) sá [é-'i] [ná-tán+nú-tan] CHI and 1.PRS-want 1.POT-work+1. POT-work 'And I want to work.' (Txt) (Angulo 1933: 191) (2) porke [hín=a nde] [ta=tandy]=a TIL porque NEG=3.INCPL.R want 3.CPL.IRR=buy.AS=PRTCL 'Because they don't want to buy it.' (Txt)

The use of clausal juxtaposition like in (1-2) is typical of Oto-Manguean languages, and goes hand in hand with the lack of non-finite forms in these languages. In this respect, while there are verb nominalizations in Oto-Pamean languages, the process is commonly unproductive and highly lexical, and no language has a proper inflectional infinitive, except perhaps for Eastern Otomi, which has intransitive infinitives of activity verbs with a limited set of matrix verbs, as for example in (3) (see Palancar, forthcoming).

( As for word order, Oto-Pamean languages are typically verb initial, except for Chichimec.

For verb initial languages, the typical order is VOS order. This is illustrated in (4) from Santa Ana Hueytlalpan Otomi, a variety of Eastern Otomi (Hernández-Gómez, in preparation).

(

) ya idi=tsi [rá tǒni] O [ra bruho] S ='be ANA PRTCL 3.INCPL=ingest [3OBJ] SG.3POSS marihuana SG shaman=CL 4
'The shaman's already having his marihuana.' (Txt)

Since [START_REF] Campbell | Meso-America as a linguistic area[END_REF], it is generally accepted that verb-initial clauses are a salient syntactic feature of Mesoamerica. Given the strong influence of Oto-Manguean in the development of Mesoamerica as a linguistic area, it is likely that the verb-initial character of Otomian is a conservative trait, but we cannot be sure. Nowadays, innovative languages like Mazahua and Northern Otomi have developed many traits of an SVO language, most probably under the influence of the dominant word order of Spanish.

In Pamean, while Pame has clear traits of becoming SVO like the innovative Otomian languages, Chichimec was still verb final with an SOV order at the time [START_REF] Angulo | The Chichimeco Language[END_REF] collected his textual materials. This is shown in ( 5) where all examples instantiate an OV word order; both (5a) and (5b) also exhibit an S; (5b) has a directional preceding the verb, and in (5c) the possessor phrase precedes the possessum, adapted and glossed from Angulo (1933: 192, 190, 186).

(5) a. It is possible that this special word order may have developed in Chichimec under the influence of some unknown Uto-Aztecan language. The same contact influence may also explain the fact that Chichimec has a fully developed system of genitive classifiers, which are unattested in Oto-Manguean, although found in Uto-Aztecan.

Following, I outline the main characteristics of Oto-Pamean by focusing on descriptive facts about their inflectional morphology, which is an area of their grammatical structure that makes this group particularly interesting from a typological point of view.

An overview of the phonology

Oto-Pamean languages are known to have large segmental inventories. For example, Northern Pame [START_REF] Berthiaume | A phonological grammar of Pame[END_REF][START_REF] Avelino | Fonología y morfofonología del Pame Norte[END_REF]) has been characterized as having 12 vowels and 40 consonants. But the most elaborated system by far is found in Mazahua (Knapp 2008, see Table 3) with 15 vowels (oral and nasal) and 53 consonants, which include series of simple, aspirated and ejective consonants.2

Vowels

i  u ĩ ĩ ũ e  o ẽ õ  a  ã Stops Voiceless Simple p t t s t ʃ k k w Aspirated p h t h t s h t ʃ h k h k hw Ejective - t' t s' t ʃ' k' k' w ʔ Voiced Prenasalized m b n d n d z n d  N g N g w Ejective   Fricatives Voiceless Simple s ʃ h Aspirated s h Ejective s' Voiced  z  γ Approximants Simple w j Aspirated w j Ejective w' j' Nasals Simple m n  Aspirated m n  Ejective m' n' ' Rhotics  (r) Laterals (l)
Table 3. The phonemes of Mazahua, adapted from Knapp (2008). Knapp (2008) treats approximants /w , j / and nasals /m , n ,  / as instantiating an aspirated series to create featural coherence with stops and fricatives. Alternatively, these segments could be treated as voiceless, but in reality they are the only surviving units in Otomi-Mazahua of an old preaspirated series which is still observed in some phonologically conservative Otomi languages, such as Tilapa Otomi, as indicated in Table 4, where they are still found in operation in the sub-system of voiceless stops and affricates, but where the oppositions are considerably weakened elsewhere. 4. The phoneme inventory of consonants of Tilapa Otomi.

Voiceless Simple

p t k k w ts s ʃ ʔ h w j m n Preaspirated ʰp ʰt ʰk ʰk w ʰts     Aspirated pʰ tʰ kʰ kʰ w tsʰ  ʃʰ       Ejective p'[] t' k' k' w ts'         Voiced Simple b d g g w z    w j m n Prenasalized m b n d N g N g w          Ejective ' m b ' n d ' N g ' N g w      'w 'j 'm 'n Table
In Mazahua and in most Otomi languages, the old series of simple voiceless stops from the common ancestor, which are still attested in Tilapa Otomi, became voiced (i.e. *k>g) while the preaspirated series lost the preaspiration feature becoming simple voiceless segments (i.e. *ʰk>k). Preaspiration survived word internally, but it is now a predictable phonetic feature (for details, see Palancar 2013b) (e.g. Old Otomi */ h k h ki/ 'remove' > Northern Otomi /kki/ [k h ki].

Like other Oto-Manguean languages, Oto-Pamean languages are tonal, but their tonal systems are basic. Pamean languages have a minimal low/high opposition which reflects the old system. For example, in Chichimec most words are disyllabic and suprasegmentally they are organized attending to the four melodies in (6) [START_REF] Herrera-Zendejas | Formas sonoras: mapa fónico de las lenguas mexicanas[END_REF] In Oto-Pamean, tone basically works at a lexical level, but it plays an occasional role in inflection. This is briefly discussed below in §5.3.

Word internal structure.

Lexical roots in Oto-Pamean are /CV/. In Otomian, there are also words with a laryngeal nucleus /CV h V/, e.g. Eastern Otomi tuhu 'have soup', tü hü 'sow', etc. [START_REF] Bartholomew | A reconstruction of Otopamean (Mexico)[END_REF] has proposed that in Proto-Oto-Pamean, verb roots were compounded with spatial adverbs to express complex meanings, spatial or more abstract, comparable to English phrasal verbs like take up, take in, take on, etc. At a later stage, these spatial satellites (in the sense of Talmy 2000) became bound morphemes and later lexicalized. They are now treated as opaque stem formatives. In Pamean, they were reduced to /C/ and then got lost in most cases. They were preserved in Otomian, most notably in Otomi-Mazahua, where they were levelled to the structure /Ci/. The stem formatives in Eastern Otomi are exemplified in (a) in In Otomi-Mazahua, the lexicalization of stem formatives has given rise to a substantial portion of the verbal lexicon. For example, based on the 1864 verbal entries in Hernández et al. (2004) from Mezquital Otomi, Hernández-Green (2009) proposes that at least 1175 are verbs with stem formatives, and only 85 of them are basic monosyllabic roots (the remaining verbs include compounds and other root types).

Suffixation and enclitization occur after stem formatives and give rise to morphotactic adjustments, which at times display great complexity. But a number of formatives appear to have come in a second wave of compounding resulting in bipartite stems which can still be split. For example, in Atzincan, the formatives +ts'i, +tʃ'i, +ti and +li split from the root with the affixation of the applicative {-p}. This is shown in (10), adapted from [START_REF] Martínez-Ortega | Clases verbales, transitividad y valencia verbal en el pjyekakjó, tlahuica de San Juan Atzingo[END_REF], 2012). In Otomi, some verbs may show more than one formative, as in (11).

(10) TLA kwǎh+ts'i 'stick ' > kwǎh-p+ts'i 'stick Valence changing mechanisms are only observable in lexical pairs. Many causative verbs were historically formed by a laryngeal nucleus, as in (14a), but the process is unproductive as it is also observed in many intransitive verbs (14b). There are a myriad of such mechanisms, reflecting a progressive accumulation of old morphological operations (see [START_REF] Palancar | Transitividad en el otomí de San Ildefonso: una incursión tipológica en lenguas otomangues[END_REF][START_REF] Palacios | Mecanismos de cambio de valencia en el otomí de la Sierra[END_REF][START_REF] Palacios | Mecanismos de cambio de valencia en el otomí de la Sierra[END_REF]. Examples are from the San Ildefonso Tultepec variety of Northern Otomi.

(14) a. ʔo-ʔ+t'i (tr) 'dry' ~ ʔo+t'i (intr) 'dry' N.OTO b. khǔ-ʔ+t'i (intr) 'drip'

Nominal inflection

As is typical of Oto-Manguean, Oto-Pamean languages are canonically head-marking, so nouns do not inflect for case. But there is nominal inflection involving number and possession, which sometimes morphologically intricate in nature because these two dimensions interact with a noun class system, which is still vibrant in Pamean, still observable in Atzinca and present, albeit moribund, in Otomi-Mazahua.

Noun classes

Central Pame is the Oto-Pamean language with the most developed noun class system. It is commonly believed that this is a conservative feature rather than an innovation. In this language, nouns fall into at least 11 different classes attending to the prefixal elements they bear.3 This is shown in Table 6, adapted from [START_REF] Gibson | Pame noun inflection[END_REF]. The basic stem is used for both singular and dual.

Class SG/DU PL SG/DU PL 1 go- N-go-p h ói m-p h ói 'excrement' 2 ko- N-ko-póʔ m-bóʔ 'land' 3 ni- li- ni-k j wã  li-k j wã  'capulincillo tree' 4 ní- rí-ní-g j ẽhe rí-g j ẽhe 'year' 5 na- la-na-tsȇ la-tsȇ 'plum' 6 na- ra-na-ts h ẽ  ra-ts h ẽ  'key' 7 ma- wa-ma-tsì wa-tsì 'pitcher' 8 mi- wi-mi-tʃâʔ wi-tʃâʔ 'corn bin' 9 tsó- só-tsó-ndo só-ndo 'eggshell' 10 tsa- sa-tsa-mp h ã  sa-mp h ã  'pocket' 11 tʃi- ʃi-tʃi-hàg ʃi-hàg 'spoon' Table 6. Noun classes in Central Pame.
Further research is needed to explore the origins of this system and its development, but nowadays the classes are largely semantically opaque, except for class 11 which includes most nouns denoting tools (but not exclusively). Class 1 serves as a default. Apart from the plural stems, an animate noun receives additional number marking by means of affixes (at times with additional stem adjustments): -i for dual and -t for plural. This is illustrated in Table 7, which shows a number of verbs that lie outside the system in Table 6, which are treated as 'invariable' (inv.). Such nouns include loanwords (b), agent nouns (c), and a set of nouns referring to animals (d).

SG DU PL a. cl.9 tsó-m h  tsó-m h -i só-m h -t 'butterfly' cl.11 tʃi-kílʔ tʃi-kíl j ʔ ʃi-kíl‹t›ʔ 'goat' b. inv. pastól pastó‹i›l j pastól-t 'shepherd' < Sp. pastor c. inv. ka-p  ka-p  -i ka-p  -t 'thief' < p  'steal' d.
inv. ko-p tsʔ ko-p ‹i›tʃʔ ko-p s‹t›ʔ 'badger' inv. ko-ts h íʔ ko-ts h íʔ ko-ts h éʔk j 'snake' Table 7. Number marking of animate nouns in Central Pame.

In Northern Pame, the original system has been considerably reduced, as shown in Table 8. The default class is the only one having a number contrast, where plural is realized by morphophonological adjustments in the stem. Other nouns are invariable. Animate nouns, regardless of class, have dual and plural by means of suffixes, but all nouns of the default class also have a dual. The data are adapted from [START_REF] Berthiaume | A phonological grammar of Pame[END_REF].

Class SG DU PL Default n-m h  n-m h -ji j-m h   m h j 'tortilla' n-t'ùs n-t'ùs-i j-t'ùs  ts'jùs 'house' n-t h úʔ n-t h úʔ-ji j-t h úʔ-ðt  tʃ h úʔðt 'armadillo' inv. gu-(animate) gu-sa' gu-sa'-i gu-sa'-t 'eagle' inv. sl-(instr.) sl-hǎwʔ   'spoon' inv. d-(misc.) d-nâs   'lemon' inv. k-(misc.) k-nte  
'water' inv. miscellanea p-gas p-gas-i p-gas-t 'cow' < Sp. vacas Table 8. Noun classes in Northern Pame.

Within Otomian, the most elaborate noun class system is found in Atzincan, where we find the three classes shown in Table 9 in Matlatzinca, adapted from Bartholomew (nd).

Class SG DU PL Default in-ʃuʔyowi te-ʃuʔyowi ne-ʃuʔyowi 'coyote' in-tʃuwampa te-tʃuwampa ne-tʃuwampa 'tomate' in-buro te-buro ne-buro 'donkey' < Sp. burro ni-(misc.) ni-nseʔe te-nseʔe ne-nseʔe 'big bird' ni-nto   'hail' ni-k h wetʃi te-k h wetʃi ne-k h wetʃi 'broom' < kwetʃi 'sweep' we-(human) we-benbi
te-benbi ne-benbi 'dancer' we-to-waʔa te-to-waʔa ne-to-waʔa 'child' Table 9. Noun classes in Matlatzinca.

Tlahuica is like Matlatzinca, but with additional minor classes; particularly relevant are a pi-class which mainly includes body parts (e.g. pi-nty 'forehead'), and a class with a stem prefix nu-(e.g. nu-tho 'roof', nu-ye 'hand'), a few of whose members are interchangeable with the ni-class (e.g. nu-ha ~ ni-ha 'earth').

In Otomi-Mazahua, the nominal class system is in decline. It is still observable in the conservative Otomi languages of Tilapa and Ixtenco, whose classes are attested in the missionary grammar by Pedro de Cárceres, finished in 1580. In all languages of the group, number has been reduced to a singular-plural opposition.

Class

SG PL

Default ar ʔjü i ʔjü 'path' ru (mainly borrowings) ru mẹ y diko i mẹ y diko 'doctor' < Sp. médico ra (nominalizations and predicative NPs) ra h në i h në 'dance' < në 'dance' di (nominalizations of Class III verbs) di h pephi i h pephi 'work' < h pephi 'work' Table 10. Noun classes in Tilapa Otomi.

Finally, in both Mazahua and Northern Otomi the old noun class system has disappeared. These two languages are the most innovative within Oto-Pamean and they share many features in common probably due to intense contact during Colonial times. In some descriptions, the singular marker ra/ar (or in its reduced form =r) has been misinterpreted as being a definite article, when it has nothing to do with definiteness. This misconception is partly due to the fact that noun class markers in Otomi-Mazahua are not prefixes, but phonological words in their own right. This is illustrated in the contrast shown in (15) from Tilapa Otomi, where a hesitation pause (indicated by #) can naturally occur between the marker and its head noun. The behavior of nominal markers in Otomi-Mazahua has important consequences for the way we should interpret nouns and NP structure in the proto language. Following [START_REF] Givón | Historical syntax and synchronic morphology: An archaeologist's fieldtrip[END_REF] aphorism that today's morphology is yesterday's syntax, the wordhood of noun markers in Otomi-Mazahua reveals an old stage of syntactic compounding. The markers involved were later reanalyzed as prefixes in all other groups, giving the nominal inflectional morphology of these languages a more canonical profile.

Possession

Nouns in Oto-Pamean also fall into different classes attending to how they inflect for the dimension of possession. Again, the Pamean group has the most intricate system while Otomian has the simplest.

In both Pame and Atzincan, possession classes correlate with nominal classes, but at times only tangentially. This means that if a noun belongs to a given noun class, this is often an indication as to what possession class it will belong to. But this is a matter of high probability rather than certainty.

Possession in Pamean.

In Pamean, there are two major classes of nouns: (i) 'variable nouns', which have internal possession inflection, and (ii) 'invariable nouns', which have invariable stems. The morphology of possession is entrenched in Pamean to such an extent that variable nouns in Chichimec have been claimed by [START_REF] Angulo | The Chichimeco Language[END_REF] to lack an absolute form, that is, a form to be used when the noun is not possessed. This is illustrated in ( 16), where the form of a third person plural possessor is the one used to refer to a generic noun.

(16) kúri 'their water'  'water' (see example 5b) CHI úvó 'their land'  'land, earth, world'

The full paradigm of a possessed noun in Chichimec is given in Table 11 with the noun kunú 'my field', adapted from [START_REF] Angulo | The Chichimeco Language[END_REF] (where low tone, being a default, is not represented). Notice that the different forms in the paradigm attend to the number value (SG, DU, PL) of both the possessor and the possessum. The forms in shading represent principal parts. In the possession inflection of the noun kunú 'my field' in Table 11, there are apophonic changes in the stem, i.e. the forms for 1st person have ‹u› while the other persons have ‹i›.

Number of possessor

There are also tonal modifications, and the form for the 3rd person plural possessor has a stem change from kinú to kinhú. The paradigm in On the formal level, the nouns of class I mark possession by a 2nd person by inverting the lexical melody. Class II is characterized by [START_REF] Angulo | The Chichimeco Language[END_REF] as having the apophonic series <u> vs. <i>. There are internal changes at stem level too. Such changes are morphophonologically predictable for some of the cases, for others they are not.

Possession class II has a cognate in Pame. The relevant data is given in Table 13, adapted from [START_REF] Berthiaume | A phonological grammar of Pame[END_REF] and [START_REF] Gibson | Pame noun inflection[END_REF]. 14. Possession forms of the word for 'tooth' in Pame.

1 SG 2 SG 3 SG ABSOLUTE SURFACE ANALYSIS SURFACE ANALYSIS SURFACE ANALYSIS SURFACE ANALYSIS SG N.PAM nʔk'w ʃ n-ʔu-k' ʃ ntʃ' ʃ n-j-k' ʃ nʔtʃ' ʃ n-ʔj-k' ʃ nk' ʃ n-k' ʃ C.PAM nok'wéʃ no-k'wéʃ nik j éʃ ni-k j éʃ nik j éʃ ni-k j éʃ ngok'éʃ ngo-k'éʃ PL N.PAM rʔk'w ʃ r-ʔu-k' ʃ ritʃ' ʃ r-j-k' ʃ riʔtʃ' ʃ r-ʔj-k' ʃ ts' ʃ j-k' ʃ C.PAM rok'wéʃ ro-k'wéʃ rik j éʃ ri-k j éʃ rik j éʃ ri-k j éʃ ng'éʃ n-k'éʃ
SG N.PAM nhsı ʔ n-h-tsı ʔ nhsíʔ n-h-tsíʔ nsı ʔ n-(n)-tsı ʔ nsı ʔ n-tsı ʔ C.PAM natsiʔ na-tsiʔ gotsîʔ go-tsîʔ gotsiʔ go-tsiʔ gotsiʔ go-tsiʔ PL N.PAM htʃı ʔ j-h-tsı ʔ htʃíʔ j-h-tsíʔ ntʃı ʔ j-n-tsı ʔ *tʃı ʔ j-tsı ʔ C.PAM itʃiʔ i-tʃiʔ ntsîʔ n-tsîʔ ntsiʔ n-tsiʔ ntsiʔ n-tsiʔ Table
In Northern Pame, the class in Table 13 serves as a default for most nouns of the default noun class and for all nouns of the animate class. But in Central Pame, of the 67 nouns in noun class 1 in [START_REF] Gibson | Pame noun inflection[END_REF], 29 are found in the possession class of Table 13 while the 38 remaining ones are of the class in Table 14. On the formal level, surface forms pose further challenges for the morphological analysis.

Finally, Chichimec class IV is cognate with the possession class in Northern Pame given in (a) in

[i]-ák-kuk-tho p[i]-ák-kuk-h 3PL ne-lo-l-ntsa ne-lo-l-t'uma ne-lo-lu-nto ni-tho-hn pi-h-hn ABS ntsa  ni+nto   cl. IIIa cl. IIIb 'belly' 'forehead' 'father' 1SG ni--pi pi--t y  w[e]a-ta 2SG ni-pi pi-t y  we-ta 3SG ni-m-pi pi-n-t y  we-n-ta 1PL ni--pi-hn pi--t y -hn wa-ta-hn 2PL ni-pi-hn pi-t y -hn we-ta-hn 3PL ni-m-pi-hn pi-n-t y -hn we-n-ta-hn ABS    Table 16. Possession classes in Tlahuica.
Like in Northern Pame, noun class prefixes in Tlahuica are also retained and attach to the left edge of the word. Class Ia is a default class. Sub-class Ib has only ni-and nu-class nouns (but members of such classes are also found in classes II and III). The we-class of human role nouns split arbitrarily into two sub-classes according to their possession behavior: some nouns inflect as class I and some as class IIIb. This means that membership to possession classes is lexically-specified, e.g. body parts are found in the four classes. The few existing sources on Matlatzinca have scarce information about the encoding of possession but reveal a very different system from Tlahuica, as illustrated in While, for the encoding of a 2nd person possessor, Otomi languages have reflexes (ni, ri, di) of an old marker ni, cognate with the corresponding forms in Mazahua and Atzincan, they are the only ones within Oto-Pamean to use a floating high tone to encode a 3rd person possessor. This tone works as an enclitic and it falls on the word preceding the noun by replacing its lexical tone. The hosting word is often the noun class marker (glossed here as just SG or PL), as shown in (16a-b). But when the class marker is encliticized, the autosegment for 3rd person possessor falls on (the last syllable of) the preceding word, whether it be another determiner like in (21) or a verb (21d Possession markers in Otomi-Mazahua languages have the same prosodic behaviour as other determiners. This suggests that, just like with noun class markers, the grammar of possession operates directly from the syntax, but has morphologized in the other groups of Oto-Pamean. Further evidence for this syntactic character comes from plurality of the person of the possessor. When both possessor and subject are co-referential in the same clause, only the number marker associated with the noun is used, as shown in ( 22) from the San Ildefonso Tultepec variety of Northern Otomi. This is an indication that the morphosyntax of number of person is an inflectional value to be realized at clause-level syntax and not by the inflectional morphology of either verbs or nouns. ( 22 But what happens in the other languages with possession classes? Perhaps the best way to tackle possession classes in Pamean and Atzincan as a grammatical phenomenon is to regard them as inflectional classes. In other words, they constitute a case of inflectional allomorphy whose selection is largely determined by the lexicon. Indeed, such classes have little to do with the dimension of alienability.

It is only in Chichimec where one could argue that the division between variable and invariable nouns reflects a split between inalienable and alienable nouns. This is because variable nouns cannot exist in absolute form and must thus be obligatorily possessed.

However, it is less clear what the status of variable nouns is. From the existing materials we can elucidate that: (a) they include borrowings and old compounds. This means that they are nouns with special stems that lie outside the morphology, which is hardly a property of semantic alienability; and (b) they include nouns which pertain to semantic fields characteristically associated with inalienability, such as body parts, clothing, etc. Again this makes possession classes look like an inflectional phenomenon rather than a semantic property of nouns.

Verbal inflection

Verbs in all Oto-Pamean languages are inflected for tense/aspect/mood values by means of markers preposed to the verbal stem, which may be referred to as 'inflectional formatives'. Often inflectional formatives also encode agreement with subject in person and number in a portmanteau fashion.

In Otomi-Mazahua, inflectional formatives share properties of affixes and properties of clitic words. For example, like prefixes, they always occur preverbally. This is illustrated in ( 23), where it is shown in Tilapa Otomi that the occurrence of the formative ra for the 3rd person incompletive realis is ungrammatical in any position but preverbally. But as clitics, they may be phonologically hosted on a word other than the verb, like on a preverbal adverbial or a pronominal, with subsequent phonological adjustments, as exemplified in ( 24), which shows two instances of the same formative ta for 3rd person completive irrealis.

(24) ta=nde o hin=da nde TIL 3.CPL.IRR=want or NEG=3.CPL.IRR want 'May he want or may he not want.' (Txt)

Formatives often depend on a word that has nothing to do with their syntactic domain. This is observed in ( 25) by the placement of hesitation pauses, indicated by #.

( As the entire verbal inflection of Otomi-Mazahua is achieved by such formatives, the verbal inflection in these languages is entirely periphrastic. However, one cannot analyse the formatives as auxiliary verbs, at least not synchronically. In the literature, the formatives of other Oto-Pamean groups have been treated as prefixes, except for Matlatzinca in Bartholomew (nd). In Atzincan, their structure indeed suggests that they are clitic words like in Otomi-Mazahua, so we could think of it as an Otomian phenomenon. In Pamean, however, they behave like canonical prefixes. In Chichimec they are toneless and monosyllabic. In Pame, as illustrated in Table 20, the prefixes that are not reduced to a single consonant have a centralized vowel as a nucleus and, at least in [START_REF] Berthiaume | A phonological grammar of Pame[END_REF], they are seen as responsible for producing stem modifications at the surface level. 20. Partial paradigm of the verb 'soften' in Northern Pame.

Values of TAM

All systems have at least two sub-paradigms for the basic aspects, incompletive vs. completive (traditionally called 'present' and 'past') and one or various sub-paradigms for the irrealis (often called 'future' and/or 'potential'). Chichimec has a rich system; it is described by [START_REF] Angulo | The Chichimeco Language[END_REF] and [START_REF] Lastra | Chichimeco Jonaz[END_REF] 21. TAM forms (3rd person singular) of the verb 'see' in Chichimec But it is in the conservative Otomi languages, like Tilapa Otomi, where one observes the most developed TAM system within Oto-Pamean with at least 12 values. This is shown in Table 22 with the forms of the verb for 'fall'. 22. TAM forms (3rd person singular) of the verb 'fall' in Tilapa Otomi.

Conjugation classes.

Oto-Pamean languages have conjugation classes whose membership is listed in the lexicon. This means that membership is not accounted for by properties of the lexeme, whether they be phonological, semantic or valence oriented. In this light, there are two main ways in which verbs are classified in Oto-Pamean for inflectional purposes: (i) 'formative-based classes', which are based on specific different sets of inflectional formatives which verbs may select; and (ii) 'stem-based classes', which are based on different stem alternation patterns different verbs may display in their paradigm. Let us see them in order.

Formative-based classes.

Chichimec has up to seven formative-based conjugation classes. Such classes display up to five different ways of partitioning the paradigm regarding the expression of number of the subject. The different forms are given in Table 23, adapted from [START_REF] Angulo | The Chichimeco Language[END_REF] Class III results from a merger of two distinct classes in Otomian, whose reflexes survive in Atzincan classes II and V. As a result of this merger, Otomi class III contains both highly transitive verbs and intransitive verbs with middle voice semantics. For such a historical merger to be able to happen, the morphology involved had to be perceived by speakers at the time as functionally opaque. Otomi class II contains intransitive verbs only, and most of its members refer to activities performed by animates, mostly humans. In Eastern Otomi, class II has an innovative nasal marker distributed in the paradigm, most probably as an extension of the middle voice marker, which is also a nasal (Palancar 2006). This language is also innovative in having developed an intransitive class IV, as a heteroclite of classes II and III. These facts are summarized in Table 26, adapted from [START_REF] Voigtlander | Luces contemporáneas del otomí: Gramática del otomí de la Sierra[END_REF].

Stem-based classes

Apart from classes defined by sets of inflectional formatives, Oto-Pamean verbs also fall into classes attending to the stem alternation patterns they display. This happens in all groups except in Atzinca where the historical allomorphy of stems was effaced. The simple system is found in Otomi-Mazahua, the most complex in Pamean.

In the Otomi languages with formative-based classes, class I verbs have two stems: a basic 'primary stem' and a derived 'secondary' stem, e.g. E.OTO kho vs. go 'gather'. In Northern Otomi, the nasal marker characteristic of class II in Eastern Otomi merged with the stem as a typical prefix. In this innovative language, all formative-based classes were also levelled to class I, but the old stem alternation distinctions were retained, preserving old class contrasts, but this time realized by stem alternations only. This is shown in In Pamean the situation is complex, at least in Chichimec. Based on a sample of 170 verbs from [START_REF] Angulo | The Chichimeco Language[END_REF], Palancar and Avelino (forthcoming) propose that verbs fall into at least 14 different stem patterns. In Table 28, I present seven of the most representative ones. The different stems involved in the paradigms are labelled A, B, C, etc. attending to how they are distributed in the paradigm. Stem pattern 2 could be considered a default paradigm. This pattern serves as a base for the structure of patterns 3 to 6. Table 28. The main stem-based classes of Chichimec.

A A A B A A A B A A A A IMM.PST A A C B A D A B D D D A REC.PST E A C B A D C B E D C A ANT.PST A A C B A D C B A D C B FUT A A C B A D C B A D C B POT A A A B A D A B D D D A SEQ A A A B A D A B A D A A '

Tone and inflection.

In general, compared to other Oto-Manguean languages, tone in Oto-Pamean does not play a major role in verbal inflection, but tonal alternations are nonetheless found in paradigms. In Pamean, they are restricted to a few verbs and they co-occur with the various stem patterns. This is illustrated in Table 29, where the focus is on the forms for the 2nd person as they all display the inverse tone of (most of) the forms for the 1st person. This marking mechanism is reminiscent of possession class I in Table 12.

'win' (pattern 2 or 4) 'work' (subtype of pattern 5) 'hurt' (subtype of pattern 6) A rare case of tone inversion has been reported in Acazulco Otomi by Hernández-Green (forthcoming) where it applies to stems of class I and II verbs for the building of a few specific tenses, for example the habitual realis. If the verb has a formative or the human antipassive -te or is a compound, the root receives a high tone. This is shown in ( 22) when compared with the lexical tone in the incompletive realis. If the verb has a monosyllabic root or has the enclitic =tshe 'alone', the root receives a low tone, as shown in ( 23). ( 27 Oto-Pamean inflectional tone is typologically atypical, and thus theoretically challenging for a number of reasons. For example, a specific tone value, whether it be a high or a low tone, is very rarely associated with a specific grammatical function; the only exception being the high tone marking 3rd person possessor in Otomi. Also, the tonal alternations in inflection involve some type of tone inversion. In Otomi, the inversion is contextual and depends on word structure. Finally, the distribution of tone is partly lexical and partly morphological. In the Otomi case, tone inversion is restricted to certain cells in the paradigm of a verb of a certain class. Once all conditions are met, it applies regularly. In Chichimec, however, all changes are lexically stored. Tone inversion does not have a clear-cut grammatical function in either system.

More about verbal inflection.

-Deixis and motion. Verbs in Oto-Pamean languages often inflect for deictic information.

Otomi has again the most developed system. An example is given in Table 30. Table 30. Deictic paradigm of the verb for 'fall' in Tilapa Otomi.

-Adverbial inflection. The verbal inflection in Otomi-Mazahua includes formatives which have the function of registering a focused adverbial in the clause. This is shown in the contrast in (29), adapted from Stewart (1966: 131, 50). The morphosyntax of focus adverbials is restricted to a closed class with a few members; the one in (29c) does not require special inflection.

( Manner: 'IT'S SO that he cheated.' (V&E 1985: 222) Bare NPs as triggers of the focus construction only occur in Eastern Otomi. This is evidence that in this language the syntax of adverbial registration has been realized as the syntax of oblique applicatives. This is illustrated in (29), adapted from Voigtlander and Echegoyen (1985: 220, 306).

( In Acazulco Otomi there are three different paradigms to register a focused adverbial phrase (also sensitive to the conjugation class of the verb in question). The basics of the system are given in Table 32, from Hernández-Green (2015: 409 ff). The locative paradigm is used with a focused locative phrase, the adverbial paradigm is used when a given adverbial phrase of manner, time or duration is in focus; and the general one is used for anything else (means, instrument, allative, ablative, etc.). Besides adverbial phrases in focus in a given clause, in Otomi discourse the adverbial participant to which this special inflection makes reference is commonly an established topic. This can be seen in ( 35) where the reference is anaphoric, or in (36) Oto-Pamean also has semantic alignment. In Pamean, it appears restricted to stative predication, but in Otomian it is fully fledged. The most sophisticated system is observed in Mazahua (Vargas-Bernal 2012) and in Northern Otomi with three classes of intransitive verbs: (i) a patientive class including inchoative verbs and all passive verbs, like in (37) from the variety of San Ildefonso Tultepec (other verbs include no h ki 'get fat ', pat'i 'get warm', thengi 'redden, blush', tset'i 'get cold', tïts'i 'get well', etc.); (ii) a patientive class including stative verbs (38) (e.g. k'a 'be wet', kuhi 'be tasty', ʔi 'be spicy', ʔu 'be painful', etc.); and

(iii) an active class including all other intransitive verbs (39).

( Being geographically isolated in Central Mexico, the Oto-Pamean languages are notably different in spirit from the rest of the Oto-Manguean languages, which are mostly spoken in the southern states of Oaxaca and Guerrero. They have completely renovated the old verbal inflectional system by making it fully periphrastic. This system is at a cross roads in Otomian, while it has become synthetic again in Pamean. The nominal class system is among the most developed one in the phylum and its correlations with the marking of number and possession are unique. The Oto-Pamean languages are also languages with a plural and a dual number in both verbs and nouns (except for Otomi-Mazahua where nominal dual has been lost -for more details see Palancar 2013a). Such a number system is not common in Mesoamerica. Number agreement on verbs is also used in interesting ways not observed elsewhere. For example, in Otomian one finds a rare conjunctional strategy to express comitative semantics that is based on having a split subject by way of two NPs occupying two different positions in the clause with a verb that agrees in number with them as a totality.10 This is illustrated by Eastern Otomi in (40), from the variety of Santa Ana Hueytlalpan, where the topical NPs occur thematized to the front of the clause (Palancar 2012: 267).

(40) [ma mbe] nuya bá=n-tsi-hme=wi [a mbahä]

Map 1 .

 1 Location of Oto-Pamean (following Soustelle 1937). All these groups except Chichimec consist of various languages. The total number of speakers in the census by the National Institute of Indigenous Languages of Mexico (INALI) from 2000 surpasses 360,000. Three languages are particularly endangered: Tilapa Otomi, Ixtenco Otomi and Tlahuica. For these languages, 15 years makes a fundamental differenceMexico

  [náná] S [n‹u›khü -s] O márhę-e-'í-s CHI mother 1POSS/son-DU happy-3.IMM.PST-take.care[3OBJ]-DU 'My mother took care of my two children.' b. [ikág u ] S [kúri] O kú-há sá [távór] ADV ká-'í I water 1.REC.PAST-drink and behind 1.REC.PAST-come 'I drank water and came behind (the animals I was herding).' c. man'í [u-ngwé] POSS [e-khú] O kí-tcá-v? what 2POSS-animal/cattle.2POSS 3PL.POSS-leg.3POSS 2.REC.PAST-do-3DAT 'What did you do to your animals' legs?'

  (15) a. este#... [ru=mẹ y diko] re=ʔëna TIL HES SG=doctor 3.INCPL.R=say 'Eh...the doctor said.' (Txt) b. o giti=gwöntsu='mbe[=ru#... berdolaga] or 1.CPL.IRR=stir.in.AS=PL.EXCL=SG portulaca.oleracea 'Or we stir in the... verdolaga.' (Txt)

  (23) (*ra) pwes (*ra) nt'a (*ra) rú (*ra) mbek'ọ *(ra) 'ëm-bi (*ra) TIL so one SG.3POSS brother.in.law 3.INCPL.R say-3DAT 'So one of his brothers-in-law is telling him.' (Txt)

  ʔs nkwã ʔs n-w-kã ʔs nʔkwã ʔs nʔ-w-kã ʔs 2SG k't ʃã ʔs k'-j-kã ʔs nt ʃã ʔs n-j-kã ʔs nʔkã ʔs nʔ-kã ʔs 3SG kwã ʔs w-kã ʔs dkwã ʔs d-w-kã ʔs nʔkã ʔs nʔ-kã ʔs Table

  she passes by there and fall' ti tagi 'she'll pass by over there and fall' ADLAT -taga tagi 'she'll be going there and fall'

Table 1 .

 1 Oto-Pamean at a glance.

  by proposing the existence of the six main languages given in Table1.

	Acazulco Otomi 1	c. 400
	Ixtenco Otomi	c. 450 (2000)
	Table
	Language	Speakers	Variety
	Mazahua	c. 100,000	Atlacomulco Mazahua
			Temascalcingo Mazahua
			El Oro Mazahua
			Jocotitlán Mazahua
			San Felipe del Progreso Mazahua
			Villa Victoria Mazahua
			Zitácuaro Mazahua
			Ixtlahuaca Mazahua
			Santa Cruz Tepexpan Mazahua
			Almoloya Mazahua
			Donato Guerra Mazahua
	Northern Otomi	c. 113,000	Santiago Mexquititlán Otomi
			San Ildefonso Tultepec Otomi
			Tolimán Otomi
			Guanajuato Otomi
			Acambay Otomi
			Tierra Blanca Otomi
			San Ildefonso Chantepec Otomi
			Mezquital Otomi
			Ixhuatlán de Madero Otomi
	Western Otomi	c. 84,000	Temoaya Otomi
			San Felipe del Progreso Otomi
			San Andrés Cuexcontitlán Otomi
	Eastern Otomi	c. 44,000	San Gregorio Otomi
	(Eastern Highlands Otomi)		San Antonio Otomi
			San Felipe Otomi
			Tenango Otomi
			Texcatepec Otomi
			Santa Ana Hueytlalpan Otomi
	Tilapa Otomi	10 (fluent)

Table 5

 5

	. The

Table 5 .

 5 The stem formatives of Eastern Otomi.

	Stem formatives are unproductive morphemes, most of them with opaque meanings, but a
	range of spatial senses can be reconstructed when a great number of lexeme families are
	studied in detail (see Hernández-Green 2009 and Voigtlander et al. 2006). Two such lexeme
	families appear in (9) from Mezquital Otomi, a variety of Northern Otomi. Some of such
	families have a monosyllabic root (a), some do not (b).
	(9) a. khu	'grasp'	b. *hwe	'produce light'
	N.OTO	khu+t'i 'drag'	hwe+t'i 'flash'
		khu+ts'i 'pull up'	hwe+ts'i 'shine'
		khu+ki 'pull'
		khu+'mi 'pull down'

Table 11 .

 11 The possession paradigm of a noun in Chichimec.

	Number of possessum	SG DU PL	SG kunú 2 nd kínu 1 st 3 rd kinú 1 st kunú-s 2 nd kínu-s 3 rd kinú-s 1 st kunú-r 2 nd kínu-r 3 rd kinú-r	DU EXCL kunú-m p INCL kunú-s kínu-s kinú-s EXCL kunú-vó-s INCL kunú-s-és kínu-s-es kinú-s-és EXCL kunú-r-úm p EXCL kunú-r-hṹ PL EXCL kun-hṹ INCL kunú-n kínu-n kinhú EXCL kun-hṹ-n INCL kunú-s-ín kínu-s-in kinhú-s INCL kunú-r-és INCL kunú-r-ín kínu-r-es kinu-r-in kinú-r-és kinhú-r

Table 12 .

 12 Table 11 represents a specific possession class, but there are three others. All four of them are given in Table 12 with examples. The possession classes of Chichimec.

	Cl.		Segments				Examples				Tone changes			Stem changes
		1SG 2SG 3SG 3PL 1SG	2SG	3SG	3PL		1SG 2SG 3SG 3PL 1SG 2SG 3SG 3PL
	I	-	-	-	-	kanú	kánu	kànu	-	'nose'	LH	HL	LH	-	-	-	-	-
						námen namén námen -	'knee'	HL	LH	HL	-
	II ‹u› ‹i› ‹i› ‹i›	rusé	ríse	risé	-	'skin'	LH	HL	LH	-
						kunú	kínu	kinú	kinhú	'field'	LH	HL	LH	LH	n	n	n	nh
						númbe nivé	nímbe úveʔ	'hunger' HL LH HL	HL	mb v	mb v
						nukhü níkhü nikhü bur'ü	'child'	LH	HL	LH	LH	kh	kh	kh r'
						suką́	síką	sugą́	-	'ear'	LH	HL	LH	-	k	k	g	(kh)
						tsútsę	tʃitʃę	tʃítʃę	-	'wing'	HL	LH	HL	-	ts	tʃ	tʃ	-
	III na-u-u-u-	nátsa	utsá	úza	úts'a	'food'	HL	LH	HL	HL	ts	ts	z	ts'
						náku	ukú	úgu	úkhu	'road'	HL	LH	HL	HL	k	k	g	kh
						nátán	után	úrán	úrhán	'work'	HH	LH	HH	HH	t	t	r	rh
						námb i	ungw í úm i	úp i	'music' HL LH HL	HL	mb ngw m	p
	IV ta-ki-ta-ta-	tásots	kisóts tásots tátshots 'belt'	HL	LH	HL	HL	s	s	s	tsh
					na-táʃin	kiʃín	táʃin	názin	'axe'	HL	LH	HL	HL	ʃ	ʃ	ʃ	z
					ra-	taté	kíte	taté	rarhé	'knife'	LH	HL	LH	LH	t	t	t	rh

[START_REF] Angulo | The Chichimeco Language[END_REF]

illustrates the classes in Table

12

with 61 nouns: 12 are of class I; 29 of class II; 14 of class III; and 6 of class IV.

4

Membership to the classes is arbitrary. In other words, the phonological shape of the stem does not help to predict class membership, and neither does the semantics of the noun. For example, most nouns of class IV refer to tools-cognate with the possession class in Pame serving instrumental noun classes, see Table

15

belowbut nouns for tools are also found in other classes, such as class III, and many are of the invariable type or are borrowings. Also in class IV we find the noun for 'plant' which is not a tool. Similarly, although half of the 61 nouns in Angulo's sample are body part nouns-a natural expectation for such a sample-the nouns are found across the classes without an apparent motivation. The same argument can be used with clothing, 'trousers' is in class I, 'clothes' is in class II, but 'shoe' and 'hat' are in class III, and many words for clothing are invariable.

Table 13 .

 13 Possession forms of the word for 'paper' in Pame.Surface forms in Pame pose an analytical problem. For Northern Pame,[START_REF] Berthiaume | A phonological grammar of Pame[END_REF] posits an underlying representation with double prefixation, i.e. the person of possessor is indicated by ʔu-/j-/ʔj-while the number of the possessum by prefixes n-or r-.5 With this analysis, a surface form such as nʔk'wíʃ 'my paper' is interpreted as retaining the noun class prefix n-characteristic of Northern Pame. In contrast, for Central Pame,[START_REF] Gibson | Pame noun inflection[END_REF] propose the prefix series no-/ni-/ni-and ro-/ri-/ri-that conflate person of possessor and number of possessum. This means that for the cognate form nok'wéʃ 'my paper' Central Pame is thought to have the prefix no-plus a stem alternation proper of 1st person which needs to be accounted for independently. Berthiaume's analysis of the stem change is accounted for by internal assimilation. The data in Chichimec do not easily yield to either analysis. Under the prefix analysis, for the 29 verbs of class II in Angulo one would have to propose five prefix series nu-/ni-, ku-/ki-, ru-/ri, su-/si-and tsu-/tsi-, while an analysis based on retaining a noun class marker would not hold synchronically because the nouns do not have independent absolute forms.Possession class III in Chichimec is cognate with class na-/ngo-/ngo-in Central Pame, as shown in Table14. But in Northern Pame, the cognate morphology has disintegrated.

		1 SG	2 SG	3 SG	ABSOLUTE
	SURFACE	ANALYSIS	SURFACE ANALYSIS SURFACE ANALYSIS	SURFACE	ANALYSIS

Table 15 ,

 15 which serves the instrumental noun class in Table8. This class merges two distinct possession classes in Central Pame: the one in (a) serves noun class 6 and that of (b) the instrumental noun class 11.

			1SG		2 SG		3 SG	ABSOLUTE
		SURFACE	ANALYSIS	SURFACE	ANALYSIS	SURFACE	ANALYSIS	SURFACE	ANALYSIS
	a. N.PAM st/E)  s C.PAM tahéʃ	s-t-/E ) s ta-héʃ	Ski/JE ) s kihéʃ	s-kj-/E)  s ki-héʃ	sn/E)  s nahéʃ	s-n-/E ) s na-héʃ	sl/E)  s *nahéʃ	sl-/E ) s *na-héʃ
	b.	staʔéog sta-ʔéog skiʔéog ski-ʔéog snaʔéog sna-ʔéog	*tʃiʔéog *tʃi-ʔéog

Table 15 .

 15 Possession forms of the words for 'knife' (a) and 'broom' (b) in Pame.Invariable nouns lie outside the inflectional sub-system made up by the possession classes. In Pame, they inflect for person-number of the possessor by means of the same suffixes used with the dative paradigm of verbs, as shown in (17), adapted from[START_REF] Berthiaume | A phonological grammar of Pame[END_REF]. Atzincan also has possession classes. In Tlahuica, based on the materials inMuntzel (1984), one can propose the three major classes in Table16. For alienable nouns, their non-possessed form (i.e. absolute) is abbreviated asABS. 8

	(17)	1.DAT si-k 'say to me'	1.POSS	snt'ae -k	'my waist'
	N.PAM	2.DAT si-k' 'say to you'	2.POSS	snt'ae -k'	'your waist'
		3.DAT si-p 'say to him/her/them' 3.POSS	snt'ae -p	'his/her/their waist'
	In Chichimec, invariable nouns enter into a possession relationship by means of compounding with one of the five possessed nominal elements in (18), 6 which work as
	genitive classifiers. The examples additionally show that number of the possessum is only
	marked on the possessed noun.
	(18) ANIMALS [ná-mbe	urhẽ -r]	FOOD	[na-nté 7	kindi-r]
	CHI		1SG.POSS.animal horse-PL		1SG.POSS-CL.FOOD soup-PL
			'my horses'			'my soups'
		PLANTS	[ta-ngwá	rígũ -r]	OTHER	[ná-mbi	kúro-r]
			1SG.POSS-plant	tree-PL		1SG.POSS-thing	stone-PL
			'my trees'			'my stones'
		CLOTHING [n‹ú›nthü	mátũ -r]
			1SG.POSS/clothes shirt-PL
			'my shirts'
	4.2.2. Possession in Otomian
	Like Pamean, cl. Ia	cl. Ib		cl. II
		'wood'	'husband'	'stone'	'house'	'throat'
	1SG m-(n)tsa 2SG lí-ntsa	we-p-t'uma we-lí-t'uma	u-nto lí-nto	n[i]-a-tho n[i]-ák-tho	p[i]-a-h p[i]-ák-h
	3SG l-ntsa	we-l-t'uma	lu-nto	ni-tho	pi-h
	1PL ne-hu-ntsa	ne-hu-t'uma	ne-hu-u-nto n[i]-a-kew-tho p[i]-a-kew-h
	2PL ne-lo-lí-ntsa ne-lo-lí-t'uma ne-lo-lí-nto	n

Table 17 .

 17 Table 17, with tonal lowering for the 2nd person. Data is adapted from Bartholomew (nd). Possession marking in Matlatzinca. Finally, in clear contrast to what happens in the other groups, in Otomi-Mazahua the marking of possession is syntactic. This is illustrated in Mazahua in Table 18, adapted from Knapp 2008. The markers nu and k'o are definite determiners, of singular and plural respectively. Possessive determiners occur closer to the noun. Enclitics mark person and number of possessor and serve to disambiguate between a 1st and a 2nd person possessor.

			'stomach' 'head' 'face'	'tooth'
	1SG		thé-yá	thé-nú thé-mhí thé-sibí
	2SG		ní-ʔya	ní-ʔnu ní-ʔmhi ní-nsibí
	3SG		ní-ʔyá	ní-ʔnú ní-ʔmhí ní-nsíbí
						Number of possessor
	Number of possessum	SG PL	SG nu in nzhn=g 2 nd nu in nzhn=ge 1 st 3 rd nu o nzhn 1 st k'o in nzhn=g 2 nd k'o in nzhn=ge	DU EXCL nu in nzhn=g=e INCL nu in nzhn=g=i nu in nzhn=ge=i EXCL k'o in nzhn=g=e INCL k'o in nzhn=g=i k'o in nzhn=ge=i	PL EXCL nu in nzhn=g= INCL nu in nzhn=g=hi h me nu in nzhn=ge=hi EXCL k'o in nzhn=g= h me INCL k'o in nzhn=g=hi k'o in nzhn=ge=hi
			3 rd	k'o o nzhn

Table 18 .

 18 Possession marking of the noun for 'ox' in Mazahua.

	A handful of nouns in Mazahua require a palatalized stem when possessed by a 1st or a 2nd
	person. The nouns do not form a coherent natural class (e.g. 'bench', 'blood', 'bone', 'door',
	'eye', 'lamb', 'song', 'stone', 'woman', etc.). One example is given in (a) in Table 19 to be
	compared with an invariable noun in (b), adapted from Knapp 2008. At least five other body part nouns require a prenasalized stem for the 3rd person. The noun t 'eye' in (c) is one of them.
	(a)	(b)	(c)
	'stone' 1 st n d→ n d in n dóho=g n d in n dk h =g t→ tʃ in tʃ=g 'chocolate' 'eye' 2 nd in n dóho=ge in n dk h =ge in tʃ=ge 3 rd n d o n dóho o n dk h  t→ n d o n d

Table 19 .

 19 Nouns with and without stem alternations in Mazahua.[START_REF] Stewart | Gramática del mazahua[END_REF] reports that kinship terms in Mazahua may take the marker mi for a 1st person possessor, as in (19). This marker is cognate with the prefix m-of possession class Ia in Tlahuica. It is also found in Old Otomi, where it was used for a female speaker. Male speakers used ma instead, which later generalized in all Otomi languages as the only possessive marker for 1st person, except in the conservative Otomi languages of Tilapa and Ixtenco, where the old speaker-oriented gender distinction was kept. This is illustrated in (20) in Tilapa Otomi with the markers mi and m (the reflex of old ma).

	9

  ). Examples are from the San Ildefonso Tultepec variety of Northern Otomi.

	(21) a. 'na=r	ndo xa mí=künt'ei	[ár	'behñö]
	N.OTO INDF.SG=SG man INT 3.IMPF=watch.over SG.3POSS lady
	'A man watched over his wife a lot.' (Txt)
	b. pe handi		tü	[yá	ndoni]='na
	but [3.INCPL]see [3.INCPL]have.on PL.3POSS horn=QUOT
	'But he sees that he has horns on.' (Txt)
	c. 'ne ya no=r	khö'i='ya, [nó=r	döme], handi
	and P DEF.SG=SG person=P DEF.SG.3POSS=SG husband [3.INCPL]see[3OBJ]
	'And the man, her husband, sees it.' (Txt)
	d. habu 'in=da	hyandá[=r	male]
	where NEG=3IRR SS/see.AS[3OBJ]3POSS=SG granny
	'Where their granny would not see them.' (Txt)

About the marking of possession in Oto-Pamean

  Nouns with canonical inalienable semantics such as body parts and kinship terms, together with a handful of cultural artefacts, such as pieces of clothing and food (i.e. tortilla, maize, etc.) are obligatorily possessed in Oto-Pamean, just as they are in most Mesoamerican languages. In Otomi-Mazahua, without possession classes, obligatorily possessed nouns could be said to form the class of inalienable nouns.

	) ma=dá	kwa h ta[=ma	beni]=he
	N.OTO MOT=1.CPL put.away.AS=1POSS suitcase=PL.EXCL
	'(So that) we went to put our suitcases away.' (Txt)
	4.2.3.

  R=come.AS=CL=1.CPL.R grind.AS=DET.SG DEF.SG chili=CL 'Soon I got here to...grind the chili.' (Txt)

		) a. #tú=mbe='mbe=[tú...#	tú= h tsu='mbe]=r		t'egi=gwa=a#
	TIL	1.CPL.R= SS/go.DU.EXCL=PL.EXCL=1.CPL.R 1.CPL.R=reach=PL.EXCL=SG car=here=CL
		'We went to...to take the bus here.' (Txt)
		b. #nthönt'o té=ʔëh=a[=tú... # soon 1.CPL.	h kundy]=a	ni	ʔi=a#

  as having three different past tenses and a sequential tense used in clause combining constructions. Examples are presented in Table 21. .PST zu-nú 's/he's just seen it' REC.PST ku-nú 's/he's seen it' ANT.PST u-nú 's/he saw it'

PRS e-nú 's/he's seeing it' IMMFUT ga-nú 's/he will see it' POT mu-nú 's/he'd see it' SEQ ru-nú ' and she see it' Table

Table 23 .

 23 . The formative-based conjugation classes of Chichimec.While membership to the classes is arbitrary, verbs with middle semantics (i.e. reciprocal, reflexive, posture, grooming, etc.) are found in class VII, as shown in (26). This is a characteristic feature of Oto-Pamean, where languages have active verbs in one class and their middle voice counterparts are inflected in another class.

		1SG 1DU 1PL 2	3SG/DU 3PL 1SG 1DU 1PL 2 3SG/DU 3PL 1SG 1DU 1PL 2 3SG/DU 3PL
			cl. I				cl. II					cl. III
	PRS	e	ki	e		tu	su	u			tu	su	u	e
	IMM.PST	u	i	zu		u	i	zu			u	i	zu	zu
	REC.PST	ku	ki	ku		ku	ki	ku			ku	ki	ku	ku
	ANT.PST	tu	ki	u		tu	ki	u			tu	su	u	e
	FUT	ga	ki	ga		gu	ki	ga			gu	ki	ga	ga
	POT	nu	mi	mu		nu	mi	mu			nu	mi mu mi
	SEQ	ra	gi	ru		ra	gi	ru			ra	gi	ru	ru
			cl. IV				cl. V					cl. VI
	PRS	tu	ka	u	e	e	u ki	e	e	e	e	u ki	e
	IMM.PST	u	i	zu	ka ki ki ki	ku	ku	sa si si sa	sa

(26) e-nú (I) 'I see it' ~ ti-nú (VII) 'I see myself' Atzincan has six formative-based classes, with slight differences between Tlahuica and Matlatzinca. They are shown in Table

24

, adapted from Carranza-Martínez (

2013

), (dual forms are not included; the 1st plural form is the inclusive, 'Σ' represents the stem).

Table 24 .

 24 The formative-based conjugation classes of Matlatzinca.Membership to classes in Atzincan is more clearly associated with transitivity. The transitive verbs in the language fall into classes I-III; intransitives into classes IV-VI. Transitive class I and intransitive class IV serve as morphological defaults (and most likely point to the genuine basic verbs of the proto-language). The distinctions making up the other classes are formally derived from these two classes, although the derivation is only historical. For example, classes II and V originate, respectively, from historical causative verbs (derived by prefix {tu-}) and historical middle voice verbs (derived by prefix {te-}).Otomi-Mazahua has considerable internal diversity regarding conjugation classes. The conservative Otomi languages like Tilapa Otomi, Acazulco Otomi and Ixtenco Otomi have preserved the three main classes from Old Otomi inCárceres (1907Cárceres ( /1580)). In other varieties, the system has undergone considerable change. The verbs in Table25illustrate the classes of Tilapa Otomi.

			'water (cornfield)'		'cut up wood'			'pray'
			cl. I (tr/intr)		cl. II (intr)				cl. III (tr/intr)
		REALIS	IRR	REALIS	IRR		REALIS	IRR
	INCPL 1 st trá	xithe gra	xithe	trá	xu gratu	xu	trátí	xadi grati	xadi
		2 nd grá xithe gra	xithe	grá	xu gragu	xu	grátí	xadi grati	xadi
		3 rd ra	xithe tra	xithe	ra	xu tra		xu	rati	xadi trati	xadi
	CPL	1 st tú	xithe gi	xithe	túdú	xu gutu		xu	tú	xadi giti	xadi
		2 nd gú	xithe gi	xithe	gúgú xu gugu	xu	gú	xadi giti	xadi
		3 rd bi	xithe ta	xithe	bi	xu ti		xu	bi	xadi ti	xadi
	PRF	1 st xtú xithe xkugu xithe	xtúdú xu xtigutu xu	xtú	xadi xkugu xadi
		2 nd xkú xithe xkugu xithe	xkúgú xu xtigugu xu	xkú	xadi xkigi	xadi
		3 rd xún xithe xti	xithe	xpi	xu xtigi		xu	xpi	xadi xtigi	xadi

Table 25 .

 25 The formative-based conjugation classes of Tilapa Otomi.

Table 26 .

 26 The formative-based conjugation classes of Eastern Otomi.

Table 27 .

 27

		'gather'	'walk'	'fix'
		cl. I	cl. II	cl. III
	INCPL 1 st dí kho	dí ʔyo	dí ho h ki
		2 nd gí kho	gí ʔyo	gí ho h ki
		3 rd (i) kho	(i) ʔyo	(i) ho h ki
	CPL	1 st dá kho	dá ʔ‹ñ›o	dá ho h ki
		2 nd gá kho	gá ʔ‹ñ›o	gá ho h ki
		3 rd bi go	bi ʔ‹ñ›o	bi ho h ki
	IRR	1 st ga kho	ga ʔ‹ñ›o	ga ho h ki
		2 nd gi kho	gi ʔ‹ñ›o	gi ho h ki
		3 rd da go	da ʔ‹ñ›o	da ho h ki

Table 27 .

 27 The stem-based classes of Northern Otomi.

Table 29 .

 29 Cases of 2nd person marking indicated by tone inversion in Chichimec.

	1 st sá sa 2 nd IMM.PST sá sa PRS REC.PST sá sa ANT.PST sá sa FUT sá sa POT sá sa SEQ sá sa	3SG/DU sá sá sá sá sá sá sá	3PL tshá tshá tshá ndan tán 1 st 2 nd 3SG/DU tan tán tan tan tán tan rán tshá tan tán rán tshá tan tán rán tshá tán tán tán tshá tan tán tan	3PL rhán rhán rhán rhán rhán rhán rhán	1 st 2 nd 3SG/DU tsa ʃa tsa tsá ʃa tsá tsa ʃa za tsá ʃa zá tsá ʃa za tsa ʃa tsa tsá ʃa tsá	3PL tsha tshá tsha tshá tshá tsha tshá

  Mazahua has three different sub-paradigms of adverbial inflection depending on three classes of adverbs. This is shown in Table31.

	29) a. ró=ñá=gö	b. [naho] rvá=ñá=gö	c. [khá] ró=khwar=gö
	MAZ	1.PST=speak=1	well 1.PST.ADV=speak=1		almost 1.PST=finish=1
		'I spoke.'	'I spoke well.'			'I'm almost finished.'
			Basic		Adverbial
	INCPL 1 st	rí	cl. I rgá	cl.II rgá	cl. III rrí/rrú	cl. I	na ho('o)	'well'

  hackberry.rope CPL.ADV=‹PASS›carry.AS[3.OBJ]=SG mule 'WITH A HACKBERRY ROPE, the mule was brought.' 'IT'S WITH HACKBERRY ROPE that the mule was brought.'

	34) a. [ra 'ye]	na=nte	yu paxi
	E.OTO SG	rain	3.INCPL.ADV=grow PL plant
	'WITH THE RAIN, plants are alive.'
	'IT'S WITH RAIN that plants are alive.'
	b. [ra koni]	í=ts‹ʔ›ix=ra	phani

SG

Table 32 .

 32 Paradigms for adverbial registration in Acazulco Otomi.

		LOC	ADVERBIAL	GENERAL
			REALIS	IRR	REALIS	IRR
	Class I II III	1 st 2 nd gí dí 3 rd bí/rá 1 st dí 2 nd gí 3 rd bí/rá 1 st dídi 2 nd gídi 3 rd bídi	INCPL CPL CPL dra dá dá gru gí dí ga gá ká dradi dádí dádí ngádí drádí dádí dádí ngádí PST INCPL CPL CPL PST ngá drá dá dá ngá ngí grí gí dí ngí ngá rí í dí ngí gradi gádí dádí ngádí grádí gádí dádí ngádí ga gá ká ngá rá á dá ngá dra dá dá ngá drá dá dá ngá gru gí dí ngí grí gí dí ngí gi gí kí ngí rí í dí ngí

  where it is cataphoric. TIL and=CL SS/go.PL.INCL ‹CISLOC›1.CPL.IRR=bring[3.OBJ]=PL.INCL two DIM-stick para gu= h ka'tsu=hu, PURP 1.CPL.IRR=burn.AS[3.OBJ]=PL.INCL para gata-tu= h potu=hu PURP 1.IRR.ADV-1=make.tortillas.AS=PL.INCL Table 35. Object and dative marking of three verbs in Tilapa Otomi.

	(35) 'neh=a mbaha	g‹w›u= h tyü=hu	[ yo sku-za],

In the Oto-Pamean languages, both aspiration and ejection are laryngeal features which are clearly associated with the articulation of consonants. In other words, a model based on the proposal by[START_REF] Golston | A prosodic theory of laryngeal contrasts[END_REF] where such features are associated with the vocalic nuclei would not be optimal to account for the segmental phonology of these languages.

To this list one may add a number of other nouns with idiosyncratic behaviour (see[START_REF] Gibson | Pame noun inflection[END_REF] for details).

Angulo's sample includes c. 30 odd nouns that do not fully abide by the patterns in Table12. Such nouns include body parts such as 'hand', 'penis', 'mouth', and 'face', common kinship terms such as 'wife', 'husband', 'mother', and 'father', and other nouns referring to commonly possessed entities such as 'house', 'name' and 'money', but also 'fire'.

A cognate r-for plural of possessum is also found in Chichimec, but as a suffix. This can be seen in Table11.

The same construction is also found in frozen compounds like katá ngü (1SG.POSS.face eye) 'my eye'.

The root -nté is the only one that is no longer a nominal, but a genuine genitive classifier. Etymologically, it is the word for 'water'. The word for 'food' is nowadays nátsa 'my food', a nominalization of the verb 'eat'.

Given comparable data in sister language Matlatzinca, it is highly likely that the forms for 2nd person possessor also bear contrastive tone.

The kinship terms in (20), hephesita (from Spanish jefecita 'little boss (female)') and tömbė ('old lady'), both mean 'mother', but the former is a term of male speech, while the latter of female speech.

st

nd

3SG/DU 3PL 1 st 2 nd 3SG/DU 3PL 1 st

As a way to get to grips with the intricate syntax of the construction, some authors likeEcker (1952) and[START_REF] Hess | The syntactic structure of Mezquital Otomi[END_REF] concluded that the marker of dual worked as a comitative applicative, when in reality it is just a morphosyntactic token to indicate that the verb has a dual or a plural subject.

ra=zo+ni 's/he's weeping' /L/ > /H/ an=zó+ni 's/he weeps' ra=hú+xi 's/he's whistling' /H/ > /H/ an=hí+xi 's/he whistles' ra=tsah-te 'it's biting (people)' /L/ > /H/ an=tsáh-te 'it bites (people)' -24-ra=nü h -te 's/he's seeing (people)' /H/ > /H/ an=nü h -te 's/he sees (people)' ra=tü-the 's/he's thirsty' (die-water) /L/ > /H/ an=tü  -the 's/he's often thirsty'

Argument encoding.

We have already seen that information about the person of the subject is encoded by way of distinctions in the inflectional formatives. Object of 1st and 2nd person is encoded by means of person suffixes that, when affixed, generate a string of intricate morphophonological adjustments on both simple and complex stems. Object anaphora of a 3rd person is realized by a bare stem (or a zero suffix). Examples are given in Table 33 from Tilapa Otomi.

'pick up' 'frighten' 'pull out' 1OBJ tsi+n-gi h pih-ki khuy-ġi 2OBJ tsi+n-k'i h piʔ-k'i khuy-k'i 3OBJ tsi+ni-Ø h pi+di-Ø khuh+ki-Ø Table 33. Person marking of object in Tilapa Otomi.

In Atzincan, transitive verbs may receive benefactive applicative {-pi} where the beneficiary is encoded as the primary object. The case is illustrated in Table 34, adapted from [START_REF] Martínez-Ortega | Clases verbales, transitividad y valencia verbal en el pjyekakjó, tlahuica de San Juan Atzingo[END_REF]. The table also shows that verbs change valence by changing inflectional class. A verb such as 'wake up' can be inflected both as intransitive or as transitive, but in different classes.

'wake up' 'wake sb. up' 'wake sb. up for sb.' 1 st tu-nǔ 'I wake up' kitu-nǔ-kh 'you wake me' kitu-nǔ-pi-kh 'you wake him for me' 2 nd ki-nǔ 'you wake up' tatu-nǔ-k' 'I wake you' tatu-nǔ-pi-k' 'I wake him for you' 3 rd mu-nǔ 'he wakes up' ntu-nǔ-Ø 'he wakes him' ntu-nǔ-pi-Ø 'he wakes him for him' Table 34. Three related verbs in Tlahuica with increased valence.

The Atzincan applicative {-pi} comes from a pronominal marker of benefactive of the 3rd person which is still found in the other groups. In Otomi-Mazahua for example, transitive verbs become ditransitive by predictable stem changes; some are shown in Table 35. Hernández-Green (2015) proposes that in ditransitive constructions, recipient and benefactive arguments are treated by the syntax as primary objects in the conservative language of Acazulco Otomi, while in innovative languages like Northern Otomi, Palancar (2009)


Paul Deléglise
email: paul.deleglise@lium.univ-lemans.fr

Yannick Estève
email: yannick.esteve@lium.univ-lemans.fr

Sylvain Meignier
email: sylvain.meignier@lium.univ-lemans.fr

Teva Merlin
email: teva.merlin@lium.univ-lemans.fr

The LIUM speech transcription system: a CMU Sphinx III-based system for french broadcast news

This paper presents the system used by the LIUM to participate in ESTER, the french broadcast news evaluation campaign. This system is based on the CMU Sphinx 3.3 (fast) decoder. Some tools are presented which have been added on different steps of the Sphinx recognition process: segmentation, acoustic model adaptation, word-lattice rescoring. Several experiments have been conducted on studying the effects of the signal segmentation on the recognition process, on injecting automatically transcribed data into training corpora, or on testing different approaches for acoustic model adaptation. The results are presented in this paper. With very few modifications and a simple MAP acoustic model estimation, Sphinx3.3 decoder reached a word error rate of 28.2%. The entire system developed by LIUM obtained 23.6% as official word error rate for the ESTER evaluation, and 23.4% as result of an unsubmited system.

Introduction

The ESTER evaluation campaign of french radiophonic broadcast news [START_REF] Gravier | The ESTER evaluation campaign of rich transcription of french broadcast news[END_REF] has allowed to stimulate research on speech recognition in French. This evaluation campaign is similar to the Rich Transcription evaluation organized by the NIST, in terms of the tasks offered and of evaluation rules. It offers a significant amount of train and test data, giving the participants the opportunity to develop robust systems.

The Laboratoire d'Informatique de l'Université du Maine (LIUM) participated in the tasks of automatic transcription and speaker diarization, as well as the prospective task of named entity detection. For the first two tasks, LIUM ranked second. This paper presents the automatic transcription system developed by the LIUM for this campaign. The development was based on the CMU Sphinx Project which provides high quality tools for speech recognition. We also present the experiments which validated our technical choices.

CMU Sphinx III

CMU Sphinx Project has been funded for many years by the DARPA to develop a robust speaker-independent large vocabulary continuous speech recognizer. Since 2000, first with the CMU Sphinx II decoder and then with SphinxTrain and CMU Sphinx III decoders, a large part of the CMU Sphinx Project has been made available as open-source packages by Carnegie Mellon University. The fast decoder [START_REF] Ravishankar | Sub-vector clustering to improve memory and speed performance of acoustic likelihood computation[END_REF][START_REF] Chan | Four-level categorization scheme of fast gmm computation techniques in large vocabulary continuous speech recognition systems[END_REF] called s3.3 from the CMU Sphinx III family was used in the work reported in this paper.

The fast decoder

The fast decoder s3.3 is a branch from CMU Sphinx III project. This branch has been developed to include some speed improvements such as sub-vector clustered acoustic models [START_REF] Ravishankar | Sub-vector clustering to improve memory and speed performance of acoustic likelihood computation[END_REF] or use of few static lexical trees. This decoder uses only fully continuous acoustic models with 3 or 5-state left-to-right HMM topologies. Only bigram or trigram language models can be used. At last, the vocabulary size is limited to about 65K words.

Added features

Although the tools distributed in the CMU Sphinx open-source package reach a high level of quality, they can be supplemented or improved to integrate some state-of-art technologies. Until now, we have focused on adaptation of acoustic models and on word-lattice rescoring.

SAT

We completed the SphinxTrain and decoder modules with a Speaker Adaptive Training (SAT) procedure based on CMLLR [START_REF] Gales | Maximum likelihood linear transformations for HMM-based speech recognition[END_REF].

The CMLLR transformation is a block-diagonal matrix composed of 3 blocks of 13 × 13 coefficients. Classicaly, CM-LLR can be computed either on a sentence-by-sentence basis or on a speaker-by-speaker basis.

In the first case, diagonal initialization is very important because of the lack of data: we based the initialization on a solution 1 proposed by [START_REF] Gales | Maximum likelihood linear transformations for HMM-based speech recognition[END_REF].

4-gram lattices rescoring

The last release of the fast decoder, CMU Sphinx 3.5, is distributed with a tool to rescore word-lattices (generated by the decoder) with trigram language models. In fact, it is more interesting to rescore this lattice with an higher order language model: we have modified the provided tool to make it able to use quadrigram language models. This modification implies first a lattice pruning to avoid a combinative explosion: to suppress some transitions, the a posteriori probability of each transition is computed and only the most probable transitions are preserved for a given frame 2 . Then a exploratory search is processed using a quadrigram language model.

Signal processing

Cepstral features are classical: 13 Mel frequency cepstra are computed for each window of 25ms with an overlap of 10ms, completed with delta and delta-delta. Two sets of features are computed for each show, corresponding to broadband (130Hz -6800Hz) and narrowband (440Hz -3500Hz) analysis.

Segmentation process

The segmentation process splits the signal into homogeneous parts in terms of speaker, gender, and bandwidth. For transcription, accuracy of segment boundaries is as important as correct gender and bandwidth labels. Errors in terms of speaker label have less impact in this task.

Figure 1 shows the two systems that were investigated: a word-based segmentation system and a phone recognizer. In both cases, the segmentation process relies a speaker segmentation system based upon the Bayesian Information Criterion (BIC [START_REF] Gish | Segregation of speakers for speech recognition and speaker identification[END_REF][START_REF] Chen | Speaker, environment and channel change detection and clustering via the bayesian information criterion[END_REF]).

Speaker segmentation system

The acoustic speaker segmentation is based upon a BIC framework composed of three modules:

• The signal is first split in small homogeneous segments.

• Then, the segments are clustered by speaker without changing the boundaries.

• Finally, the boundaries are adjusted.

The initial segment boundaries are determined according to a Generalized Likelihood Ratio (GLR) computed over two consecutive windows of 2.5s sliding over the features (12MFCC+E). No threshold is employed, except for the minimal segment length which is set to 2.5s. The signal is oversegmented in order to minimize misdetection of boundaries but the minimum segment length is set long enough to allow for correct estimation of a speaker model.

The clustering is based upon a bottom-up hierarchical clustering. In the initial set of clusters, each segment is a cluster. The two closest clusters are then merged at each iteration until the BIC stop criterion is met. The speaker, ie the cluster, is modeled by a full covariance Gaussian as in the segmentation process. The BIC penalty factor is computed over the length of the two candidate clusters instead of the standard penalty computed over the length of the whole signal [START_REF] Barras | Improving speaker diarization[END_REF]. To minimized the clustering time, a first pass of clustering is performed only over adjacent clusters.

Viterbi decoding is performed to adjust segment boundaries. A speaker is modeled by a one-state HMM containing a diagonal covariance GMM of 8 components learned by EM-ML over the set of speaker segments. The log-penalty of switching between two speakers is fixed experimentally to 250.

Phone recognizer based system

A segmentation is obtained using a context-independent phone recognizer with a null language model over narrowband features. The output phones are labeled as speech or filler 3 . Small filler segments are re-labeled as speech according to a set of heuristics based upon the segment length. Finally, gender and bandwidth of speech segments are detected using a set of GMMs.

3 ie silence, music, breath, hesitation

Phone-vs Word-based segmentation

In the phone-based segmentation, the boundaries of the segments from the speaker segmentation system are adjusted to those of the speech segments. The bandwidth and gender for each speaker segment are set to the most represented (in terms of duration) corresponding labels in the underlying speech segments.

In the word-based segmentation system, bandwidth, then gender, are detected (through GMMs) directly on each speaker segment. Segment boundaries finally get adjusted according to sentence boundaries provided by the first pass transcription decoding (see section 7).

Acoustic modeling

Acoustic models for 35 phonemes and 5 kinds of fillers were trained using a set of 72 hours of broadband data and 8 hours of narrowband data with manual transcription. For training, the acoustic trainer toolkit SphinxTrain, associated to CMU Sphinx decoders, was used. The final models are composed of 5500 tied states (up to 6000 when training data were injected, see section 8.3), each state being modeled by a mixture of 22 Gaussians. The broadband (BB) model was built from the broadband data only, whereas the narrowband (NB) model relied on the whole 80 hours (narrowband analysis) and was then adapted by MAP method [START_REF] Gauvain | Maximum a posteriori estimation for multivariate gaussian mixture observations of markov chains[END_REF] to the 8 hours of narrowband data.

For transcription alignment (selection of phonetic variant and insertion of fillers), two different methods were used:

• reliance on the manual transcription; only silence labels are added, detected with a context-independent, bandwidth-dependent, mono-gaussian model; • automatically detection of all fillers using a contextdependent, bandwidth-independent model with 22 Gaussians per state. A MAP procedure was used to specialize both models on gender, resulting in BB-male, BB-female, NB-male, NBfemale. The procedure runs in 3 iterations and adapts means, variances, and weights.

SAT

The gender-and bandwidth-dependent models (BB-male, BBfemale, NB-male, NB-female) were used to compute the CM-LLR transformation for each sentence (or each speaker). This approach yields better results than using gender-independent models.

After applying the transformation, four gender-, bandwidth-dependent models (SAT-BB-male, SAT-BBfemale, SAT-NB-male, SAT-NB-female) were estimated using the same process as described above.

Language modeling

Ideally, text corpora used to train statistical language models have to be the closest as possible to the task targeted by the speech recognition application. Because of the cost, manual transcriptions of spoken language are difficult to obtain and approximations are necessary: the training data provided for the ESTER evaluation were made partly of manual transcriptions of broadcast news from various radio stations, but the major part of the data came from articles of the french newspaper "Le Monde". In fact, spontaneous speech seldom occurs in broadcast news and, by default, we can be satisfied with the use of newspaper articles. We chose to split the training data into three homogeneous sets :

1. Manual transcriptions of 89 hours out of the 90 hours of radiophonic broadcast news provided by the ESTER organisation. The last one hour was left to test the trained language models on. These transcriptions were composed of 1.35M words, including 34K different words.

2. Articles from french newspaper "Le Monde" for the year 2003. These sentences were composed of 19M words, including 220K different words. This set comprises the most recent articles before the period of test data, 2004.

3. Articles from french newspaper "Le Monde" for the period between 1987 and 2002. These sentences were composed of approximately 300M words.

Training language models cannot be dissociated from building the vocabulary. For this reason the words of our vocabulary come from the three sets of text corpora.

Lexicon building

First, all the 34K words occurring in the first set are incorporated into the vocabulary. Since the sentences in this set are of comparable nature to the test sentences, it seems intuitively interesting to keep these words. Then, words occurring more than 10 times in the second training data set (about 19K words) were incorporated. Finally the most frequent words in the last training data set were used to get the vocabulary to its maximum size (65K words).

N-gram models estimation

Using this vocabulary, each of the three data sets defined above was used to train a trigram language model. To estimate and interpolate these trigram models, the SRILM toolkit [START_REF] Stolcke | SRILM-an extensible language modeling toolkit[END_REF] was used. Each language model was a backoff model, using the modified Kneser-Ney discounting method. All the unigrams and bigrams were kept, whereas trigrams occurring only once were not taken into account. To compute the interpolation weights, the EM implementation provided by the CMU SLM toolkit [START_REF] Clarkson | Statistical language modeling using the CMU-Cambridge toolkit[END_REF] was used. The resulting trigram language model was used in the first two passes of the speech recognition process. To rescore the wordlattice in the third pass, a quadrigram language model was necessary: it was estimated the same way as the trigram language model, rejecting all quadrigrams and trigrams occurring only once in training data.

Table 1 shows the number of n-grams in the resulting trigram and quadrigram models.

Speech transcription process

The speech transcription process is composed of three passes:

1. The first pass uses the acoustic model corresponding to the gender and the bandwidth detected by the segmentation process, and using a trigram language model.

2.

The second pass applies a CMLLR transformation by speaker or by segment, and uses the same trigram language model as the first pass. A word-lattice is generated which contains words and their acoustic scores.

3. This lattice is then rescored in the last pass with a quadrigram language model. Figure 1 summarizes the system architecture, highlighting the two segmentation schemes.

Experiment and results

The experiments described here were conduced in the strict context of the ESTER evaluation [START_REF] Gravier | The ESTER evaluation campaign of rich transcription of french broadcast news[END_REF]: no other training data were used beside those distributed during the campaign.

Audio corpora for training and development were composed of 90 hours of audio files from four French speaking radio stations (3 from France + 1 from Morocco): France Inter, France Info, Radio France International and Radio Télévision Marocaine. The textual corpora for training and development (which include manual transcriptions of the audio corpora) were described in section 6.

The test corpus was composed of 10 hours of shows: 2 hours from each of the four radio stations included in the train and development corpora, plus 2 hours from two unknown (at evaluation time) stations (which turned out to be Radio Classique and France Culture). It comprises about 10,000 sentences amounting to about 112,000 words. The method we used to build our vocabulary (see section 6.1) induced an outof-vocabulary word rate of 1.18% on the test data.

SAT: sentence vs speaker

All the experiments described below relied on a sentence-bysentence CMLLR transformation for SAT. This proved to be more efficient than a more traditional speaker-by-speaker approach, with a gain of 0.4 point in terms of word error rate. Word-based segmentation yields slightly better results (0.1 point with quadrigrams). We believe it can be further improved because some mistakes it makes (insertion of words within music fillers) should be easily detected and corrected afterwards.

Segmentation and alignment

As for transcription alignment strategies, it appears that automatic filler detection does not give as good results as manual transcribers.

Addition of automatically transcribed data for training

We tested two iterative processes for expanding the training data set through addition of data stemmed from automatic transcription. Three data sets, of approximately 25 hours each, were used to extend the initial 80h data set (set 1: France Culture -December 2003; set 2: mixed radio stations -January-March 2004; set 3: FC -September 2004). The first process (A) consisted in adding set 3 (for a total data set of 105 hours), then set 1 (130 hours total). The second process (B) consisted in adding set 1 first, then set 2. Process A was tried only in conjunction with phone-based segmentation, while process B was tested with word-based segmentation, hence the score difference for the initial 80h data set. However, differences between various amounts of data within each process are what counts most here. From this point of view, process A is the most efficient of the two, seemingly because data from mixed stations (set 2) is more difficult to decode and this penalizes process B.

Data size

Process A was pushed further by adding set 2, for a total of 155 hours of training data. The resulting word error rate was 23.4%, improving the initial score (on the 80h data set) by 0.4 point.

Conclusion

The LIUM speech transcription system based on CMU Sphinx Project has finished at the second position during the ESTER evaluation campaign for the transcription task (TRS) with an official 23.6% word error rate. Post-evaluation scoring of an unsubmitted system showed that this system can reach 23.4% on the same test data. The difference between these results come from a bad use of the MMIE method to train acoustic models (whereas this method improved the results during the development step). In the system presented here, the discriminative MMIE training method was not used, whereas it was during the ESTER Evaluation.

Experiment results show that the features added by LIUM to the CMU Sphinx tools (segmentation process, SAT, and word-lattice rescoring with quadrigram language model) have lead to a relative reduction of about 17% of the word error rate (from 28.2% to 23.4%). Notice that the major part of the add-on tools developped by LIUM will be distributed under an opensource license.

Figure 1 :

 1 Figure 1: Overview of the speech transcription processing.

Model

Table 1 :

 1 Number of n-grams in the trigram and quadrigram language models used in the speech recognition process

		1-grams 2-grams 3-grams 4-grams
	trigram	65.5K	18.4M	25.4M	-
	quadrigram	65.5K	18.4M	22.2M	19.7M

Table 8 .

 8 [START_REF] Ravishankar | Sub-vector clustering to improve memory and speed performance of acoustic likelihood computation[END_REF] shows comparative results for the two segmentation methods described in section 4, as well as for the two alignment strategies described in section 5.

	Model (80h)	3-grams 4-grams
	Phone-based seg -man. fillers	24.5	23.6
	Phone-based seg -auto. fillers	24.8	23.8
	Word-based seg -auto. fillers	24.6	23.7

Table 2 :

 2 Comparative results (w.e.r.) for segmentation methods and alignment strategies

Table 3 :

 3 Results (w.e.r.) of data addition (with 4G models)

		Process A Process B
	80h	23.8	23.7
	105h	23.7	23.7
	130h	23.5	23.6

More precisely this initialization relies on equation 64 of[START_REF] Gales | Maximum likelihood linear transformations for HMM-based speech recognition[END_REF] but differs from equations 66 to 76.

On average, 20 transitions are kept per frame.

Acknowledgements

The authors would like to thank the Canergie Mellon University for making Sphinx tools available as an open source project. In particular, many thanks to Ravi Mosur, Alex Rudnicky, Evandro Gouvea, and Arthur Chan.