86

In the related language Jaqaru the velar and post-
velar fricatives are allophones of the same phoneme
(Hardman 1966). Their distinct phonemic status in Aymara
is attested by the minimal pairs cited above. In certain
dialects, however, there are cases of one morpheme having
variants with both the velar and postvelar fricative,
which may indicate that the distinction between the two
is neutralized in those morphemes or that the phonemic
split into /j/ and /x/ is still underway in Aymara, having

yet to occur in certain morphemes.
3-2.3 Canonical forms

These do not vary dialectically. As noted by
L. Martin-Barber (Hardman et al. 1975:3.69-70) most roots
have the canonical form CVCV(CV); another productive
form is CVCCV with a reduplicative subclass of the form
C,V,C,C,V,. Noun suffixes are of the form CV(CV), VCV,
or C,CoV (C, nasal, C, stop) except for the verbalizer
-pta- which is unique among the noun suffixes in that it
consists of two stops followed by a vowel. Verbal deri-
vational suffixes have the shape C,V((C,)V) except for
a few C,C,V in which Cy is a nasal and one C,CoV(C3)V,
-rypaya ~ -rpa: (VV = V:). Verbal inflectional suffixes,
except for the Simple and to an extent the Future tense,
which have suffixes of the form (C)V and C,VC(V), are

more complex, containing recurrent submorphemic partials