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the velar or postvelar fricatives, respectively. The
affricate is also unstable, corresponding often to frica-
tives, which is not surprising in view of its fricative
offset. The velar and postvelar fricatives and the voiced
nonstop consonants are the most unstable Aymara consonants.

Summarizing, the unstable phonemes of Aymara are
the sonorants (the vowels and voiced consonants), the
affricates, and the fricatives. They all have in common
the articulatory feature nonstop, permitting passage of
air throughout or at some stage of the articulation.
(The term continuant used by Pike to refer to nonstop
consonants is being avoided here since in contemporary
usage it excludes nasals.)

Phonological correspondences alone do not permit
grouping of dialects. Still, some dialectal patterning
of phoneme correspondences occurs. La Paz tends to have
/k/ in a number of morphemes where other dialects may have
/j/, and this dialect gives an overall impression of less
aspiration, partly because of the absence of aspiration
on certain high-frequency morphemes that have it in other
dialects. Dialects having initial nasals in the Ip
possessive suffix (the southern dialects Jopoqueri,
Salinas, Morocomarca, and Calacala plus the intermediate dia-
lect Sitajara) may be distinguished from those having
initial velar or postvelar fricatives in that suffix

(the northern dialects La Paz, Juli, Socca, Huancané,