Abstract

This research presents the segmental phonemes and allophonic realizations of the Mapudungun spoken in Los Alamos, Biobio region. It is a descriptive study, carried out according to the standard format of American descriptivism. The data were provided by six adult speakers from the rural localities of Pangue and Sara de Lebu. Two ad hoc lexical lists were used as instruments. After presenting the inventory of phonemes and allophones, this article focuses on the controversial status segments [t]/[n]/[l], [integral]/[t integral], [gamma], [v]/[f] and [partial derivative]/[theta]. The main results obtained include the absence of phonemic status of [n] and [l]; the phonemic status of [t], [integral] and [gamma]; the tendency to make voiced labiodental and interdental fricative segments ([v] and [partial derivative]); and the occurrence of some segments that could be plausibly attributed to the influence of Spanish segmental phonology.