Dholuo is a local language with no official status in kenya or in tanzania. Vowel harmony refers to situations where there is some process that changes vowels to be in the same class as other vowels in the word, andor there is a constraint against having vowels of different classes in a word. Vowel changes and influx of a large number of chinese words, which did not obey vowel harmony, led to loss of vh system. These three harmonies have general characteristics. In bantu languages outside the area in which khoisan languages are. Languages vary in their vowel harmony typologies, as well as the extent to which vowel harmony as a. Atr vowel harmony existed in korean before hangul was designed and put into use. Paul newman, language and history christopher ehret, and language and society ekkehard wolff round out the chapter list.
The language is taught in primary schools, but english is the language of subsequent instruction. Conceptually, consonant harmony represents the counterpart process to vowel harmony. Hadza is a language isolate spoken along the shores of lake eyasi in tanzania by around 1,000 hadza people, the last fulltime huntergatherers in africa. Hence, vowels are selected to compare the speech production for both language groups because we expect crosslanguage differences in vowel. Except for the click consonants of the khoisan languages which spill over. For much of the 20th century, they were thought to be. Different languages use different systems and harmonize different vowels differently, but the system im most familar with is the one used in mongolian, a language that i speak. Vowel harmony in khalkha mongolian, yaka, finnish and hungarian volume 2 issue 1 john goldsmith skip to main content we use cookies to distinguish you from other users and to provide you with a better experience on our websites. Vowel harmony is said to exist when certain vowels call for other specific vowels within a certain domain, generally, within a word. Vowel harmony, a phonological pattern in which vowels within a given domain are required to agree in properties such as tongue position or lip rounding, is a fascinating and fairly widespread phenomenon in the worlds languages. This paper explores the synchrony and diachrony of the mongolic vowel systems within the.
These conditions are based upon which vowels are present in a word, and will be explained here. Vowel harmony definition, a phonological rule in some languages, as hungarian and turkish, requiring that the vowels of a word all share a specified feature, such as front or back articulation, thereby conditioning the form that affixes may take, as in forming the turkish plurals evler houses from ev house and adamlar men from adam man. Canadian french vowel harmony a dissertation presented by. The nilosaharan languages are presumed to be descended from a common ancestral language and, therefore, to be genetically related. The afroasiatic chapter, by richard hayward, is a good example of how to present a language family. This extensive nasal harmony is naturally treated via autosegmental processes. The sounds of the bantu languages request pdf researchgate. That possibility is stressed by the proponents of the theory that japanese is related to the altaic family, where vowel harmony. Vowel harmony definition of vowel harmony by merriamwebster.
Proposal of autosegmental account of igbo vowel harmony, 5. Uc berkeley phonology lab annual report 2008 issues in. Not surprisingly, then, african languages have figured disproportionately in theoretical. What is a vowel harmony sil glossary of linguistic terms.
The main purpose of this thesis is to discuss the application of five. Why yes, romance languages do have vowel harmony, or what the romance linguistics literature likes to call metaphony. This paper presents an account of directionality in vowel harmony using turbid spreading finley, 2008, in preparation, a theory of vowel harmony for use with optimality theory prince and. Vowel harmony in igbo language vowel harmony word spelling. Vowel harmony in korean vowel harmony used to be prevalent in korean until the 1500s or so. One of the most basic concepts essential to the turkish language is vowel harmony that is, changing vowels in words so that the language flows more smoothly. A front vowel in the first syllable of a word would require the presence of a.
Ikoma has the sevenvowel inventory ie a ou and both contrastive and conditioned vowel length. A sociolinguistic study of vowel harmony in persian. Vowel contrast and vowel harmony shift in the mongolic languages 5 therefore, the high rounded vowels, u and. So for example, there are two different vowel harmony groups in igbo. The two types of vowel harmony can be called e type and i type vowel harmony. In finnish vowel harmony fvh, there are three front harmony vowels, y o. Linguistics stack exchange is a question and answer site for professional linguists and others with an interest in linguistic research and theory. It means that many word endings have two or three different versions, each to be applied under different conditions. Vowel harmony is a legitimate component of the language and many others in the world, and as such the writing system was created to accurately reflect it. Vowel contrast and vowel harmony shift in the mongolic. Khoisan influence on southwestern bantu languages core. Vowel harmony slt info slt info speech and language. Dholuo is used in radio broadcasts on the voice of kenya.
In the late 20th century hadza was included in a proposed khoisan language family, largely on the. They are horizontal, labial and palatal vowel harmonies. Nilosaharan languages, a group of languages that form one of the four language stocks or families on the african continent, the others being afroasiatic, khoisan, and nigercongo. Vowels in the kazakh, turkish, and uzbek language were compared. This is consistent with our observation that there is no positive phonological evidence in support of the roundedness of these vowels. In the late 20th century hadza was included in a proposed khoisan language family, largely on the basis of its use of clicks, but. Pdf african languages and phonological theory researchgate. Khoisan languages are spoken by half a million people or less. Vowel harmony definition is a structural feature of some languages as finnish and turkish whereby the vowels of the language are divided into two or more classes and affixed morphemes have vowels that vary so as to belong to the same class as that of the morpheme to which they are affixed. Vowel harmony operates in prefixes, stems and suffixes, but the harmony patterns in each domain are. Recent changes in the vowel harmony potential of turkic sounds caused by linguistic and extralinguistic factors were described.
As mentioned, tone was central to the autosegmental revolution in generative phonology. Underspecification, iteration, multiple rules ling 451551 spring 2011 prof. Consonant harmony slt info slt info speech and language. Vowel harmony is a type of assimilation which takes place when vowels come to share certain features with contrastive vowels elsewhere in a word or phrase crystal 1992 168. Replacing the unstressed vowel in a multisyllabic word with the vowel that receives the primary stress. In this article, we show that the influence of khoisan languages on five. Vowel harmony is a key feature of the hungarian language. Serbian pitch accent, trommer 2008 on hungarian vowel harmony.
A description of the phonology of the sandawe language citeseerx. This article deals primarily with khoisan languages and their click consonants. Index terms gender, vowel harmony, extra linguistic factors, prestige, formal. The debate on the analysis of homorganic nc clusters in specific languages and language families is not closed, as we will see in section 4. This pattern is called vowel harmony and is an important feature of the turkish language. Presenting a great challenge for language educators and language programs in the. More important than the words obeying these rules, there are ways these rules change the vowels in the suffixes added to words.
Africa has three types of vowel harmony systems which are apparently unknown. North khoisan languages have an almost complete absence of affixes and form their plural by using suppletive forms. Vowel harmony is one of the most fundamental and important aspects of turkish grammar. This now outdated term refers to languages that share a heavy use of click consonants and do not belong to other african language families. That possibility is stressed by the proponents of the theory that japanese is related to the altaic family, where vowel harmony read more. In e type vowel harmony, the word ending will choose between either an a or an e, depending on the last vowel in the word before the word ending. There are three major types of vowel harmony in the universe. Front and back harmony vowels never occur together in the same word stem internal harmony or in the same noncomposed word suffix harmony in native noncolloquial lexemes karlsson 1983. African languages, an introduction, provides anyone teaching linguistics a source of data from african languages, preselected to illustrate the desired concepts. In the 1990s, sharon manuel proposed that languages with larger vowel inventories tend to allow less vowel to vowel coarticulation so maybe we could hypothesize theyd be less likely to develop vowel harmony in the future, but her proposed relationship between inventory size and coarticulation hasnt really held up beyond the languages she. As with vowel harmony, consonant harmony is also a noncontiguous process, i. A common definition for vowel harmony is a type of longdistance assimilatory phonological process involving vowels wikipedia.
In 3 i discuss in more rapid succession the remaining five areas mentioned above where african languages have made less unique, but still important contributions. Vowel harmony definition is a structural feature of some languages as finnish and turkish whereby the vowels of the language are divided into two or more classes and affixed morphemes have vowels that vary so as to belong to the same class. Vowel harmony is used particularly when deciding which vowels should be used when adding a suffix to a word. The acquisition of finnish vowel harmony 153 vowels were acquired later than other front vowels, words containing them e. Vowel contrast and vowel harmony shift in the mongolic languages1 seongyeon ko cornell university ko, seongyeon. Labialvelars labialvelar stops are very common in west and central africa, while they are. Pdf on jan 1, 1989, diana archangeli and others published yoruba vowel harmony find, read and cite all the research you need on researchgate.
In igbo, vowel harmony is the set of vowel pattern combinations that are usually found in one igbo word. This thesis is a description of the vowel harmony system of ikoma bantu je45. They are assimilated to the vowel within the syllable that receives the primary stress so that both vowels are the same they harmonize. Most varieties of the mari language have vowel harmony. North and south khoisan have a few nounclasses which are, in part, semantically based. Exceptions of vowel harmony rule in igbo language, 4. The introduction section is a prose listing of the major sub. How does vowel harmony typically arise in a language. A characteristic feature of the mongolian language is that of vowel harmony, a feature which is also common in turkish and to a lesser extent in manchurian as well. Usually, however, vowel harmony refers specifically to a synchronic process operating in a particular language, normally requiring all vowels in a word to agree in a particular feature e. The present study comprehensively analyzes vowel harmony as an important phonetic rule in turkic languages. Except for the click consonants of the khoisan languages which spill over into some.
The nilosaharan languages are presumed to be descended from a. The unity and validity of khoisan as a group of genetically related languages is much disputed. Morphological analysis and morpheme alternants words in turkish. Harmony may be based, for example, on backness finnish, atr as in even, a tungus language of siberia or rounding turkish. Turkish words generally obey two vowel harmony rules, called the major vowel harmony and the minor vowel harmony. Ikoma has the seven vowel inventory ie a ou and both contrastive and conditioned vowel length. There are at least two ways one might present the influences of african languages and phonological theory on each other.
Stewart 1995 and one in the khoisan languages of southern africa, including. Despite the small number of speakers, language use is vigorous, with most children learning it. Luo people use it in everyday life, in areas of traditional culture and religious practice. This, in turn, raises the question whether ot is a viable phonological theory to account for vowel harmony. The distribution of these allophones is in part determined by vowel harmony. Vowel harmony can be one of the most intimidating parts of turkish for beginners but with a little practice, quickly becomes second nature. To someone expecting to work with african languages, it provides a compact. African languages and phonological theory uc berkeley linguistics. Canadian french vowel harmony this thesis provides a phonological, psycholinguistic and phonetic description of vowel harmony in canadian french cf, as well as a theoretical account of the phenomenon showing that the cf facts may only be accounted for in derivational frameworks that include the notion of cycle. Aug 25, 2016 conceptually, consonant harmony represents the counterpart process to vowel harmony.
Vowel harmony vowel harmony may be most simply described as a requirement that certain vowels agree with other vowels in the same word in terms of some particular feature. The children looked a storybook with an experimenter and named the. Languages of the world department of computer science. Vowel harmony is lost in the northern and southern dialects, as well as in the surgut dialect of eastern khanty. Hadza is a language isolate spoken along the shores of lake eyasi in tanzania by around. Vowel harmony in khalkha mongolian, yaka, finnish and. Vowel harmony is a basic phonetic rule of the turkic.
This paper is a phonological description of sandawe, a khoisan language spoken in central tanzania. We use cookies to offer you a better experience, personalize content, tailor advertising, provide social media features, and better understand the use of our services. A front vowel in the first syllable of a word would require the presence of a front vowel in the second syllable. Korean language, hangul, and vowel harmony yin and yang. Vowels and vowel harmony in hungarian hungarianreference. The erzya language has a limited system of vowel harmony, involving only two vowel phonemes.
Yoruba vowel harmony 177 we argue in section 2 that the asymmetric patterning of low vowels is a result of atr spread being a directional rule, operating from right to left exclusively. Traditionally, they are considered one of four african language phyla along with afroasiatic, nilosaharan and nigercongo. First, one could do as i have just done and enumerate the african phenomena which have figured in theoretical work. In general, arabic is a 6vowel system consisting of i i. Vowel contrast and vowel harmony shift in the mongolic languages. South khoisan forms plurals by addition of suffixes, reduplication, partial change of the stems or by suppletive forms.
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