Re: THEORY: vowel harmony [was CHAT: Another NatLang i like]

On Mon, 28 Jun 1999, Matt Pearson wrote:
> What I was asking for (with a certain dubious tone in my voice) was
> a language with a *phonemic* contrast between oral and nasal vowels,
> in which all of the vowels in a word must be either oral or nasal.
> In such a language, /katima/ and /ka~ti~ma~/ would be possible words,
> but /kati~ma/, /ka~tima~/, /katima~/, etc., would not be possible
> words.  That, as I see it, would be an example of nasal vowel harmony,
> and would be quite a different phenomenon from nasal spread, which
> involves the interaction of a nasal consonant and an adjacent vowel
> (or vowels).
In anthropology class we read an ethnography of a South American people c=
alled
the Yanomam=F6. The pronunciation guide said that a cedilla under a vowel
indicates that all the vowels in the word are nasalized, so I assume the
Yanomamo language has nasal vowel harmony, although reading an ethnograph=
y in
English by no means makes me an expert ;O)

--
Eric Christopherson
raccoon@elknet.net      rakkoon78@hotmail.com