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

Matt Pearson wrote:
-----<snip>-----
>
>When I originally invoked the notion of nasal spread, I meant the
>spread of nasalisation from a nasal consonant to the surrounding
>vowels.  In Mixtec, for example, when a word begins with a nasal
>consonant, all of the following vowels in the word will be nasalised,
>unless there's a non-nasal, non-glottal consonant somewhere in the
>word, in which case that consonant will block further spreading.
>(We have a less interesting kind of nasal spread in English, where
>a vowel becomes nasalised if followed by a syllable-final nasal
>consonant.)
>
>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).
OK... ummm... (here we go again), wouldn't Desano be just such a=20
language? You probably missed the samples I gave of Desano words, but=20
_all_ the vowels of a Desano word must be either oral or nasal - you=20
can't mix both. (I can repost the samples if need be). OTOH,=20
nasalization also nasalizes voiced consonants, while voiceless ones=20
are unaffected.

-kristian- 8)