Re: Question about vowel harmono

>On Wed, 2 May 2001, Patrick Dunn wrote:
>
>> On Wed, 2 May 2001, Frank George Valoczy wrote:
>>
>> > On Wed, 2 May 2001, Patrick Dunn wrote:
>> >
>> > > On Wed, 2 May 2001, Frank George Valoczy wrote:
>> > >
>> > > > generally vowel-harmonic languages consider /i/ and /e/ to be
neutral
>> > > > sounds, excet Turkish which has a counterart to /i/. Also most of
them
>> > > > have counterarts for each vowel, if you have [a] [o] [u] you will
have [&]
>> > > > [2] [y] as well...
>> > >
>> > > /&/ is like the OE aesc, right?
>> > > What's /2/?
>> > >
>> >
>> > ipa o-slash
>>
>> unrounded o?
>
>*grabs book on phonology*  Oh.  rounded e.
>
>So . . .
>
>i.y     u
>e.oe    o
>ae   a
>
>That doesn't seem very balanced to me.>
It could depend.... maybe the low vowels only take part in front/back
harmony.

>Are there any other languages that use vowel harmony?
IIRC:  Mongolian, but certainly lots of other Turkic and Finnic languages.
Hungarian too I think????  Look at Ferko's Votian website (very
interesting)-- its a rather obscure Finnic language that, again IIRC, has
V-harmony.

It seems to work differently in every case.  You might have front/back
harmony, but not rounding; or vice versa; or all three together.  I think
certain suffixes in Turkish require one sort of harmony, other suffixes
require another.

 What about a
>close/open distinction instead of a front/back, so
>
>i, u, y would be close
>o, a, and e would be open
>
>I'm not sure I understand why there have to be correspondances between one
>set of vowels and the other.
Essentially, it's one big assimilatory process, going from stem to affix
>
>If I have the word "isilyth" then the plural affix can be -il, but for
>"amon" it would have to be -al.  That seems reasonable to me.
True. You will have to work out your rules.  Which V of the stem will
determine the harmony?  Your plural could equally well be -yl/-ol (rounding
agreement with immediately preceding V).  Or -il/-el (suffix vowel must be
front, with high/low but no rounding harmony.

/isilyth/ seems to imply a rule "All stem vowels must agree in height and
frontness".
A less strict rule "All stem vowels must agree in frontness" would permit
/esilyth/ or /esylöth/.  It can get complicated!  (I've been toying with a
V-harmony language, but with only /i e a u o/ but no rounding harmony (I'm
just not wild about y, ö etc.))
 (Or maybe
>-el -- it's more or less an aesthetic decision, seems to me; am I wrong?)
>
>What would be cool is a four way distinction, so words could be classfied
>elementally.
>
>--Pat
>
>
>
>
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