TERMS: dominant/recessive harmony and umlaut

On Tue, 16 Nov 1999, FFlores wrote:

> Raymond Brown <ray.brown@...> wrote:
> >
> > No, not at all.  It is the vowel in the _root_ word which conditions all
> > the vowels in the affixes (usually suffixes) in langs with vowel harmony.
> >
> > Umlaut is almost the opposite; the vowel of a suffix has modified the root
> > vowel. The suffix then, of course, usually thinks it's done its job &
> > disappears.
>
> I thought you could call them simply forward or backward vowel harmony,
> or something like that (like there is forward and backward assimilation).
> But I guess the main difference is that vowel harmony involves the root
> (while umlaut may modify non-root vowels too, can't it?).
In dominant/recessive harmony systems, the harmonic trigger may be
either a root or an affix; what matters is its ranking in a hierarchy
of dominant and recessive morphemes. Dominant morphemes impose harmonic
requirments on recessive morphemes regardless of root/affix status. Nez
Perce is such a language (as is Chukchi; but I know the facts better
from Nez Perce). In Nez Perce the harmonic sets are:

        recessive: {i,e,u}
        dominant: {i,a,o}

(Notice that [i] is contained in both sets; a nice wrinkle in Nez Perce
that I got a qualifying paper out of in grad school.)

        root-controlled harmony (1s poss prefix: ne?-, vocative -e?)

        mex  'paternal uncle'
        ne?mex  'my paternal uncle'
        mexe?  'Uncle!'

        to:t  'father'
        na?to:t 'my father'
        to:ta? 'Father!'

In these examples, the root governs the quality of vowel in the affix.

Affix-controlled harmony

        ce:qet  'raspberry'
        ca:qat'ayn  'for the raspberry'

        tisqe?  'skunk'
        tisqa?laykin  'near the skunk'

In these examples, the affix governs the quality of vowel in the root.
In a dominant/recessive harmony system, the direction of harmony is
controlled by the dominant/recessive hierarchy and not by
directionality.

Dirk

--
Dirk Elzinga
dirk.elzinga@m.cc.utah.edu