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Re: Vowel Harmony Q

From:rob_nierse <rnierse@...>
Date:Thursday, January 22, 2004, 11:40
David Peterson wrote:
> There are not a small number of vowel systems that have just four > > vowels,where the four vowels are /a/, /e/, /i/ and /o/.
My conlang Tlapóa has the same vowels and has some affixes that work with vowelharmony. Tlapóa discriminates between front vowels (/i/ and /e/) and back vowels (/a/ and /o/). So, for example: the non-control suffix -nLuh (where `L' stands for Low vowel) can appear as /neuh/ if the preceding vowel is a /i/ or /e/, and as /nauh/ if the preceding vowel is an /a/ or /o/. So: nachi `see' --> nachi-neuh `happen to see' pah `hear' --> pah-nauh `happen to hear' <snip the interesting examples>
> Is such a system feasible?
Why not?
> Do any four-vowel languages like the above even have a vowel > harmony system?
I don't know about any natlangs, but as to a conlang: mine has, as you can see. And it works too, I really like it. I like it too the way it works in your lang.
> Or how about three vowel languages? For some > reason it doesn't seem likely.
Three vowels looks more awkward to me too. Rob

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Andreas Johansson <andjo@...>