Re: Non-Finno-Ugric/Turkish vowel harmony systems and the evolution thereof.

En réponse à David Peterson <DigitalScream@...>:

>
> Wow!   That's really cool!   But I'm wondering: What happens when more
> than
> one suffix is added that has a fixed vowel, but the vowels conflict
> (e.g.,
> one from the dominant set, one from the recessive)?   Or do such things
>
> happen?
>
If the terms "dominant" and "recessive" are used in any way comparable with
their use in biology, I'd say that your question is meaningless, since only
suffixes with a dominant vowel have a fixed vowel.  The whole point, if I
understood it correctly, is that a word will have all its vowels in the
recessive form, unless at least one is a dominant vowel, in which case they
will all have to become dominant. So a suffix like -qa has a dominant vowel,
and as such this vowel is fixed (and triggers harmony). It stays always this
way. On the other hand, the suffix -e has a recessive vowel, and thus
alternates between -a and -e depending on whether there is a dominant vowel or
not in the word. In other words, the vowels of the dominant set /i,a,o/ are
fixed and don't alternate, while the vowels of the recessive set /i,e,u/ are
*not* fixed and alternate with the corresponding vowels of the dominant set,
the triggering factor being the presence of an original dominant vowel in the
word. It's an interesting case where vowel harmony goes only in one direction,
from recessive to dominant, and never the other way round (hence the
adjectives "recessive" and "dominant").

Now Dirk, did I understand the feature correctly? ;)))

Christophe.

http://rainbow.conlang.free.fr

Take your life as a movie: do not let anybody else play the leading role.

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