THEORY: Could Vowel Harmony be a Universal?
| From: | Daniel A. Wier <dawier@...> |
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| Date: | Tuesday, January 18, 2000, 17:34 |
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Latin:
1st dec: puella bona, puellae bonae, puellam bonam...
2nd dec: Deus meus, Dei mei; bellum malum, bella mala...
With noun-adjective agreement, you have rhyme, or "word-ending vowel
harmony". Not in all cases (puer bonus, mulier bona), but in most.
Russian:
moja sestra, moji sestri, mojam sestram, mojah sestrah;
moë [majO] mjaso, moja mjasa
ocov [atsOf] synov [y = bI], ocoju synoju
Again, rhyme. Not vowel harmony within a word, but in a NA (or AN) pair.
Exceptions exist, of course.
Australian English "billabong" often pronounced "billybong".
French has some sort of vowel harmony with mid-front (round or unround)
vowels, I think. Within a word too.
What other languages have "true" vowel harmony besides the well-known
Finno-Ugric and Turkic?
Just curious,
Danny
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