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THEORY: Could Vowel Harmony be a Universal?

From:Daniel A. Wier <dawier@...>
Date:Tuesday, January 18, 2000, 17:34
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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