Re: vowel harmony

tomhchappell wrote:

> Close vs. Open, Front vs. Back, Round vs. Unround, ATR vs. notATR,
> Nasal vs. notNasal, are essentially all the features there are to
> vowels;
What about phonetion? Or is breathyness/creakyness etc. of vowels
always considered a question of tone?


> Front vs. Back frequently has at least three, and sometimes has
> more than three values;
It's been asked already, but you are here talking phonetically, not
phonemically, right? /a/ is quite common of course, but I've thought
it usually analyzes as front (whenever that is relevant anyway)


> Round vs. Unround sometimes has more than two values in
> conlangs, although I am not personally aware of any natlang in which
> it has more than two values.
Don't some dialects of Swedish shift /u\/ to /y_c/ - hence contrasting
three degrees of roundedness in high front vowels?


> I don't think anyone has even proposed that Nasal vs. notNasal can
> be given a third value.
How about oral vs. nasal approximant vs. nareal fricative? ... Hell, I
can even pronounce nareal *trills*! :)

(Of course, I can only make these work if the oral component is a
stop. But nevertheless, it's certainly possible to have more than two
values of nasality...)


> "consonant harmony" if it occurs is likely to apply just to syllable
> onsets or just to codas; or, even, just to onsets of stressed
> syllables or just to codas of stressed syllables.
Couldn't the frequent POA assimilation of nasal+plosive clusters (and
maybe some other sorts of clusters too) be considered a sort of
consonant harmony? I have a phonology sketch around which extends this
to almost all consonant clusters and also prohibits certain kinds of
POA combinations in successive syllabes.

Sibilant harmony (that is, /s/ may not mix with /S/ etc) is, however,
the only obvious natlang case of consonant harmony I've read about.

John Vertical

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