The representation of glottals in Oromo

Phonology ◽  
1995 ◽  
Vol 12 (2) ◽  
pp. 257-280 ◽  
Author(s):  
Maria-Rosa Lloret
Keyword(s):  
Vowel Harmony ◽  
Phonological Feature

In current phonological feature theories, the behaviour of glottals poses serious problems for their representation. The special status of / h / and /? / which are often transparent to vowel harmony processes (cf. Steriade 1987; McCarthy 1991, forthcoming; Stemberger 1993), has led to the hypothesis that, at least in some languages, they lack a place node. The representation of ejectives and implosives, though, is very rarely discussed in the literature. On phonetic grounds, the main difference between plain stops and ejectives and implosives is the airstream mechanism used during their realisation, the former having a pulmonic egressive airstream while the latter involve a supplementary glottal constriction, which may accompany either egressive airflow, as in ejectives, or ingressive, as in implosives.

scholarly journals Vowel harmony decay in Old Norwegian

2020 ◽  
Vol 5 ◽  
pp. 11-48
Author(s):  
Jade J. Sandstedt
Keyword(s):  
Historical Record ◽  
Sound Change ◽  
Vowel Harmony ◽  
Historical Records ◽  
Human Language ◽  
Full Spectrum ◽  
Corpus Study ◽  
Phonological Feature ◽  
Occurrence Patterns ◽  
Over Time

Vowel harmony involves the systematic correspondence between vowels in some domain for some phonological feature. Though harmony represents one of the most natural and diachronically robust phonological phenomena that occurs in human language, how and why harmony systems emerge and decay over time remains unclear. Specifically, what motivates harmony decay and the pathways by which harmony languages lose harmony remains poorly understood since no consistent historical record in any single language has yet been identified which displays the full progression of this rare sound change (McCollum 2015, 2020; Kavitskaya 2013, Bobaljik 2018). In this paper, I explore the progression and causation of vowel harmony decay in Old Norwegian (c 1100–1350). Using a grapho‐phonologically tagged database of a sample of 13th‐ to 14th‐century manuscripts, I present novel corpus methods for tracking and visualising changes to vowel co‐occurrence patterns in historical records, demonstrating that the Old Norwegian corpus provides a consistent and coherent record of harmony decay. The corpus distinguishes categorical pre‐decay harmony, probabilistic intermediate stages, and post‐decay non‐harmony. Across the Old Norwegian manuscripts, we observe a variety of pathways of harmony decay, including increasing harmony variability via the collapse of harmony classes introduced by vowel mergers, the lexicalisation of historically harmonising morphemes, and trisyllabic vowel reductions which limit harmony iterativity. This paper provides the first detailed corpus study of the full spectrum and causation of this rare sound change in progress and provides valuable empirical diagnostics for identifying and analysing harmony change in contemporary languages.

scholarly journals Lip spreading, not lip rounding

2020 ◽  
Vol 17 (4) ◽  
pp. 543-556
Author(s):  
Aleksey V. Andronov ◽  
Keyword(s):  
Functional Analysis ◽  
Vowel Harmony ◽  
Separate Group ◽  
Word Form ◽  
Phonological Features ◽  
Phonological Feature

The article is devoted to the issue of detecting classificatory features of phonemes. Unlike phonetic characteristics of phoneme realisations, which are explored instrumentally, phonological features should be discovered by means of functional analysis. Due to their role as exponents of meaningful units, phonemes are grouped according to their morphophonological behaviour. Here, detecting phonological features is illustrated by the analysis of the vocalic systems of Russian, Latvian and Finnish. The ‘lip rounding’ feature traditionally used in descriptions of these languages has no functional grounds and should be considered as an incorrect substitution of an articulatory characteristic for a phonological feature. However, apart from ‘height’ and ‘backness’, another feature should be postulated. For this feature the articulatory-based term ‘lip spreading’ is proposed. In Russian, the spread vowels /e/, /i/, /ɨ/ are distinguished due to their sensibility (primarily in morphophonological alternations) to the correlative feature of softness-hardness of the preceding consonant. Non-spread vowels /a/, /o/, /u/ are indifferent to the softness-hardness of the preceding consonant. Thus, /a/ is grouped not with /e/, /i/, /ɨ/ (as non-rounded in traditional models), but with /o/ and /u/ (no separate group of these two “rounded” phonemes, /o/ and /u/, exists). In Latvian, the spread phonemes /i/, /e/, /i:/, /e:/, /i͡e/ determine the choice of the closed vowels /e/ and /ē/ (instead of open /æ/ and /æ:/) in the preceding syllable. It is worthwhile to differentiate front vowels (according to lip spreading), not the back ones (according to lip rounding). In Finnish, the distinguishing of spread /i/ and /e/ is based on their relation with the fundamental peculiarity of the exponent of a word form, vowel harmony. These phonemes themselves do not participate in harmony alternation and they determine front vocalism of affixes only when other, non-spread phonemes are lacking.

Nature of Contrast and Coarticulation: Evidence from Mizo Tones and Assamese Vowel Harmony

2017 ◽  
Author(s):  
Indranil Dutta ◽  
Irfan S. ◽  
Pamir Gogoi ◽  
Priyankoo Sarmah
Keyword(s):  
Vowel Harmony

Summary and areas for further research

2018 ◽  
Author(s):  
Harry van der Hulst
Keyword(s):  
Special Section ◽  
Vowel Harmony ◽  
Simple Idea

This chapter summarizes the theory and the typology of the vowel harmony systems it predicts. The summary recaptures the simple idea that formed the beginning of the theory (including the use of variable elements and licensing) and then summarizes how the use of variable elements was extended to include both vowels that alternate harmonically and neutral vowels. A special section is devoted to the notion of system dependency which discusses cases of parasitic harmony, including approaches that extend this notion beyond the cases that have been analyzed in this book. The chapter concludes with suggestions for further research.

Aperture harmony

2018 ◽  
Author(s):  
Harry van der Hulst
Keyword(s):  
Vowel Harmony ◽  
Romance Languages ◽  
Common Element ◽  
Binary Features ◽  
High Vowels

This chapter analyzes a number of vowel harmony systems which have been described or analyzed in terms of aperture (lowering or raising, including complete harmony). This takes us into areas where the literature on vowel harmony discusses cases involving the following binary features: [± high], [± low], [± ATR], and [± RTR]. Raising has been thought of as problematic for unary ‘IUA’ systems as these systems lack a common element for high vowels. This chapter suggests that raising can be attributed to ATR-harmony. The chapter also discusses typological generalizations and analyzes metaphony in Romance languages.

Harmony as licensing

2018 ◽  
Author(s):  
Harry van der Hulst
Keyword(s):  
Vowel Harmony ◽  
Selection Mechanism ◽  
Phonological Structure ◽  
Explicit Theory ◽  
Selection Of

This chapter develops an explicit theory of vowel harmony based on unary elements and lateral and positional licensing which is embedded in a general dependency-based theory of phonological structure (called ‘Radical CV Phonology’). Harmony is analyzed in terms of a licensing requirement, which results in ‘agreement’, both intra-morphemically and inter-morphemically, that is, within the domain of the word In essence, the view put forward is that lexical vowel harmony involves the selection of lexically listed allomorphs. Licensing will be the selection mechanism for the proper allomorph. The chapter discusses the treatment of morpheme-internal harmony, trigger and targets in harmony, and the notion of cyclicity.

Assamese vowels and vowel harmony

2020 ◽  
Vol 6 (2) ◽  
pp. 151-183
Author(s):  
Diana B. Archangeli ◽  
Jonathan Yip
Keyword(s):  
Physical Properties ◽  
Principal Components Analysis ◽  
Principal Components ◽  
Vowel Harmony ◽  
Language Community ◽  
Acoustic Data ◽  
Apparent Loss ◽  
Root Position ◽  
Components Analysis ◽  
Open Question

AbstractBased on impressionistic and acoustic data, Assamese is described as having a phonological tongue root harmony system, with blocking by certain phonological configurations and over-application in certain morphological contexts. This study explores physical properties of the patterns using ultrasonic imaging to determine whether the impressionistic descriptions match what speakers actually do. Principal components analysis (PCA) determines that most participants produce a contrast in tongue root position in the appropriate contexts, though there is less of an impact on tongue root with greater distance from the triggering vowel. Analysis uses the root mean squared distance (RMSD) calculation to determine whether both blocking and over-application take effect. The blocking results conform to the impressionistic descriptions. With over-application, [e] and [o] are expected; while some speakers clearly produce these vowels, others articulate a vowel that is indeterminant between the expected [e]/[o] and an unexpected [ɛ]/[ɔ]. No speaker consistently showed the expected tongue root position in all contexts, and some speakers appeared to have lost the contrast entirely, yet all are considered to be speakers of the same dialect of Assamese. Whether this (apparent) loss is a consequence of crude research methodologies or accurately reflects what is happening within the language community remains an open question.

The emergence of a new phonological feature in Pakistan English

English Today ◽  
2021 ◽  
pp. 1-6
Author(s):  
Nasir A. Syed ◽  
Shah Bibi
Keyword(s):  
Language Learning ◽  
English Language ◽  
Acoustic Analysis ◽  
Foreign Language Learning ◽  
Historical Background ◽  
Ruling Elite ◽  
Phonological Feature ◽  
British Colonial ◽  
Country Specific ◽  
Learning English

English is used as a lingua franca in most parts of the world (Ozaki, 2011). However, problems and issues related to learning English are country specific (Nagamine, 2011), because most of the difficulties in foreign language learning arise from L1 interference (Flege, 1995). Since this study focuses on acoustic analysis of a phonological feature of Pakistan English (PakE), we outline the historical background of the issue very briefly. Pakistan is a linguistically rich country. More than 70 languages are spoken in Pakistan (Rahman, 1996). Saraiki, Balochi, Sindhi, Punjabi and Pashto are the major indigenous languages of the country. More than 90% of the total population speaks these languages. Pakistan came into being in 1947. It inherited English as a language of education, law, the judiciary and media from the British colonial masters. The British rulers also used the English language in India for official correspondence. Therefore, English became a very effective tool and symbol of power in the subcontinent. As a result, people of the subcontinent feel pride in learning English. Although the colonial period has ended and the English rulers have departed to their homeland, English still remains the language of ruling elite in Pakistan and India.

scholarly journals Stochastic phonological knowledge: the case of Hungarian vowel harmony

Phonology ◽  
2006 ◽  
Vol 23 (1) ◽  
pp. 59-104 ◽  
Author(s):  
Bruce Hayes ◽  
Zsuzsa Cziráky Londe
Keyword(s):  
Web Search ◽  
Native Speakers ◽  
Vowel Harmony ◽  
Generation Model ◽  
General Process ◽  
Phonological Knowledge ◽  
Statistical Variation ◽  
Take Back ◽  
Back Vowel ◽  
Dual Listing

In Hungarian, stems ending in a back vowel plus one or more neutral vowels show unusual behaviour: for such stems, the otherwise general process of vowel harmony is lexically idiosyncratic. Particular stems can take front suffixes, take back suffixes or vacillate. Yet at a statistical level, the patterning among these stems is lawful: in the aggregate, they obey principles that relate the propensity to take back or front harmony to the height of the rightmost vowel and to the number of neutral vowels. We argue that this patterned statistical variation in the Hungarian lexicon is internalised by native speakers. Our evidence is that they replicate the pattern when they are asked to apply harmony to novel stems in a ‘wug’ test (Berko 1958). Our test results match quantitative data about the Hungarian lexicon, gathered with an automated Web search. We model the speakers' knowledge and intuitions with a grammar based on the dual listing/generation model of Zuraw (2000), then show how the constraint rankings of this grammar can be learned by algorithm.

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