Vowel height harmony and blocking in Buchan Scots

The issue of vowel height harmony – relatively rare in the world's languages – is one that most serious theories of phonology have addressed at one time or another, particularly as concerns its realisation in Bantu (e.g. Clements 1991, Archangeli & Pulleyblank 1994, Beckman 1997). As is quite well known, the majority of an estimated 500 Bantu languages exhibit some variant of a progressive harmony process by which vowels lower when preceded by an appropriate (lower) trigger. (Ki)-Yaka, a Western Bantu language spoken in ex-Zaire, designated as H.31 by Guthrie (1967–71), has a height harmony system which has been analysed as having a similar left-to-right lowering process. In this paper I argue against the general analysis given for Yaka, showing that this language differs in a major way from the rest of Bantu. The goals of the paper are threefold. First, I present a comprehensive treatment of the unusual vowel harmony system in (ki-)Yaka. Second, I introduce the notion of the ‘prosodic trough’ (τ), a domain which is needed in order to state important phonological generalisations in Yaka and in Bantu in general. Finally, I show the relevance of the Yaka facts for the study of positional prominence in phonology. A (partial) analysis is offered within optimality- theoretic terms, particularly as developed by McCarthy & Prince (1995). Although superficially resembling the vowel height harmony found in most Bantu languages, the Yaka system will be shown to differ from these latter in major ways. The paper is organised as follows. In §2 I establish the general nature of the Yaka harmony system, reanalysing previous accounts in terms of ‘plateauing’. In §3 I turn to the process of ‘imbrication’, which introduces a second motivation for vowel harmony: the avoidance of the sequence [wi]. A third source of vowel harmony is presented in §4, which also introduces the notion of the ‘prosodic trough’. The study ends with a brief conclusion in §5 and an appendix that discusses outstanding problems.

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Processes of vowel harmony in the Servigliano dialect of Italian: A comparison of two non-linear proposals for the representation of vowel height

Probus ◽

10.1515/prbs.1998.10.1.67 ◽

1998 ◽

Vol 10 (1) ◽

Cited By ~ 4

Author(s):

Holly J. Nibert

Keyword(s):

Vowel Harmony ◽

Non Linear ◽

Vowel Height

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Segmental Phonology: Vowels

10.1093/oso/9780198724742.003.0004 ◽

2017 ◽

Author(s):

Laura J. Downing ◽

Al Mtenje

Keyword(s):

Vowel Harmony ◽

Bantu Languages ◽

Theoretical Approaches ◽

Segmental Phonology ◽

Vowel Phoneme ◽

Vowel Height

This chapter begins with a discussion of the Chichewa vowel phoneme inventory and its relation to the Proto-Bantu vowel inventory. The distribution of vowels in different morphological and phonological positions in the word is taken up next. The remainder of the chapter is devoted to a discussion of Bantu vowel height harmony (VHH), a process that conditions the possible vowel combinations in stems in Chichewa as in many Bantu languages. Data from a range of morphological and phonological contexts is provided to show that vowel harmony patterns in Chichewa fit Hyman’s (1999b) characterization of “canonical” Bantu VHH. Accounting for vowel harmony—and in particular Bantu VHH—has played an important role in the development of phonological theories of the representation and assimilation of vocalic properties from the 1980s to the present (Hyman 2003d). For this reason, the chapter takes up three different theoretical approaches to Bantu VHH in some detail.

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Vowel harmony in Buchan Scots English

English Language and Linguistics ◽

10.1017/s1360674302001041 ◽

2002 ◽

Vol 6 (1) ◽

pp. 61-79 ◽

Cited By ~ 4

Author(s):

Colleen M. Fitzgerald

Keyword(s):

Vowel Harmony ◽

Vowel Reduction ◽

Primary Stress ◽

Vowel Height

In this article, I discuss vowel reduction, stress, and vowel harmony in Buchan Scots English, a dialect spoken in Aberdeenshire in northern Scotland. Work by Wölck (1965) describes Buchan Scots English as having vowel harmony. This article explores the conditions that restrict the distribution of vowels in those syllables that do not receive a primary stress. Such syllables allow a smaller range of contrasts, and vowel height in these syllables is at least partially predictable from a preceding stressed vowel. These facts show that both vowel reduction and vowel harmony operate in Buchan Scots English.

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Establishing the Three-Way Voicing Contrast in Madurese Stops

Jurnal Humaniora ◽

10.22146/jh.v29i2.12950 ◽

2017 ◽

Vol 29 (2) ◽

pp. 140

Author(s):

Misnadin Misnadin

Keyword(s):

Vowel Harmony ◽

Voicing Contrast ◽

Vowel Height

Madurese, a Western Malayo-Polynesian language spoken on the Indonesian island of Madura, has been described as having a three-way voicing contrast (i.e. voiced, voiceless unaspirated and voiceless aspirated) in its stops. However, the fact that the VOT values for voiceless unaspirated and aspirated stops are not large and they are also followed by vowels with different height raises a question if Madurese only contrasts voiced and voiceless stops phonologically instead. The goal of this paper is to establish the phonological status of the voicing contrast in Madurese stops, arguing that Madurese can be better described as a language with a three-way contrast. For this purpose, we provide phonological evidence that includes consonant-vowel interactions, vowel harmony processes and some morphophonemic processes involving vowel height alternations. All of this evidence is also used to substantiate the proposal that consonants trigger vowel height alternation rather than vowels trigger consonant allophony.

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Establishing the Three-Way Voicing Contrast in Madurese Stops

Jurnal Humaniora ◽

10.22146/jh.12950 ◽

2017 ◽

Vol 29 (2) ◽

pp. 140

Author(s):

Misnadin Misnadin

Keyword(s):

Vowel Harmony ◽

Voicing Contrast ◽

Vowel Height

Madurese, a Western Malayo-Polynesian language spoken on the Indonesian island of Madura, has been described as having a three-way voicing contrast (i.e. voiced, voiceless unaspirated and voiceless aspirated) in its stops. However, the fact that the VOT values for voiceless unaspirated and aspirated stops are not large and they are also followed by vowels with different height raises a question if Madurese only contrasts voiced and voiceless stops phonologically instead. The goal of this paper is to establish the phonological status of the voicing contrast in Madurese stops, arguing that Madurese can be better described as a language with a three-way contrast. For this purpose, we provide phonological evidence that includes consonant-vowel interactions, vowel harmony processes and some morphophonemic processes involving vowel height alternations. All of this evidence is also used to substantiate the proposal that consonants trigger vowel height alternation rather than vowels trigger consonant allophony.

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Vowel Harmony in Trabzon Turkish

Proceedings of the Workshop on Turkic and Languages in Contact with Turkic ◽

10.3765/ptu.v5i1.4772 ◽

2020 ◽

Vol 5 (1) ◽

pp. 56

Author(s):

Nese Demir

Keyword(s):

Quantitative Analysis ◽

Language Contact ◽

Vowel Harmony ◽

North East ◽

The North ◽

Written Texts

Little is known about patterns of vowel harmony change in language contact situations. Trabzon Turkish (TT), which is spoken in the North East of Turkey and has a language contact history with (Pontic) Greek, Armenian, and Laz, provides such a context. This study investigates vowel harmony in TT and compares it with Standard Turkish (ST). Based on a quantitative analysis derived from a corpus of written texts in TT, this study shows how TT exhibits partial vowel harmony. TT displays a reduced amount of vowel harmony compared to ST, which suggest that TT might have experienced decay. Additional findings of this study indicate that vowels are influenced by following adjacent consonants, some suffixes have fixed forms with non-alternating vowels, but linear harmony decay across the word is not observed.

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Ras al Khaimah: further archaeological discoveries

Antiquity ◽

10.1017/s0003598x00150070 ◽

1976 ◽

Vol 50 (200) ◽

pp. 216-222

Author(s):

Beatrice De Cardi

Keyword(s):

United Arab Emirates ◽

The State ◽

Focused Attention ◽

North East ◽

The North ◽

History Of ◽

The City

Ras a1 Khaimah is the most northerly of the seven states comprising the United Arab Emirates and its Ruler, H. H. Sheikh Saqr bin Mohammad al-Qasimi, is keenly interested in the history of the state and its people. Survey carried out there jointly with Dr D. B. Doe in 1968 had focused attention on the site of JuIfar which lies just north of the present town of Ras a1 Khaimah (de Cardi, 1971, 230-2). Julfar was in existence in Abbasid times and its importance as an entrep6t during the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries-the Portuguese Period-is reflected by the quantity and variety of imported wares to be found among the ruins of the city. Most of the sites discovered during the survey dated from that period but a group of cairns near Ghalilah and some long gabled graves in the Shimal area to the north-east of the date-groves behind Ras a1 Khaimah (map, FIG. I) clearly represented a more distant past.

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