How does dominant-recessive vowel harmony arise?
How does dominant-recessive vowel harmony arise?
I'm trying to make a conlang with dominant-recessive vowel harmony. The problem is, I don't want to create it ex-nihilo, but I can't find information on how dominant-recessive vowel harmony systems arise, whether the harmonising feature is [±ATR] or height (the two types of dominant-recessive harmony systems that seem most common). Does anyone have any examples of a language which doesn't have dominant-recessive harmony developing it?
Re: How does dominant-recessive vowel harmony arise?
Isn't this the kind of system that's arisen in some varieties of Andalusian Spanish?
Re: How does dominant-recessive vowel harmony arise?
I'm not sure I believe in height based harmony.... It seems to be mentioned in early linguistic literature, but looking at the same languages being described I often see those same languages now described as having ATR harmony.
I can't answer your last question,but my hunch is that the +ATR vowels are easier to pronounce and more stable, so tend to be dominant, but I'm not aware of this type of pattern... what languages have dominant/recessive ATR?
I can't answer your last question,but my hunch is that the +ATR vowels are easier to pronounce and more stable, so tend to be dominant, but I'm not aware of this type of pattern... what languages have dominant/recessive ATR?
Sunàqʷa the Sea Lamprey says:
Re: How does dominant-recessive vowel harmony arise?
Interesting... thanks for that. I may end up using that.linguoboy wrote:Isn't this the kind of system that's arisen in some varieties of Andalusian Spanish?
This Linguist List thread has some examples. Height harmony systems do exist, although they may be derived from ATR harmony systems. This paper argues that this is exactly what happened in Moro, which has dominant-recessive height harmony.Soap wrote:I'm not sure I believe in height based harmony.... It seems to be mentioned in early linguistic literature, but looking at the same languages being described I often see those same languages now described as having ATR harmony.
I can't answer your last question,but my hunch is that the +ATR vowels are easier to pronounce and more stable, so tend to be dominant, but I'm not aware of this type of pattern... what languages have dominant/recessive ATR?
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Re: How does dominant-recessive vowel harmony arise?
IIRC, Kusunda has height harmony [and uvular consonants condition the low set], but functional load is low and there's a lot of free variation.
Siöö jandeng raiglin zåbei tandiüłåd;
nää džunnfin kukuch vklaivei sivei tåd.
Chei. Chei. Chei. Chei. Chei. Chei. Chei.
nää džunnfin kukuch vklaivei sivei tåd.
Chei. Chei. Chei. Chei. Chei. Chei. Chei.
Re: How does dominant-recessive vowel harmony arise?
Swahili has a bit of height based harmony. The applicative suffix is -i- or -e- (or -li- or -le- after a vowel. Which one occurs depends on the previous vowel of the stem, with -e- coming after e or o and -i- after a, i, u.
I don't know I how it formed though
I don't know I how it formed though
Glossing Abbreviations: COMP = comparative, C = complementiser, ACS / ICS = accessible / inaccessible, GDV = gerundive, SPEC / NSPC = specific / non-specific
________
MY MUSIC
________
MY MUSIC
Re: How does dominant-recessive vowel harmony arise?
These are all examples of vowel harmony, but what about the dominant-recessive aspect?
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Re: How does dominant-recessive vowel harmony arise?
In my own colloquial idiolect of Polish, with its features being shared with me by very few people, I have a front-back (or, to be more specific, palatal-nonpalatal) regressive vowel harmony, often triggered by suffixes, e.g.ładny ['(w)ɑd̪n̪ə] "nice" ładnie ['(w)ad̪ɲ̟ɪ] "nicely" or rzut [z̠utʰ] "throw (n)" rzucić ['ʒyt͡ɕʰit͡ɕʰ] "throw (v)". For me, it's just easier to pronounce vowels more frontly when there's a front one coming after it.
In Budapest:
- Hey mate, are you hung-a-ry?
- Hey mate, are you hung-a-ry?
Re: How does dominant-recessive vowel harmony arise?
Modern Central Tibetan has height harmony which, based on the descriptions I've read, seems to be dominant-recessive (a high vowel anywhere in the word will raise all low vowels). That's a fairly recent development as far as I'm aware.