On Finnic and Khanty vowel harmony: domains, slopes and their role in typology
Abstrak
The main purpose of this paper is to draw attention to the inaccuracies in the article by Paul Kiparsky and Karl Pajusalu (2003). Their influential study suggests a typological classification of vowel harmony based on mostly Finnic languages and their dialects which is claimed to be supported by a particular OT analysis. However, in many cases, their example languages and dialects are hardly classifiable into the category suggested by them. Moreover, their OT analysis completely ignores cases of variation (including vacillation) in the example languages. The present study deals with the data available for Estonian (Mulgi and Northeastern dialects), Veps and Khanty, and demonstrates – mostly based on the same sources referred to by Kiparsky and Pajusalu – that the actual patterns of harmony are considerably different from the patterns described in their article. It is emphasized that many patterns do not arise from the behavior of neutral vowels but instead, they can be results of the length and the nature of the harmonic domain. The paper also introduces the notion of harmonicity slope, according to which the domain has no strict borders and in which the tendency for the vowels to harmonize gradually diminishes.
Penulis (1)
L. Fejes
Akses Cepat
- Tahun Terbit
- 2021
- Bahasa
- en
- Total Sitasi
- 1×
- Sumber Database
- Semantic Scholar
- DOI
- 10.33340/susa.95344
- Akses
- Open Access ✓