Chapter published in:
Sonic Signatures: Studies dedicated to John Harris
Edited by Geoff Lindsey and Andrew Nevins
[Language Faculty and Beyond 14] 2017
► pp. 74–99

Deconstructing tongue root harmony systems

| University of Connecticut
This article discusses various manifestations of tongue root (TR) harmony in African languages. I will propose an account within a model that uses variable elements and licensing. The primary goal is to deconstruct the general label ‘tongue root harmony’ into a number of subtypes, based on the formal treatment of these harmonies. Casali (2003) has shown that dominance of [+ATR] correlates with having an ATR-distinction among high vowels. If such as distinction is present we speak of a 2H system. If such a distinction is missing, we deal with a 1H system and in this case Casali observes [−ATR] dominance. I will discuss this correlation and then show that the RcvP model provides a formal basis, where the crucial point is that in the RcvP model, languages that have a contrast among two series of high vowels necessarily have a different formal representation (namely one that activates the ATR element) than languages that lack this contrast (which do not require this element to be active). This implies that the contrast between [ɛ~e] or [ɔ~o] is phonologically represented in different ways, with the consequence that in the latter (with two series of high vowels), the unary element [ATR] is active (and needs licensing to account for harmony), whereas in the former harmony can only be expressed in terms of ‘head alignment’ for the element |A|. This account suggests that both types of ‘tongue root’ harmony are fundamentally different in formal terms, which may correlate with a difference in the phonetic mechanisms.
Keywords: vowel harmony, unary elements, licensing, tongue root harmony, locality, Radical CV Phonology, Dependency Phonology, Root control harmony, dominant/recessive harmony
Published online: 30 November 2017
https://doi.org/10.1075/lfab.14.c5
References

References

Anderson, John M.
2011 Phonology-Syntax Analogies, 3 vols. Oxford and New York: Oxford University Press.Google Scholar
Anderson, John M. & Colin J. Ewen
1987 Principles of Dependency Phonology (Cambridge Studies in Linguistics 47). Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. CrossrefGoogle Scholar
Anderson, John M. & Charles Jones
1974 Three theses concerning phonological representations. Journal of Linguistics 10: 1–26. CrossrefGoogle Scholar
Anderson, Stephen R.
1980 Problems and perspectives in the description of vowel harmony. In Robert M. Vago (ed.), Issues in Vowel Harmony, 1–48. Amsterdam: John Benjamins. CrossrefGoogle Scholar
Aoki, Haruo
1968 Toward a typology of vowel harmony. International Journal of American Linguistics 34(2): 142–5. CrossrefGoogle Scholar
Archangeli, Diana & Douglas Pulleyblank
1994 Grounded Phonology. Cambridge, MA: MIT Press.Google Scholar
Backley, Phillip
2011 An Introduction to Element Theory. Edinburgh: Edinburgh University Press.Google Scholar
Baković, Eric
2000 Harmony, Dominance and Control. PhD dissertation, Rutgers University.Google Scholar
2001 Vowel harmony and cyclicity in Eastern Nilotic. Berkeley Linguistics Society (BLS) 27: 1–12. CrossrefGoogle Scholar
Booij, Geert E. & Jerzy Rubach
1987 Postcyclic versus postlexical rules in Lexical Phonology. Linguistic Inquiry 18: 1–44.Google Scholar
Calabrese, Andrea
2005 Markedness and Economy in a Derivational Model of Phonology. Berlin: Mouton de Gruyter. CrossrefGoogle Scholar
Casali, Roderic F.
1996 Resolving Hiatus. PhD dissertation, University of California at Los Angeles.Google Scholar
2003 [ATR] value asymmetries and underlying vowel inventory structure in Niger-Congo and Nilo-Saharan. Linguistic Typology 7: 307–382. CrossrefGoogle Scholar
2008 ATR harmony in African languages. Language and Linguistics Compass 2(3): 496–549. CrossrefGoogle Scholar
2014 Assimilation, markedness and inventory structure in tongue root harmony systems. Ms, Trinity Western University. http://​roa​.rutgers​.edu​/content​/article​/files​/1319​_casali​_1​.pdf.
forthcoming. Some inventory-related asymmetries in the patterning of tongue root harmony systems. Ms, Trinity Western University.
Charette, Monik & Asli Göksel
1998 Licensing constraints and vowel harmony in Turkic languages. In Eugeniusz Cyran (ed.), Structure and Interpretation: Studies in Phonology, Vol. 4, 65–89. Lublin: PASE.Google Scholar
Clements, George N.
1981 Akan vowel harmony: A nonlinear analysis. Harvard Studies in Phonology 2: 108–88.Google Scholar
1985 The geometry of phonological features. Phonology 2: 225–52. CrossrefGoogle Scholar
2004 Feature economy in sound systems. Phonology 20(3): 287–333. CrossrefGoogle Scholar
Dresher, B. Elan
2009 The contrastive hierarchy in phonology (Cambridge studies in linguistics 121). Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. CrossrefGoogle Scholar
Dresher, B. Elan & Harry van der Hulst
1998 Head-dependent asymmetries in phonology. Phonology 15: 317–52. CrossrefGoogle Scholar
Edmondson, Jerold A. & John H. Esling
2006 The valves of the throat and their functioning in tone, vocal register and stress: Laryngoscopic case studies. Phonology 23(2): 157–91. CrossrefGoogle Scholar
Hall, Beatrice L., R.M.R. Hall, Martin D. Pam, Amy Myers, Stephen A. Antell & Godfrey K. Cherono
1974 African vowel harmony systems from the vantage point of Kalenjin. Afrika und Übersee 57: 241–67.Google Scholar
Hall, Beatrice & Eluzai M. Yokwe
1981 Bari vowel harmony: The evolution of a cross-height vowel harmony system. Occasional Papers in the Study of Sudanese Languages 1: 55–63.Google Scholar
Harris, John
1989 Towards a lexical analysis of sound change in progress. Journal of Linguistics 25(1): 35–56. CrossrefGoogle Scholar
1990 Segmental complexity and phonological government. Phonology 7(2): 255–300. CrossrefGoogle Scholar
1994a English Sound Structure. London: Blackwell.Google Scholar
1994b Monovalency and opacity: Chichewa height harmony. UCL Working Papers in Linguistics 6: 509–547.Google Scholar
Harris, John & Geoff Lindsey
1995 The elements for phonological representation. In Jacques Durand & Francis Katamba (eds.), Frontiers of Phonology: Atoms, Structures, Derivations, 34–79. London: Longman.Google Scholar
Harris, John & Francis Moto
1994 Bantu height harmony: Monovalency and opacity. Ms, University College London.
Hyman, Larry M.
2002 Is there a right-to-left bias in vowel harmony? In John Rennison, Friedrich Neubarth & Markus Pöchtrager (eds.), Phonologica 2002. Berlin: Mouton.Google Scholar
Inkelas, Sharon
1995 The consequences of optimization for under specification. In Jill N. Beckman (ed.), Proceedings of the North East Linguistic Society 25, 287–302. Amherst, Mass.: GLSA.Google Scholar
Innes, Gordon
1966 An Introduction to Grebo. London: School of Oriental and African Studies (SOAS).Google Scholar
Ka, Omar
1988 Wolof Phonology and Morphology: A Non-Linear Approach. PhD dissertation, University of Illinois.Google Scholar
Kaye, Jonathan, Jean Lowenstamm & Jean-Roger Vergnaud
1985 The internal structure of phonological elements: A theory of charm and government. Phonology Yearbook 2: 305–28. CrossrefGoogle Scholar
Kiparsky, Paul
1982 From cyclic phonology to Lexical Phonology. In Harry van der Hulst & Norval Smith (eds.), The Structure of Phonological Representations, Vol. 1, 131–175. Dordrecht: Foris.Google Scholar
Kiparsky, Paul & Karl Pajusalu
2003 Towards a typology of disharmony. The Linguistic Review 20(2–4): 217–41. CrossrefGoogle Scholar
Kutsch Lojenga, Constance
1994 KiBudu: A Bantu language with nine vowels. Africana Linguistica 11: 127–133. CrossrefGoogle Scholar
2008 Nine vowels and ATR vowel harmony in Lika, a Bantu language in D.R. Congo. Africana Linguistica 14: 63–84.Google Scholar
Leitch, Myles F.
1996 Vowel harmonies of the Congo Basin: An Optimality Theory analysis of variation in the Bantu zone C. PhD dissertation, University of British Columbia.Google Scholar
Martinet, André
1955 Économie des changements phonétiques. Bern: Francke.Google Scholar
Morén, Bruce
2003 The Parallel Structures Model of feature geometry. Working Papers of the Cornell Phonetics Laboratory 15: 194–270.Google Scholar
Mous, Maarten
1986 Vowel harmony in Tunen. In Koen Bogers, Harry van der Hulst & Maarten Mous (eds.), The Phonological Representation of Suprasegmentals, 281–295. Dordrecht: Foris. CrossrefGoogle Scholar
Nevins, Andrew
2010 Locality in Vowel Harmony. Cambridge, MA: MIT Press. CrossrefGoogle Scholar
Orie, Olanike Ola
2001 An alignment-based account of vowel harmony in Ife Yoruba. Journal of African Languages and Linguistics 22: 117–43. CrossrefGoogle Scholar
Polgárdi, Krisztina
1998 Vowel Harmony: An Account in Terms of Government and Optimality. PhD dissertation, Leiden University.Google Scholar
Ribeiro, Eduardo R.
2000 [ATR] vowel harmony and palatalization in Karajá. Santa Barbara Papers in Linguistics 10: 80–92.Google Scholar
Ringen, Catherine O.
1975 Vowel Harmony: Theoretical Implications. PhD dissertation, Indiana University (New York: Garland, 1988).Google Scholar
1979 Vowel harmony in Igbo and Diola Fogny. Studies in African Linguistics 10: 247–259.Google Scholar
Ritter, Nancy A.
1995 The Role of Universal Grammar in Phonology: A Government Phonology Approach to Hungarian. PhD dissertation, New York University.Google Scholar
Salting, Don
1998 The Nested Subregister Model of Vowel Height. PhD dissertation, Indiana University.Google Scholar
Sapir, Edward
1931 Notes on the Gweabo language of Liberia. Language 7: 30–41. CrossrefGoogle Scholar
Schane, Sanford A.
1984 The fundamentals of Particle Phonology. Phonology Yearbook 1: 129–55. CrossrefGoogle Scholar
Singler, John V.
2008 The restructuring of the Klao vowel system and its morphophonemic consequences. Handout of paper presented at the Association of Contemporary African Linguistics 39, April 18, 2008.
Steriade, Donca
1981 Parameters of metrical vowel harmony rules. Ms, MIT.
Stewart, John M.
1967 A theory of the origin of Akan vowel harmony. International Congress of Phonetic Sciences 6: 863–865.Google Scholar
1983 Akan vowel harmony: The word structure conditions and the floating vowels. Studies in African Linguistics 14: 111–139.Google Scholar
van der Hulst, Harry
1988a The geometry of vocalic features. In Harry van der Hulst & Norval Smith (eds.), Features, Segmental Structure and Harmony Processes, Vol. 2, 77–125. Dordrecht: Foris.Google Scholar
Hulst, Harry van der
1988b The dual interpretation of |i|, |u| and |a|. NELS 18: 208–222.Google Scholar
van der Hulst, Harry
1995 Radical CV Phonology: The categorial gesture. In Jacques Durand & Francis Katamba (eds.), Frontiers of Phonology: Atoms, Structures, Derivations, 80–116. London: Longman.Google Scholar
2012 A minimal framework for vowel harmony. In Bert Botma & Roland Noske (eds.), Phonological Explorations: Empirical, Theoretical and Diachronic Issues, 155–190. Berlin: Mouton de Gruyter. CrossrefGoogle Scholar
2014 Lowering harmony in Bantu. In Sabrina Bendjaballah, Noam Faust, Mohamed Lahrouchi & Nicola Lampitelli (eds.), The Form of Structure, the Structure of Form: Essays in Honor of Jean Lowenstamm (Language Faculty and Beyond 12), 13–36. Amsterdam: John Benjamins. CrossrefGoogle Scholar
2015a The laryngeal class in RcvP and voice phenomena in Dutch. In Johanneke Caspers, et al. (eds.), Above and Beyond the Segments, 323–349. Amsterdam: John Benjamins. CrossrefGoogle Scholar
2015b The opponent principle in RcvP: Binarity in a unary system. In Eric Raimy & Charles Cairns (eds.), The Segment in Phonetics and Phonology, 149–179. London: Wiley-Blackwell.Google Scholar
2016a Monovalent ‘features’ in phonology. Language and Linguistics Compass 10(2): 83–102. CrossrefGoogle Scholar
2016b Vowel Harmony (Oxford Research Encyclopedia of Linguistics). Online: URL.Google Scholar
in prep. Principles of Radical cv Phonology. Ms, University of Connecticut.
to appear a. Asymmetries in Vowel Harmony – A Representational Account. Oxford: Oxford University Press.
to appear b. A representational account of vowel harmony in terms of variable elements and licensing. In Harry van der Hulst & Anikó Liptak (eds.) The structure of Hungarian. Proceedings of the 12th International Conference on the Structure of Hungarian Amsterdam John Benjamins Crossref
van der Hulst, Harry & Norval Smith
1986 On neutral vowels. In Koen Bogers, Harry van der Hulst & Norval Smith (eds.), The Phonological Representation of Suprasegmentals, 233–279. Dordrecht: Foris. CrossrefGoogle Scholar
van der Hulst, Harry & Jeroen van de Weijer
1995 Vowel harmony. In John Goldsmith (ed.), The Handbook of Phonological Theory, 495–534. Oxford: Basil Blackwell.Google Scholar
Walker, Rachel
2010 Nonmyopic harmony and the nature of derivations. Linguistic Inquiry 41: 169–179. CrossrefGoogle Scholar
Cited by

Cited by 1 other publications

van der Hulst, Harry & Jeroen van de Weijer
2018.  In Substance-based Grammar – The (Ongoing) Work of John Anderson [Studies in Language Companion Series, 204], ► pp. 385 ff. Crossref logo

This list is based on CrossRef data as of 31 january 2021. Please note that it may not be complete. Sources presented here have been supplied by the respective publishers. Any errors therein should be reported to them.