Hostname: page-component-78c5997874-g7gxr Total loading time: 0 Render date: 2024-11-09T06:57:01.217Z Has data issue: false hasContentIssue false
  • English
  • Français

Moro vowel harmony: implications for transparency and representations*

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  05 May 2017

Amanda Ritchart  and
Sharon Rose
Amanda Ritchart*
Affiliation:
University of California, San Diego
Sharon Rose*
Affiliation:
University of California, San Diego
*
E-mail: [email protected], [email protected].
E-mail: [email protected], [email protected].
Get access Rights & Permissions [Opens in a new window]

Abstract

This paper describes and analyses the vowel-harmony system of the Kordofanian language Moro. Moro has a cross-height dominant-recessive raising harmony system in which high vowels and a central mid vowel trigger harmony, while peripheral mid vowels and a central low vowel are harmony targets. Schwas can co-occur with any of the vowels, appearing inert to harmony. Yet when schwas occur alone in a morpheme, some trigger harmony and some do not. We suggest that an original ATR-harmony system shifted to a height system via merger and centralisation, producing two distinct central vowels, rather than a single schwa. One vowel patterns with the higher vowels in triggering harmony, and the other patterns with the lower vowels. We also propose that a particle-based representation offers the best characterisation of the groupings of target and trigger vowels in the language.

Type
Articles
Information
Phonology , Volume 34 , Issue 1 , May 2017 , pp. 163 - 200
Copyright
Copyright © Cambridge University Press 2017 

Access options

Get access to the full version of this content by using one of the access options below. (Log in options will check for institutional or personal access. Content may require purchase if you do not have access.)

Footnotes

*

We offer heartfelt thanks to the Moro speakers who participated in this study: Angelo Naser, Elyasir Julima, Ikhlas Elahmer and Israel Adeldong. We are also grateful to the Phonology editors and anonymous reviewers for feedback and guidance, and to audiences at the Annual Conference on African Linguistics, Chicago Linguistic Society, Réseau Français de Phonologie, University of Leiden, Institut für Afrikanistik und Ägyptologie, University of Cologne, and our colleagues at UC San Diego, especially Eric Baković and Marc Garellek. This research was supported by NSF grant BCS-0745973 Moro Language Project.

An appendix with a list of verb forms used in the acoustic study is available as online supplementary materials at https://doi.org/10.1017/S0952675717000069.

References

REFERENCES

Abdalla Kuku, Nabil (2012). Laru vowel harmony. Occasional Papers in the Study of Sudanese Languages 10. 17–34.Google Scholar
Alaki, Thomas Kuku & Norton, Russell (2013). Tocho phonology and orthography. In Schadeberg, & Blench, (2013). 177–194.Google Scholar
Andersen, Torben (1999). Vowel harmony and vowel alternation in Mayak (Western Nilotic). Studies in African Linguistics 28. 1–29.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Anderson, John M. & Ewen, Colin J. (1987). Principles of dependency phonology. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Anderson, John M. & Jones, Charles (1974). Three theses concerning phonological representations. JL 10. 1–26.Google Scholar
Archangeli, Diana & Pulleyblank, Douglas (1994). Grounded phonology. Cambridge, Mass.: MIT Press.Google Scholar
Baayen, R. H., Davidson, D. J. & Bates, D. M. (2008). Mixed-effects modeling with crossed random effects for subjects and items. Journal of Memory and Language 59. 390–412.Google Scholar
Baković, Eric (2000). Harmony, dominance, and control. PhD dissertation, Rutgers University.Google Scholar
Baković, Eric & Wilson, Colin (2000). Transparency, strict locality, and targeted constraints. WCCFL 19. 43–56.Google Scholar
Bashir, Abeer (2013). Conditions on feature specification in Tima. In Schadeberg, & Blench, (2013). 269–280.Google Scholar
Baumbach, E. J. M. (1974). Introduction to the speech sounds and speech sound changes of Tsonga. Pretoria: van Schaik.Google Scholar
Benus, Stefan (2005). Dynamics and transparency in vowel harmony. PhD dissertation, New York University.Google Scholar
Benus, Stefan & Gafos, Adamantios (2007). Articulatory characteristics of Hungarian ‘transparent’ vowels. JPh 35. 271–300.Google Scholar
Black, Keith & Black, Betty (1971). The Moro language grammar and dictionary. Khartoum: Sudan Research Unit.Google Scholar
Boersma, Paul & Weenink, David (2015). Praat: doing phonetics by computer (version 5.4.17). http://www.praat.org.Google Scholar
Buckley, Eugene (1994). Default feature prespecification: the two [i]’s of Kashaya. NELS 24:1. 17–30.Google Scholar
Camilli, Amerindo (1929). Il dialetto di Servigliano. Archivum Romanicum 13. 220–271.Google Scholar
Casali, Roderic F. (1996). Resolving hiatus. PhD dissertation, University of California, Los Angeles.Google Scholar
Casali, Roderic F. (2002). Nawuri ATR harmony in typological perspective. Journal of West African Languages 29:1. 3–43.Google Scholar
Casali, Roderic F. (2008). ATR harmony in African languages. Language and Linguistics Compass 2. 496–549.Google Scholar
Chomsky, Noam & Halle, Morris (1968). The sound pattern of English. New York: Harper & Row.Google Scholar
Clements, G. N. (1977). Neutral vowels in Hungarian vowel harmony: an autosegmental interpretation. NELS 7. 49–64.Google Scholar
Clements, G. N. (1980). Vowel harmony in nonlinear generative phonology: an autosegmental model. Bloomington: Indiana University Linguistics Club.Google Scholar
Clements, G. N. (1991). Vowel height assimilation in Bantu languages. Working Papers of the Cornell Phonetics Laboratory 5. 37–76.Google Scholar
Compton, Richard & Dresher, B. Elan (2011). Palatalization and ‘strong i’ across Inuit dialects. Canadian Journal of Linguistics 56. 203–228.Google Scholar
Doke, Clement M. (1926). The phonetics of the Zulu language. Johannesburg: University of the Witwatersrand Press.Google Scholar
Doke, Clement M. (1947). Text-book of Zulu grammar. 4th edn. London: Longmans, Green & Co.Google Scholar
Dyck, Carrie J. (1995). Constraining the phonology–phonetics interface, with exemplification from Spanish and Italian dialects. PhD dissertation, University of Toronto.Google Scholar
Elugbe, Ben Ohiọmamhẹ (1989). Comparative Edoid: phonology and lexicon. Port Harcourt: University of Port Harcourt Press.Google Scholar
Finley, Sara (2008). Formal and cognitive restrictions on vowel harmony. PhD dissertation, Johns Hopkins University.Google Scholar
Flemming, Edward (2004). Contrast and perceptual distinctiveness. In Hayes, Bruce, Kirchner, Robert & Steriade, Donca (eds.) Phonetically based phonology. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. 232–276.Google Scholar
Gafos, Adamantios I. & Dye, Amanda (2011). Vowel harmony: opaque and transparent vowels. In van, Oostendorp et al. (2011). 2164–2189.Google Scholar
Gibbard, George, Rohde, Hannah & Rose, Sharon (2009). Moro noun class morphology. In Matondo, Masangu, Mc Laughlin, Fiona & Potsdam, Eric (eds.) Selected Proceedings of the 38th Annual Conference on African Linguistics. Somerville, Mass.: Cascadilla. 106–117.Google Scholar
Gick, Bryan, Bliss, Heather, Michelson, Karin & Radanov, Bosko (2012). Articulation without acoustics: ‘soundless’ vowels in Oneida and Blackfoot. JPh 40. 46–53.Google Scholar
Gick, Bryan, Pulleyblank, Douglas, Campbell, Fiona & Mutaka, Ngessimo (2006). Low vowels and transparency in Kinande vowel harmony. Phonology 23. 1–20.Google Scholar
Gnanadesikan, Amalia (1997). Phonology with ternary scales. PhD dissertation. University of Massachusetts, Amherst.Google Scholar
Hansson, Gunnar Ólafur & Moore, Patrick J. (2011). The phonetics of transparency in Kaska vowel harmony. In Tuttle, Siri & Lovick, Olag (eds.) Working Papers in Athabaskan Languages 2010. Fairbanks: Alaska Native Language Center. 122–138.Google Scholar
Harris, John (1987). Non-structure-preserving rules in Lexical Phonology: southeastern Bantu harmony. Lingua 72. 255–292.Google Scholar
Harris, John (1994). English sound structure. Oxford: Blackwell.Google Scholar
Harris, John (2005). Vowel reduction as information loss. In Carr, Philip, Durand, Jacques & Ewen, Colin J. (eds.) Headhood, elements, specification and contrastivity. Amsterdam & Philadelphia: Benjamins. 119–132.Google Scholar
Harris, John & Lindsey, Geoff (1995). The elements of phonological representation. Durand, In Jacques & Katamba, Francis (eds.) Frontiers of phonology: atoms, structures, derivations. London & New York: Longman. 34–79.Google Scholar
Hualde, José Ignacio (1989). Autosegmental and metrical spreading in the vowel-harmony systems of northwestern Spain. Linguistics 27. 773–805.Google Scholar
Hulst, Harry van der & Smith, Norval (1986). On neutral vowels. In Bogers, Koen, van der Hulst, Harry & Mous, Maarten (eds.) The phonological representation of suprasegmentals. Dordrecht: Foris. 233–279.Google Scholar
Hyman, Larry M. (1999). The historical interpretation of vowel harmony in Bantu. In Hombert, Jean-Marie & Hyman, Larry M. (eds.) Bantu historical linguistics: theoretical and empirical perspectives. Stanford: CSLI. 235–295.Google Scholar
Hyman, Larry M. (2001). Vowel harmony in Gunu. Studies in African Linguistics 30. 147–170.Google Scholar
Hyman, Larry M. (2003). ‘Abstract’ vowel harmony in Kàlɔ̀ŋ: a system-driven account. In Sauzet, Patrick & Zribi-Hertz, Anne (eds.) Typologie des langues d'Afrique et universaux de la grammaire. Vol. 1. Paris: L'Harmattan. 85–112.Google Scholar
Jenks, Peter & Rose, Sharon (2015). Mobile object markers in Moro: the role of tone. Lg 91. 269–307.Google Scholar
Jurgec, Peter (2011). Feature spreading 2.0: a unified theory of assimilation. PhD dissertation, University of Tromsø.Google Scholar
Kaplan, Lawrence D. (1981). Phonological issues in North Alaskan Inupiaq. Fairbanks: Alaska Native Language Center.Google Scholar
Kaye, Jonathan, Lowenstamm, Jean & Vergnaud, Jean-Roger (1985). The internal structure of phonological elements: a theory of charm and government. Phonology Yearbook 2. 305–328.Google Scholar
Kaye, Jonathan, Lowenstamm, Jean & Vergnaud, Jean-Roger (1990). Constituent structure and government in phonology. Phonology 7. 193–231.Google Scholar
Kaze, Jeffrey W. (1989). Metaphony in Italian and Spanish dialects revisited. PhD dissertation, Ohio State University.Google Scholar
Kaze, Jeffrey W. (1991). Metaphony and two models for the description of vowel systems. Phonology 8. 163–170.Google Scholar
Kenstowicz, Michael J. (1979). Chukchee vowel harmony and epenthesis. In Clyne, Paul R., Hanks, William F. & Hofbauer, Carol L. (eds.) The elements: a parasession on linguistic units and levels. Chicago: Chicago Linguistic Society. 402–412.Google Scholar
Kenstowicz, Michael J. (2009). Two notes on Kinande vowel harmony. Language Sciences 31. 248–270.Google Scholar
Kimper, Wendell (2011). Competing triggers: transparency and opacity in vowel harmony. PhD dissertation, University of Massachusetts Amherst.Google Scholar
Krause, Scott (1979). Topics in Chukchee phonology and morphology. PhD dissertation, University of Illinois, Urbana-Champaign.Google Scholar
Ladefoged, Peter (1971). Preliminaries to linguistic phonetics. Chicago: University of Chicago Press.Google Scholar
Ladefoged, Peter (1975). A course in phonetics. New York: Harcourt Brace Jovanovich.Google Scholar
Ladefoged, Peter (2001). Vowels and consonants. Malden, Mass & Oxford: Blackwell.Google Scholar
Lindau, Mona (1978). Vowel features. Lg 54. 541–563.Google Scholar
Mielke, Jeff (2008). The emergence of distinctive features. Oxford: Oxford University Press.Google Scholar
Nevins, Andrew (2010). Locality in vowel harmony. Cambridge, Mass.: MIT Press.Google Scholar
Norton, Russell (2013). The Acheron vowel system: a participatory approach. In Schadeberg, & Blench, (2013). 195–217.Google Scholar
Oostendorp, Marc van, Ewen, Colin J., Hume, Elizabeth & Rice, Keren (eds.) (2011). The Blackwell companion to phonology. Malden, Mass.: Wiley-Blackwell.Google Scholar
Paradis, Carole (1986). Phonologie et morphologie lexicales: les classes nominales en pulaar (fula) . PhD dissertation, University of Montreal.Google Scholar
Parkinson, Frederick B. (1996). The representation of vowel height in phonology. PhD dissertation, Ohio State University.Google Scholar
Pearce, Mary (2003). Vowel harmony in Kera (Chadic) . MA dissertation, University College London.Google Scholar
Penny, Ralph J. (1969). El habla pasiega: ensayo de dialectología montañesa. London: Tamesis.Google Scholar
Pulleyblank, Douglas (1996). Neutral vowels in Optimality Theory: a comparison of Yoruba and Wolof. Canadian Journal of Linguistics 41. 295–347.Google Scholar
Pulleyblank, Douglas (2011). Vowel height. In van Oostendorp et al. (2011). 491–518.Google Scholar
Quint, Nicolas (2009). The phonology of Koalib: a Kordofanian language of the Nuba mountains (Sudan) . Cologne: Rüdiger Köppe.Google Scholar
Rhodes, Russell (2010). Vowel harmony as Agreement by Correspondence. Ms, University of California, Berkeley. Available (January 2017) at http://linguistics.berkeley.edu/~russellrhodes/pdfs/abc_vh.Google Scholar
Ritchart, Amanda & Rose, Sharon (2015). Schwas in Moro vowel harmony. In Kramer, Ruth, Zsiga, Elizabeth C. & Boyer, One Tlale (eds.) Selected proceedings of the 44th Annual Conference on African Linguistics. Somerville, Mass.: Cascadilla. 231–242.Google Scholar
Schadeberg, Thilo C. (1995). Spirantization and the 7-to-5 vowel merger in Bantu. Belgian Journal of Linguistics 9. 73–84.Google Scholar
Schadeberg, Thilo C. & Blench, Robert M. (eds.) (2013). Nuba mountain language studies. Cologne: Rüdiger Köppe.Google Scholar
Schane, Sanford A. (1984). The fundamentals of particle phonology. Phonology Yearbook 1. 129–155.Google Scholar
Schane, Sanford A. (1990). Lowered height, laxness, and retracted tongue root: different manifestations of phonological APERTURE. Word 41. 1–16.Google Scholar
Schane, Sanford A. (1995). Diphthongization in particle phonology. In Goldsmith, John A. (ed.) The handbook of phonological theory. Oxford: Blackwell. 586–608.Google Scholar
Smits, Heleen (2012). The prefix /ɔ́-/ in Lumun kinship terms and personal names. Occasional Papers in the Study of Sudanese Languages 10. 95–113.Google Scholar
Stevenson, Roland C. (1943). Tira and Otoro: two Kordofanian grammars. Edited 2009 by Thilo C. Schadeberg. Cologne: Rüdiger Köppe.Google Scholar
Stewart, John M. (1971). Niger-Congo, Kwa. In Sebeok, Thomas A. (ed.) Current trends in linguistics. Vol. 7: Linguistics in Sub-Saharan Africa. The Hague & Paris: Mouton. 179–213.Google Scholar
Stewart, John M. & van Leynseele, Helene (1979). Underlying cross-height vowel harmony in Nen (Bantu A.44). Journal of African Languages and Linguistics 1. 31–54.Google Scholar
Stirtz, Timothy M. (2004). Phonology and orthography in Gaahmg. Occasional Papers in the Study of Sudanese Languages 9. 127–144.Google Scholar
Stirtz, Timothy M. (2009). [ATR] vowel harmony in Gaahmg: a six-vowel system. Journal of African Languages and Linguistics 30. 73–95.Google Scholar
Strabone, Andrew & Rose, Sharon (2012). Morphophonological properties of Moro causatives. In Connell, Bruce & Rolle, Nicholas (eds.) Selected proceedings of the 41st Annual Conference on African Linguistics. Somerville, Mass.: Cascadilla. 92–103.Google Scholar
Svantesson, Jan-Olof, Tsendina, Anna, Karlsson, Anastasia & Franzén, Vivan (2005). The phonology of Mongolian. Oxford: Oxford University Press.Google Scholar
Vanderelst, John (2016). A grammar of Dagik: a Kordofanian language of Sudan. Cologne: Rüdiger Köppe.Google Scholar
Watters, Kathie (1993). The status and function of tone in Tira. MA thesis, University of Nairobi.Google Scholar
Wickham, Hadley (2009). ggplot2: elegant graphics for data analysis. New York: Springer.Google Scholar
Yu, Alan C. L. (2007). Understanding near mergers: the case of morphological tone in Cantonese. Phonology 24. 187–214.Google Scholar
Yul-ifode, Shirley (2003). Vowel harmony and vowel merger in Agoi. Studies in African Linguistics 32. 1–15.Google Scholar
Supplementary material: PDF

Ritchart and Rose supplementary material

Ritchart and Rose supplementary material

Download Ritchart and Rose supplementary material(PDF)
PDF 50.8 KB