Vowel Harmony
(Finnish and other Languages)
Ling 203
9/27/2010
Source: Comrie et al. (2003)
Source: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:Fenno-Ugrian_people.png
Source: http://www.travimp.com/images/maps/europe.gif
North Wind and the Sun
Source: http://www.aesoplanguagebank.com/
Vowel Harmony in Finnish
• Look at the text ‘North Wind and the Sun’. Do
you notice any patterns in the vowels?
Front
Back
Unrounded
Rounded
Unrounded
High
i [i]
y [y]
u [u]
Mid
e [e]
ö [ø]
o [o]
Low
ä [æ]
a [ɑ]
Rounded
Vowel Harmony in Finnish
Neutral Front
Back
High
i [i]
y [y]
u [u]
Mid
e [e]
ö [ø]
o [o]
ä [æ]
a [ɑ]
Low
Vowel Harmony in Finnish
1. Front vowels can appear with front vowels:
tyttö ‘girl’, tytär ‘daughter’, pyöräh ‘wheel’
2. Back vowels can appear with back vowels:
kaura ‘oats’, talo ‘house’
3. Neutral vowels can appear with neutral vowels:
tiede ‘science’
4. Neutral vowels can appear with front or back vowels:
järvi ‘lake’, pesä ‘nest’, Suomi ‘Finland’, keskus ‘middle’
5. Front and back vowels cannot occur with each other
Data from Lyovin (1997:81)
Vowel Harmony in Finnish
• Vowel harmony is a type of long-distance
assimilation
(e.g. across intervening vowels or consonants)
Vowel Harmony in Finnish
• Does not occur across word boundaries
see ‘North Wind and the Sun’ text
• In compound words, occurs separately for each
part
työ+aika
work+time
‘working hours’
• Frequently occurs with affixation:
pöydä-llä
table-on
‘on the table’
tuoli-lla
chair-on
‘on the chair’
Data from Comrie (1990:596)
Vowel Harmony in Hungarian
• Vowel classes similar to
Finnish
• Affects only suffixes in
Hungarian (i.e. less
prevalent than in
Finnish)
• Suffixes come in 1 to 3
forms.
• Some suffixes
harmonize for rounding
in front vowels as well.
Source for tables: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Vowel_harmony#Hungarian
Vowel Harmony in Korean
• Vowel harmony used to be prevalent in Korean
until the 1500s or so.
• Vowel changes and influx of a large number of
Chinese words, which did not obey vowel
harmony, led to loss of VH system.
• Now limited to two distinct types:
1. verb-suffix harmony
2. sound-symbolic harmony
Vowel Harmony in Korean
• Final ‘light’ vowel in root takes -a suffix
• Final ‘dark’ vowel in root takes -ə suffix
cap-a
coh-a
ka-a
po-a
‘grab’
‘like, be good’
‘go’
‘see’
kiph-ə
cuk-ə
se-ə
mək-ə
‘be deep’
‘die’
‘count; be strong’
‘eat’
Vowel Harmony in Korean
(Based on Kim-Renaud 1976)
• Sound symbolic words have ‘dark’ or ‘light’ vowels.
• Changing from a ‘dark’ to corresponding ‘light’ vowel changes
connotation slightly.
phuŋdəŋ
phoŋdaŋ
‘splash’ (sound of large object hitting water)
‘splash’ (sound of small object hitting water)
pənccək
panccak
‘sparkling, twinkling’ (e.g. flash of light)
‘sparkling, twinkling’ (e.g. stars)
Vowel Harmony in Korean
• Generally, vowels are divided into easily definable classes (e.g.
high, low, front, etc.)...not in Korean
Consonant Harmony
• Consonant harmony is a type of long-distance
assimilation
(e.g. across intervening vowels or consonants)
• Consonant harmony is much rarer than vowel
harmony
Consonant Harmony in Navajo
• Called ‘sibilant’ harmony
/sì-ʔá/
/sì-tí/
/sì-ɣìʃ/
/sì-te:ʒ/
→
→
→
→
[sì-ʔá] ‘a round object lies’
[sì-tí] ‘he is lying’ (e.g. on the ground)
[ʃì-ɣìʃ] ‘it is bent, curved’
[ʃì-te:ʒ] ‘we (dual) are lying’ (e.g. on the ground)
Data from: Sapir and Hojier (1967:15)
References
• Comrie, Bernard. (Ed.). (1990). The world’s major languages. Oxford:
Oxford University Press.
• Comrie, Bernard, Stephen Matthews, and Maria Polinsky. (Eds.). (2003).
The Atlas of Languages, Revised edition. New York, NY: Quarto Publishing.
• Kim-Renaud, Young-Key. (1976). Semantic features in phonology: evidence
from vowel harmony in Korean. Chicago Linguistics Society 12. 397-412.
• Lyovin, Anatole. (1997). An introduction to the languages of the world.
New York: Oxford University Press.
• Sapir, Edward, and Harry Hojier. (1967). The phonology and morphology of
the Navaho language. University of California Publications 50.