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Part of
Approaches to Hungarian: Volume 15: Papers from the 2015 Leiden Conference
Edited by Harry van der Hulst and Anikó Lipták
[Approaches to Hungarian 15] 2017
► pp. 95–133

Chapter 4
A representational account of vowel harmony in terms of variable elements and licensing

This article develops a new theory of vowel harmony in which harmony is represented in terms of a licensing relationship between vowels that carry the harmonic element ‘invariably’ and vowels that carry this element ‘variably’; the latter vowels are the alternating vowels. Of central concern is the occurrence of opaque and so-called transparent vowels, which cause asymmetries in the harmony systems. I also provide an account of a four-way typology in palatal harmony systems that has been proposed in Kiparsky and Pajusalu (2003). The licensing relation that accounts for vowel harmony is local at the nuclear projection. I will discuss several cases which violate nuclear locality, proposing an auxiliary hypothesis that allows skipping a nucleus under specific circumstances.

Keywords: vowel harmony, transparent vowel, opaque vowel, licensing, locality, Turkish, Tangale, Baiyinna Orochen, Maasai, Hungarian, Khalkha Mongolian, Kinande, Kibudu
Article outline
  • 1.Introduction
  • 2.The framework
  • 3.Asymmetries in VH
    • 3.1Opacity
    • 3.2On the form and function of phonotactic constraints
    • 3.3Context-free, context-sensitive and idiosyncratic neutralization
    • 3.4Transparency
    • 3.4A four-way typology
      • 3.4.1The RcvP account
      • 3.4.2Alternative accounts
        • 3.4.2.1 Van der Hulst (2015a) and a reply to Rebrus and Törkenczy (2015b)
        • 3.4.2.2 Polgárdi (2015)
  • 4.Transparency and opacity revisited
  • 5.Bridge locality
    • 5.1Unexpected transparency and opacity: The case of Khalkha (Mongolian)
    • 5.2Unexpected transparency of [a] in tongue root systems
  • 6.Concluding remarks
  • Notes
  • References
Published online: 24 August 2017
DOI logo
https://doi.org/10.1075/atoh.15.04hul
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Cited by 3 other publications

Siptár, Péter
2019. Harry van der Hulst: Asymmetries in vowel harmony: A representational account. With assistance from Jeroen van de Weijer. Acta Linguistica Academica 66:4 ► pp. 621 ff. DOI logo
van der Hulst, Harry
2017. Deconstructing tongue root harmony systems. In Sonic Signatures [Language Faculty and Beyond, 14], ► pp. 74 ff. DOI logo
van der Hulst, Harry
2018. Asymmetries in Vowel Harmony, DOI logo

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