Chapter published in:
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

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

| University of Connecticut
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
Published online: 24 August 2017
https://doi.org/10.1075/atoh.15.04hul
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