We propose an OT-theoretic typology of vowel harmony systems based on a comparative study of front/back harmony. Harmony processes are governed by a general constraint that imposes feature agreement on neighboring segments. Disharmonic (“neutral”) segments arise when this constraint is dominated by markedness constraints and/or by faithfulness constraints that govern segment inventories. These ...

According to the wide-spread belief, although Nganasan has vowel harmony, the harmonic class of a given stem is unpredictable, completely lexicalized. The research made on two different digital sources of Nganasan (a lexicon of a morphological analyzer with harmonic class of the stems tagged and a morphologically annotated corpus) shows that in most of the cases the harmonic class of stems is w...

This paper proposes a novel account of derivationally opaque aspect ATR harmony in Eastern Andalusian. Harmony the language is driven by Positional Licensing: [-ATR] originating on final vowels must spread to stressed vowel. Intervening post-tonic optionally also harmonize, as do pretonic vowels. Typically licensing-driven systems, if unable reach licensor, does not affect non-licensing positio...

Abstract We survey templatic diminutive formation in Hungarian. conclude that there is an intricate system of endings are added to bases which truncated if they contain more than one vowel. Bases also subject vowel length changes both directions, as well the palatalization last consonant. The forms not harmony occurring suffixes prevails regular additive morphology language. Nevertheless, these...

The ATR vowel harmony patterns observed in Kinande have received persistent attention for their non-canonical properties, such as a combination of stem control and dominance, dominance reversal, optional extension the harmonic domain from that prosodic word to nominal phrase (DP). A full optimality-theoretic account complex has, however, not yet been developed. We fill this gap argue Syntagmati...

This paper examines theoretical analyses of vowel harmony in the light of data from Warlpiri, a language of Central Australia. Modern analyses account for vowel harmony in terms of a constraint requiring feature agreement within a particular domain (e.g. Backovic, 2000; Lombardi, 1996). These analyses predict that exclusively suffixing languages should exhibit only rightwards harmonies. They al...

This paper addresses the question of the domain-specificity of learning biases for phonological processes. In two artificial grammar learning experiments we explore the role of learning biases in shaping the distribution of phonological patterns across the world’s languages. In Experiment 1, we demonstrate that learners are biased toward phonological patterns that occur in natural language, as ...