Vowel harmony Totally Explained

Everything about Vowel Harmony totally explained

Vowel harmony is a type of long-distance (see below) assimilatory phonological process involving vowels in some languages. In languages with vowel harmony, there are constraints on what vowels may be found near each other.

Explanation

Harmony processes are "long-distance" in the sense that the assimilation involves sounds that are separated by intervening segments (usually consonant segments). In other words, harmony refers to the assimilation of sounds that are not adjacent to each other. For example, a vowel at the beginning of a word can trigger assimilation in a vowel at the end of a word. The assimilation sometimes occurs across the entire word. This is represented schematically in the following diagram:
ť ).
Harmony assimilation may spread either from the beginning of the word to the end or from the end to the beginning. Progressive harmony (a.k.a. left-to-right harmony) proceeds from beginning to end; regressive harmony (a.k.a. right-to-left harmony) proceeds from end to beginning. Languages that have both prefixes and suffixes often have both progressive and regressive harmony. Languages that primarily have prefixes (and no suffixes) usually have only regressive harmony — and vice versa for primarily suffixing languages.

Features of vowel harmony

Vowel harmony often involves dimensions such as

Vowel height (for example high, mid, or low vowels)
Vowel backness (for example front, central, or back vowels)
Vowel roundedness (for example rounded or unrounded)
tongue root position (for example advanced or retracted tongue root, abbrev.: ±ATR)
Nasalization (for example oral or nasal) (in this case, a nasal consonant is usually the trigger)

In many languages, vowels can be said to belong to particular classes, such as back vowels or rounded vowels, etc. Some languages have more than one system of harmony. For instance, Altaic languages have a rounding harmony superimposed over a backness harmony.
In some languages, not all vowels participate in the vowel conversions — these vowels are termed either neutral or transparent. Intervening consonants are also often transparent. In addition to these transparent segments, many languages have opaque vowels that block vowel harmony processes.
Finally, languages that do have vowel harmony sometimes have words that fail to harmonize. This is known as disharmony. Many loanwords exhibit disharmony, either within a root (for example, Turkish/Turkic vakit/waqit, "time" [fromArabic waqt], where °vakıt/°waqıt would have been expected) or in suffixes (for example, Turkish saat-ler "(the) hours" [hour-PL,from Arabic sâ`a], where saat-lar would have been expected). In Turkish, disharmony tends to disappear through analogy, especially within loanwords. Suffixes drop disharmony to a lesser extent, for example Hüsnü (a man's name) < previously Hüsni, from Arabic husnî; müslümân "Moslem, Muslim (adj. and n.)" < °müslimân, from Arabic muslim).

Vowel harmony & umlaut terminology

ť Related articles: Germanic umlaut, I-mutation, Metaphony.

The term vowel harmony is used in two different senses, explained below.
In the first sense, vowel harmony refers to any type of vowel harmony: that is, both progressive and regressive vowel harmony. When used in this sense, the term vowel harmony is synonymous with the term metaphony.
In the second sense, vowel harmony refers only to progressive vowel harmony (beginning-to-end). For regressive harmony, the term umlaut is used. In this sense, metaphony is the general term while vowel harmony and umlaut are both sub-types of metaphony. (Note that the term umlaut is also used in a different sense to refer to a type of vowel gradation.)

Vowel harmony, archiphonemes, and underspecification

Neutralization, archiphoneme, underspecification for an explanation of archiphoneme and neutralization with an example of a Tuvan archiphoneme involved in vowel harmony.

Examples in selected languages

Vowel harmony appears in many Uralic and almost all Altaic languages.

Uralic languages

Finnish

Front	ä	ö	y
Neutral	e	i
Back	a	o	u

In the Finnish language, there are three classes of vowels -- front, back, and neutral, where each front vowel has a back vowel pairing. Grammatical endings such as case and derivational endings — but not enclitics — have only archiphonemic vowels, which are realized as either A, U, O or Ä, Y, Ö, but never both, inside a single word. From vowel harmony it follows that the initial syllable of each single (non-compound) word controls the frontness or backness of the entire word. Non-initially, the neutral vowels are transparent to and unaffected by vowel harmony. In the initial syllable:

a back vowel causes all non-initial syllables to realize with back (or neutral) vowels, for example pos+ahta+(t)a → posahtaa

a front vowel causes all non-initial syllables to realize with front (or neutral) vowels, for example räj+ahta+(t)a → räjähtää.

a neutral vowel acts like a front vowel, but doesn't control the frontness or backness of the word: if there are back vowels in non-initial syllables, the word acts like it began with back vowels, even if they come from derivational endings, for example sih+ahta+(ta) → sihahtaa cf. sih+ise+(t)a → sihistä For example:

kaura begins with back vowel → kauralla

kuori begins with back vowel → kuorella

sieni begins without back vowels → sienellä (not *sienella)

käyrä begins without back vowels → käyrällä

tuote begins with back vowels → tuotteeseensa

kerä begins with a neutral vowel → kerällä

kera begins with a neutral vowel, but has a noninitial back vowel → keralla Some dialects that have a sound change opening diphthong codas also permit archiphonemic vowels in the initial syllable. For example, standard 'ie' is reflected as 'ia' or 'iä', controlled by noninitial syllables, in the Tampere dialect, for example tiä ← tie but miakka ← miekka.
   Vowel harmony is a grammaticalized feature of phonotactics, thus it may not work as expected from pure phonology, as evidenced by tuotteeseensa (not *tuotteeseensä). Even if phonologically front vowels precede the suffix -nsa, grammatically it's preceded by a back vowel-controlled word. As shown in the examples, neutral vowels make the system unsymmetrical, as they're front vowels phonologically, but leave the front/back control to any grammatical front or back vowels. There is little or no change in the actual vowel quality of the neutral vowels.
   As a consequence, Finnish speakers often have problems with pronouncing foreign words which don't obey vowel harmony. For example, olympia is pronounced olumpia. The position of some loans is unstandardized (for example chattailla/chättäillä ) or ill-standardized (for example polymeeri, autoritäärinen, which violate vowel harmony). Where a foreign word violates vowel harmony by not using front vowels because it begins with a neutral vowel, then last syllable counts. For example, Wikipediassa — the initial syllable -pe- of the second word would require the final vowel to be -ä, but because it isn't, the process degrammaticalizes, becoming pure phonotactics.
   With respect to vowel harmony, compound words can be considered separate words. For example, syyskuu ("autumn month" for example September) has both u and y, but it consists of two words syys and kuu, and declines syys·kuu·ta (not *syyskuutä). The same goes for enclitics, for example taaksepäin "backwards" consists of the word taakse "to back" and -päin "-wards". If fusion takes place, the vowel is harmonized by some speakers, for example tälläinen pro tällainen ← tämän lainen.

Hungarian

Vowel types

		open	middle	closed
Back ("low")		a á	o ó	u ú
Front ("high")	unrounded (neutral)		e é	i í
Front ("high")	rounded		ö ő	ü ű

Hungarian, like its distant relative Finnish, has the same system of front, back, and intermediate (neutral) vowels. The basic rule is that words with front ("high") vowels get front vowel suffixes (kézbe - in(to) the hand), back ("low") vowel words back suffixes (karba - in(to) the arm).
The only essential difference in classification between Hungarian and Finnish is that Hungarian doesn't observe the difference between Finnish 'ä' [æ] and 'e' [e] — the Hungarian front vowel 'e' [æ] is the same as the Finnish front vowel 'ä'.

Behaviour of neutral vowels

Intermediate or neutral vowels are usually counted as front ones, since they're formed that way, the difference being that neutral vowels can occur along with back vowels in Hungarian word bases (for example répa carrot, kocsi car). The basic rule is that words with neutral and back vowels usually take back suffixes (for example répá|ban in a carrot, kocsi|ban in a car).
The suffix rules for words with both kinds of suffixes are the following:

The last syllable counts: sofőr|höz, nüansz|szal, generál|ás, október|ben

A regular exception is i/í and é (but not usually e): they're transparent for the rule, so only the other sounds will be taken into consideration, for example papír|hoz, kuplé|hoz, marék|hoz, konflis|hoz

Some words can take either front or back suffixes: farmer|ban or farmer|ben

Suffixes in multiple forms

While most grammatical suffixes in Hungarian come in either one form (eg. -kor) or two forms (front and back, eg. -ban/-ben), some suffixes have an additional form for rounded vowels (such as ö, ő, ü and ű), for example hoz/-hez/-höz. An example on basic numerals:

			-kor (at, for time)	-ban/-ben (in)	-hoz/-hez/-höz (to)
Back		hat (6) nyolc (8) három (3)	hatkor nyolckor háromkor egykor négykor kilenckor ötkor kettőkor	hatban nyolcban háromban	hathoz nyolchoz háromhoz
Front	unrounded (neutral)	egy (1) négy (4) kilenc (9)		egyben négyben kilencben ötben kettőben	egyhez négyhez kilenchez
Front	rounded	öt (5) kettő (2)		egyben négyben kilencben ötben kettőben	öthöz kettőhöz

Altaic languages

Mongolian

Feminine (front)	e	ö	ü
Masculine (back)	a	o	u
Neutral	i

Mongolian is similar. Front vowels in Mongolian are considered feminine, while back vowels are considered masculine.

Tatar

Front	ä	e	i	ö	ü
Back	a	ı	í	o	u	é

Tatar has no neutral vowels. The vowel é is found only in loanwords. Other vowels also could be found in loanwords, but they're seen as Back vowels. Tatar language also has a rounding harmony, but it isn't represented in writing. O and ö could be written only in the first syllable, but vowels they mark could be pronounced in place where ı and e are written.

Kazakh

Kazakh's system of vowel harmony is primarily a front/back system, but there's also a system of rounding harmony that isn't represented by the orthography, which strongly resembles the system in Kyrgyz.

Kyrgyz

Kyrgyz's system of vowel harmony is primarily a front/back system, but there's also a system of rounding harmony.

Turkish

	Front		Back
	Unrounded	Rounded	Unrounded	Rounded
High	i	ü	ı	u
Low	e	ö	a	o

Turkish has a 2-dimensional vowel harmony system, where vowels are characterised by two features: [±front] and [±rounded].

Front/back harmony

Turkish has two classes of vowels -- front and back. Vowel harmony states that words may not contain both front and back vowels. Therefore, most grammatical suffixes come in front and back forms, for example Türkiye'de "in Turkey" but kapıda "at the door".

Rounding harmony

In addition, there's a secondary rule that i and ı tend to become ü and u respectively after rounded vowels, so certain suffixes have additional forms. This gives constructions such as Türkiye'dir "it is Turkey", kapıdır "it is the door", but gündür "it is day", paltodur "it is the coat".

Exceptions

Compound words are considered separate words with respect to vowel harmony: vowels don't have to harmonize between members of the compound (thus forms like bu|gün "today" are permissible). In addition, vowel harmony doesn't apply for loanwords and some invariant suffixes (such as -iyor); there are also a few native Turkish words that don't follow the rule (such as anne "mother"). In such words suffixes harmonize with the final vowel; thus İstanbul'dur "it is İstanbul".

Yokuts

Vowel harmony is present in all Yokutsan languages and dialects. For instance, Yawelmani has 4 vowels (which additionally may be either long or short). These can be grouped as in the table below. high

i	u
non-high	a	ɔ

In vowels in suffixes must harmonize with either /u/ or its non-/u/ counterparts or with /ɔ/ or non-/ɔ/ counterparts. For example, the vowel in the aorist suffix appears as /u/ when it follows a /u/ in the root, but when it follows all other vowels it appears as /i/. Similarly, the vowel in the nondirective gerundial suffix appears as /ɔ/ when it follows a /ɔ/ in the root; otherwise it appears as /a/.

-hun/-hin		(aorist suffix)
muṭhun	[muʈhun]	'swear (aorist)'
giy̓hin	[ɡij’hin]	'touch (aorist)'
gophin	[ɡɔphin]	'take of infant (aorist)'
xathin	[xathin]	'eat (aorist)'
-tow/-taw		(nondirective gerundial suffix)
goptow	[ɡɔptɔw]	'take care of infant (nondir. ger.)'
giy̓taw	[ɡij’taw]	'touch (nondir. ger.)'
muṭtaw	[muʈtaw]	'swear (nondir. ger.)'
xattaw	[xatːaw]	'eat (nondir. ger.)'

In addition to the harmony found in suffixes, there's a harmony restriction on word stems where in stems with more than one syllable all vowels are required to be of the same lip rounding and tongue height dimensions. For example, a stem must contain all high rounded vowels or all low rounded vowels, etc. This restriction is further complicated by (i) long high vowels being lowered and (ii) an epenthetic vowel [i] which doesn't harmonize with stem vowels.

Korean

Korean Vowel Harmony>

Positive/"light"/Yang Vowels	ㅏ (a)	ㅑ (ya)	ㅗ (o)	ㅛ (yo)
Positive/"light"/Yang Vowels	ㅐ (ae)	ㅘ (wa)	ㅚ (oe)	ㅙ (wae)
Negative/"heavy"/Yin Vowels	ㅓ (eo)	ㅕ (yeo)	ㅜ (u)	ㅠ (yu)
Negative/"heavy"/Yin Vowels	ㅔ (e)	ㅝ (wo)	ㅟ (wi)	ㅞ (we)
Neutral/Centre Vowels	ㅡ (eu)	ㅣ (i)	ㅢ (ui)

There are three classes of vowels in Korean: positive, negative, and neutral. These categories loosely follow the front (positive) and mid (negative) vowels. Traditionally, Korean had strong vowel harmony; however, this rule is no longer observed strictly in modern Korean. In modern Korean, it's only applied in certain cases such as onomatopoeia, adjectives, adverbs, conjugation, and interjections. The vowel ㅡ(eu) is considered a partially neutral and a partially negative vowel. There are other traces of vowel harmony in modern Korean: many native Korean words tend to follow vowel harmony such as 사람 (saram), which means person, and 부엌 (Bueok), which means kitchen.
Proponents of Korean as an Altaic language use the existence of vowel harmony in Korean to support their argument.

Japanese

Modern Japanese and all historically recorded forms of Japanese lack clear evidence of vowel harmony, but some consider that such a process must have existed at one time. However, a consensus hasn't been reached. See the articles on Old Japanese and Jōdai Tokushu Kanazukai for more information.

Other languages

Vowel harmony occurs in many other languages, such as

Akan languages,

several Bantu languages such as Standard Lingala

Dusun languages

Manchu,

Nez Percé,

Nilotic languages,

Takelma,

Telugu,

Utian languages,

Valencian

Warlpiri.

Other types of harmony

Although vowel harmony is the most well-known harmony, not all types of harmony that occur in the world's languages involve only vowels. Other types of harmony involve consonants (and is known as consonant harmony). Rarer types of harmony are those that involve tone or both vowels and consonants (for example postvelar harmony).

Vowel-consonant harmony

Some languages have harmony processes that involve an interaction between vowels and consonants. For example, Chilcotin has a phonological process known as vowel flattening (for example post-velar harmony) where vowels must harmonize with uvular and pharyngealized consonants.
Chilcotin has two classes of vowels:

"flat" vowels [ᵊi,e, ᵊɪ, o, ɔ, ə, a]

non-"flat" vowels [i,ɪ, u, ʊ, æ, ɛ]
Additionally, Chilcotin has a class of pharyngealized "flat" consonants [ʦˤ,ʦʰˤ, ʦ’ˤ, sˤ, zˤ]. Whenever a consonant of this class occurs in a word, all preceding vowels must be flat vowels.

		[jətʰeɬʦˤʰosˤ]	'he's holding it (fabric)'
		[ʔapələsˤ]	'apples'
		[natʰák’ə̃sˤ]	'he'll stretch himself'

If flat consonants don't occur in a word, then all vowels will be of the non-flat class:

		[nænɛntʰǽsʊç]	'I'll comb hair'
		[tetʰǽsk’ɛn]	'I'll burn it'
		[tʰɛtɬʊç]	'he laughs'

Other languages of this region of North America (the Plateau culture area), such as St'át'imcets, have similar vowel-consonant harmonic processes.

Languages with vowel harmony

Korean languageFurther Information

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