Vowel Harmony in Ainu

Oxford University Press eBooks, pp. 816–823

Abstract

Abstract This chapter describes the distribution of vowels in Ainu, a linguistic isolate of Northeast Asia. Some vocalic suffixes tend to harmonize with a preceding root vowel, although the patterns are complicated by the existence of disharmonic forms. The data show that the distribution of vowels in base-suffix contexts differs from that in underived contexts, with two interesting exceptions; in both environments there is a marked preference for /o … o/, while /o … u/ and /u … o/ are in general avoided. This appears to be an areal feature of Northeast Asia, since other languages in the region display similar restrictions on the distribution of /o/.

Authors 2

1. Hidetoshi Shiraishi

   Sapporo Gakuin University

   Affiliation as printed

   Sapporo Gakuin University, Japan

2. Bert Botma Aachen Linguistics

   Leiden University

   Affiliation as printed

   Linguistics, Leiden University Centre for Linguistics, The Netherlands