Vowel Harmony in Papuan Languages
Oxford University Press eBooks, pp. 935–946
Abstract
Abstract This chapter reflects the current descriptive and typological asymmetry of vowel harmony (VH) in Papuan languages by presenting two cases of ‘unbounded’ VH: Amele and Umbu-Ungu, and four cases where harmony is more local: Mian, Ngkolmpu, Komnzo, and Kaera. Ngkolmpu and Umbu-Ungu show harmony of a particular phonetic feature, while the other languages show harmony with the entire vowel. In most cases, harmony is leftward, but it is rightward in Umbu-Ungu, while Amele has harmony in both directions. The vowel triggering the harmony is part of a lexical root in Ngkolmpu, Mian, Umbu-Ungu, and Kaera. In Komnzo and Amele, it is part of functional items, but in Amele harmony in the nominal domain is also triggered by noun stem vowels. Umbu-Ungu is the only language where harmony occurs beyond the morphological word to include phrasal enclitics. VH is related to unspecified vowels and epenthesis in Amele.
Authors 1
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Affiliation as printed
Austronesian and Papuan Linguistics, Leiden University
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