Abstract
Bondu-so (Dogon; Mali) vowel harmony exhibits both typologically and theoretically interesting properties. The language's vocalic system displays surface patterns that implicate a ten-vowel system with an underlying [ATR] contrast at three vowel heights that is not immediately apparent given only mid vowels maintain an [ATR] contrast on the surface. The current paper presents previously unaccounted for data that show alternations associated with Bondu-so vowel harmony correlate not only with the [ATR] specification of a given root vowel, but also with properties of the root-final consonant. We appeal to a combination of featural and prosodic licensing to analyze these outcomes and do so in a modified version of the Parallel Structures Model of feature geometry. The PSM framework has been employed in studies of consonant assimilation and consonant-vowel interaction, but to our knowledge, the current paper is the first to extend it specifically to the analysis of vowel harmony.
| Original language | English (US) |
|---|---|
| Article number | 35 |
| Journal | Glossa |
| Volume | 4 |
| Issue number | 1 |
| DOIs | |
| State | Published - 2019 |
Keywords
- ATR
- Dogon
- Feature geometry
- Parallel structures model
- Vowel harmony
ASJC Scopus subject areas
- Linguistics and Language
- Language and Linguistics