Re: Question about vowel harmono

On Thu, 3 May 2001, Henrik Theiling wrote:

> Hi!
>
> Patrick Dunn <tb0pwd1@...> writes:
> > Is this a reasonable vowel system for a language with vowel harmony?
> >
> > Front vowels
> > /i/
> > /e/
> > /y/ (rounded /i/)
> >
> > Back vowels
> > /a/
> > /o/
> > /u/
>
> Do you have clues about what harmony rules you'll have?  If you put
> your vowels into the normal chart, the /y/ seems to be non-matching,
> and the /a/ seems to be likely to not influence the harmony rules, but
> without any rules, it's really hard to tell.
I could do without /y/.

I was thinking words would be either front or back, and the affixes would
depend upon which they are.

>
>              FRONT  CENTER BACK
>   CLOSE      i/y              u
>   MID-CLOSE  e                o
>   OPEN                a?
>
> Looking at Finnish:
>    i/y        u
>    e/ö        o
>      ä    a
>
> This also does not look too symmetric, but when knowing that i and e
> do not (usually) participate, it becomes more symmetric:
>    y         u
>    ö         o
>      ä    a
>
> The rule is that either front vowels or back vowels like to cluster.
>   Saksa  + ssa/ssä   ->  Saksassa
>   Venäjä + ssa/ssä   ->  Venäjässä
>
> To be complete: i/e select frontness if no other vowel interferes:
>
>   Sveitsi + ssa/ssä ->  Sveitsissä
>
> IIRC, Turkish is more regular with two main harmony rules (one for
> roundedness, one for front-/backness) and eight vowels.
>
> But however, with your system, you could experiment with something
> like:
>
>    - frontness/backness likes to cluster
>    - y is skipped but/or makes the defaults to frontness
>    - a is ignored completely
>
>    i + u -> ii  or maybe  iy
>    e + u -> ei  or maybe  ey
>    e + o -> ee
>    o + e -> oo
>    ...
>    i + a -> ia
>    o + a -> oa
>    ...
>    a + a -> aa
>    a + i -> ai
>    a + o -> ao
>
> Not that I find this totally logical, but it seems to be feasible.
>
> **Henrik
Logic takes a back seat, as does plausability, to aesthetics here.  I want
to make this both the high tongue of a novel I'm toying with, as well as a
personal language.



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