- Offers a comprehensive descriptive and theoretical account of vowel harmony

- Explores vowel harmony in all major language families and in several isolates

- Draws on insights not only from phonology but also from typology, morphosyntax, and psycholinguistics

This handbook provides a detailed account of the phenomenon of vowel harmony (VH), a pattern according to which all vowels within a word must agree for some phonological property or properties. VH has been central in the development of phonological theories thanks to its cluster of remarkable properties, notably its typically ‘unbounded’ character and its non-locality, and because it forms part of the phonology of most world languages.

The five parts of this volume cover all aspects of VH from a range of theoretical and methodological perspectives.

Part I outlines the types of VH and some unusual cases, before Part II explores structural issues such as vowel inventories, the interaction of VH and morphological structure, and locality. The chapters in Part III provide an overview of the various theoretical accounts of the phenomenon, as well as bringing in insights from language acquisition and psycholinguistics, while Part IV focuses on the historical life cycle of VH, looking at topics such as phonetic factors and the effect of language contact. The final part contains 31 chapters that present data and analysis of VH across all major language families as well as several isolates, constituting the broadest coverage of the phenomenon to date.

Author information

Nancy A. Ritter is Adjunct Professor of Linguistics at the University of Connecticut (USA), and Harry van der Hulst is Professor of Linguistics at University of Connecticut.

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Part I. Types of vowel harmony

1. Themes in vowel harmony, Nancy A. Ritter and Harry van der Hulst

2. The role of consonants in vowel harmony, Gunnar Ólafur Hansson

3. Nasal harmony, Bert Botma

4. Palatal harmony, Charles W. Kisseberth and Michael J. Kenstowicz

5. Rounding harmony, Abigail Kaun and Adam G. McCollum

6. Height harmony, Heather Goad

7. Tongue root harmony [ATR]/[RTR], Roderic F. Casali

8. Stress-dependent vowel harmony, Joan Mascaró

9. Laxing vowel harmony, Nicholas Henriksen and Kelly Kendro

10. Rhotic vowel harmony, Norval Smith

11. Minor vowel harmony, Norval Smith

12. Epiphenomenal and true non-iterative vowel harmony, Adam G. McCollum

13. Phonology that will not harmonize, Larry M. Hyman

Part II. Structural issues in vowel harmony

14. Vowel harmony in the light of contrastive feature theories, B. Elan Dresher and Sara Mackenzie

15. Tongue-root harmony and vowel inventory structure, Roderic F. Casali

16. Vowel harmony and coda, moraic, or geminate consonants, David Odden

17. Domains of vowel harmony, Paul Kiparsky

18. A stratal OT perspective on vowel harmony, Paul Kiparsky

19. Morpho-syntactic asymmetries in Serviglianese vowel harmony domains, Andrea Calabrese

20. Phrasal vowel harmony, Laura J. Downing and Martin Krämer

21. Non-alternating, non-participating, and idiosyncratic vowels, Martin Krämer

22. Revisiting locality in vowel harmony, Phillip Burness, Kevin McMullin, and Andrew Nevins

23. What constitutes privileged positions in vowel harmony?, Aaron Kaplan and Rachel Walker

24. Directionality in vowel harmony systems, Shakuntala Mahanta

Part III. Approaches to vowel harmony

25. Vowel harmony in pre-Generative Phonology, Michael J. Kenstowicz

26. Vowel harmony in classical Generative Phonology, Charles W. Kisseberth and Michael J. Kenstowicz

27. Multi-linear approaches to vowel harmony, Peter Jurgec

28. Vowel harmony in Government Phonology, Krisztina Polgárdi

29. Vowel harmony in dependency-based models, Harry van der Hulst and Jacques Durand

30. Vowel harmony in Optimality Theory, Sara Finley

31. Vowel harmony in Optimal Domains Theory, Charles W. Kisseberth

32. Harmony in gesture-based phonology, Caitlin Smith

33. Votic vowel harmony in Substance Free Logical Phonology, Marjorie Leduc, Charles Reiss, and Veno Volenec

34. The computational power of harmonic forms, Alëna Aksënova, Jonathan Rawski, Thomas Graf, and Jeffrey Heinz

35. Data-driven approaches to vowel harmony, Rebecca Knowles and Nathan Sanders

36. Vowel harmony in Emergent Phonology, Diana Archangeli and Douglas Pulleyblank

37. An exemplar-based approach to vowel harmony, Jeroen van de Weijer

38. Vowel harmony in language acquisition, Heather Goad and Avery Ozburn

39. Psycholinguistic approaches to vowel harmony, Anne Pycha and Sara Finley

Part IV. Genesis, evolution, and decay of vowel harmony

40. Articulatory and perceptual factors in vowel harmony, Adamantios Gafos

41. Phonetic and functional precursors to vowel harmony, Amanda Rysling and John Kingston

42. Vowel harmony in contact situations: The case of the Balkans, Victor A. Friedman and Brian D. Joseph

43. Vowel harmony in computational models of emergence, Mark Dras and K. David Harrison

44. On how and why vowel harmony decays, Adam G. McCollum

45. Examples of diachronic decay of vowel harmony, Andrey Nikulin

Part V. Vowel harmony across languages

46. Vowel harmony: Statistical perspectives on typological distribution, Matthew K. Gordon and Michael Fiddler

47. Vowel harmony in Semitic languages, Geoffrey Khan

48. Vowel harmony in Chadic languages, Mary Pearce and Joseph Lovestrand

49. Vowel harmony in Nilo-Saharan languages, Constance Kutsch Lojenga

50. Vowel harmony in Niger Congo languages of the Nuba Mountains, Abeer M. A. Bashir and Sharon Rose

51. Vowel harmony in non-Bantu Niger-Congo languages, Nicholas Rolle and Olanike Ola Orie

52. Vowel harmony in Bantu Niger-Congo languages, Virginia Boyd

53. Vowel harmony in North American languages, Keren Rice

54. Vowel harmony in Mesoamerican languages, Chris Rogers

55. Vowel harmony in South American languages, Andrey Nikulin

56. Vowel harmony in languages of India, Shakuntala Mahanta and Paul Arsenault

57. Vowel harmony in the Munda languages, Gregory D. S. Anderson, Luke Horo, and K. David Harrison

58. Vowel harmony in Sino-Tibetan languages, Katia Chirkova

59. Vowel harmony in Turkic languages, Jonathan North Washington

60. Vowel harmony in Mongolic languages, Jan-Olof Svantesson

61. Vowel harmony in Tungusic languages, Bing Li and Norval Smith

62. Vowel harmony in Nivkh, Bert Botma and Hidetoshi Shiraishi

63. Vowel harmony in Korean, Seongyeon Ko

64. Vowel harmony in Ainu, Hidetoshi Shiraishi and Bert Botma

65. Vowel harmony in Chukotko-Kamchatkan languages, Michael J. Kenstowicz

66. Vowel harmony in Yukaghir, Irina Nikolaeva

67. Vowel harmony in Uralic languages, László Fejes, Péter Siptár, and Robert M. Vago

68. Umlaut in Germanic languages, Gunnar Ólafur Hansson and Richard Wiese

69. Vowel harmony in Romance languages, Stefano Canalis, Jesús Jiménez, Maria-Rosa Lloret, and Margaret E. L. Renwick

70. Vowel harmony in Basque, José Ignacio Hualde

71. Vowel harmony in Greek, Anthi Revithiadou

72. Vowel harmony in Armenian, Bert Vaux and Ariwan Addy Suhairi

73. Vowel harmony in Caucasian languages, Marika Butskhrikidze

74. Vowel harmony in Australian languages, Rob Pensalfini

75. Vowel harmony in Papuan languages, Marian Klamer

76. Vowel harmony in Austronesian languages, Emily Gasser