Essay On Vowel Harmony

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Vowel-Harmony Vowel harmony is a process in which the vowels of two successive syllables in a word become similar in certain ways. It roughly means that the vowels must agree in being either front or back. Both front and back vowels cannot occur in the same word, rather vowels occurring in two syllables share some common qualities in a word. In other words the relation between them is one of degree of openness or closeness of articulation. In other words this is coupled with lip rounding or lack of lip rounding for both the syllables. To put it differently vowel-harmony is a set of vowel assimilation in which one vowel influences another and makes it more similar. There are two types of assimilation: 1. Progressive, in which the assimilated sound follows the assimilating are 2. Regressive, in which the assimilated sound precedes the assimilating sound. Assimilation may be conditioned by an immediately adjacent sound that is called contiguous in contract to non-contiguous sounds. According to Gleason (1868:84) is commonest type of non-contiguous assimilation is vowel-harmony. So far the study of vowel harmony has remained confined largely to the word level. …show more content…

in India. If we look at different languages we will find different pattern of vowel-harmony. Let us take the example of Igbo. According to J. Carnochon (Phonology, Erik C. Fudge p.200) there is a eight vowel system in Igbo. The vowels are / I, e, ɛ, a, ɔ, o, θ, u). It is a fact that vowel-harmony is found in some words or grammatical structures and not in others in this language. Vowel harmony in Igbo is a method of considering the relation between vowel qualities in successive syllables in words spoken in isolation or in certain selected grammatical

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