What is it about?
This is a study of the vowel quality in short vowels in Kera, a Chadic language spoken in Chad. As in most languages, short vowels have a "reduced" quality, all sounding rather similar. However, when there is vowel harmony going on (i.e. some agreement between the vowels as to which ones can appear together), then the intended quality is retained, even if the vowel is short.
Featured Image
Why is it important?
This pattern of retaining the vowel quality where there is vowel harmony is probably repeated in a number of languages, so research into other languages may be fruitful. It is also of interest why it is happening. The suggestion is that vowel harmony is used to mark boundaries of words, which aids the listener in understanding what they are hearing, but vowel harmony needs clear vowels for it to be detected. Therefore the speaker makes more effort to be clear when it might affect understanding.
Perspectives
Kera is a language that I know well, so I was able to look in considerable detail at what was happening. I have also done a much less detailed pilot study on 40 other vowel harmony languages, and they appear to be doing the same thing. My aim is to do a more thorough study in the near future. So I would be interested in feedback from other phonologists.
Mary Pearce
SIL International
Read the Original
This page is a summary of: Effects of harmony on reduction in Kera, Linguistic Variation, December 2012, John Benjamins,
DOI: 10.1075/lv.12.2.05pea.
You can read the full text:
Contributors
The following have contributed to this page
