ATR vowel harmony in Akposso
This paper presents a description of the vowel harmony system of Akposso (Uwi), a Kwa language of Ghana and Togo, one of only a handful of Kwa languages with a complete ten vowel system with ATR harmony. However, the tenth vowel, hi, does not function as the harmonic counterpart of the low [-ATR] ce...
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| Formato: | article |
| Lenguaje: | EN FR |
| Publicado: |
LibraryPress@UF
1999
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| Materias: | |
| Acceso en línea: | https://doaj.org/article/c498e99ca56c46259238296e8d94e829 |
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| Sumario: | This paper presents a description of the vowel harmony system of Akposso (Uwi), a Kwa language of Ghana and Togo, one of only a handful of Kwa languages with a complete ten vowel system with ATR harmony. However, the tenth vowel, hi, does not function as the harmonic counterpart of the low [-ATR] central vowel lal in affixes as it does in other ten vowel languages with crossheight vowel harmony systems. Rather, in some instances Ia! alternates with lei in [+ATR] contexts, while in other instances it surfaces invariably as lal in both [-ATR] and l +ATR] contexts. Formant measurements show the [+ATR] central vowel occupying the mid area of acoustic space, thus adding some support to the view that [+ATR] central vowels in ATR harmony systems are phonetically nonlow rather than low, the more widely-assumed position. Although vowel harmony applies to a significant number of affixes, especially in the verb morphology, there are interesting limitations on how far harmony extends. |
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