Vowel Harmony in Pre-Generative Phonology

Abstract

Abstract This chapter surveys descriptions of vowel harmony (VH) in three pre-generative frameworks: Boasian Descriptivism, American Structuralism (AS), and Firthian Prosodic Analysis (PA). In the absence of any general discussion of harmony in these traditions, the chapter examines their analyses of individual languages with an eye to what they reveal about the underlying approaches, with a focus on AS and PA. For AS, the segmental phoneme is the basic unit of phonological representation, entailing a conception of harmony as a segmental alternation. For the languages surveyed (Yawelmani Yokuts, Hungarian, Turkish), VH is stated at an abstract morphophonemic level. In PA a phonological expression is factored into segment-like phonematic units overlaid by stretches of phonetic features termed prosodies. VH is analyzed by specifying the edges of these prosodic domains. The chapter discusses PA analyses of three canonical harmonies (Turkish, Akan, Igbo) as well as a consonant-induced prosody in Tigre.