Advanced and Retracted Tongue Root - Tongue Root Position and Vowel Harmony

Tongue Root Position and Vowel Harmony

As mentioned above, many African languages, such as Maasai, have systems of vowel harmony based on tongue root position. This is illustrated here with the Fante dialect of Akan, which has fifteen vowels: five +ATR vowels, five −ATR vowels, and five nasal vowels.

Fante ±ATR vowels
Ortho-
graphy		 +ATR
value		 −ATR
value		 Approx. European
equivalent
i /i̘/
e /e̘/ /i/ ,
ɛ /e/
a /a̘/ /a/ ,
ɔ /o/
o /o̘/ /u/ ,
u /u̘/

There are two harmonization rules that govern which vowels may co-occur in a word:

  1. All −ATR vowels become +ATR when followed by a peripheral +ATR vowel (/i̘ a̘ u̘/). That is, orthographic e ɛ a ɔ o become i e a o u before i u and sometimes before a.
  2. As long as it does not conflict with the previous rule, the +ATR mid vowels (/e̘ o̘/) become −ATR high vowels (/i u/) when preceded by a −ATR non-high vowel (/e a o/). (This is not reflected in the orthography, for underlying and surface vowels are both spelled e o.)

In the Twi dialect, the ±ATR distinction has merged in the low vowel, so that /a/ is harmonically neutral, occurring with either set of vowels. In addition, the two vowels written e (/e̘/ and /i/) and o (/o̘/ and /u/) are often not distinguished, being approximately equivalent to European and, as reflected in the orthography; for such people the second harmonization rule does not apply.

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