Bodomo (1997) describes Dagaare (Gur; Ghana) as having a single low vowel, [a], which is neutral to ATR harmony. This paper presents acoustic data from a study of Dagaare <a> which is inconsistent with this description. A list of sentences was elicited from five native speakers of Dagaare. Each sentence contained <a> in one of four verbal particles situated in one of four contexts: ATR _ ATR, ATR _ RTR, RTR _ ATR, and RTR _ RTR. Formants of the low vowel were measured and compared across contexts. Results showed a substantial, significant difference in F1 values and a smaller but still significant difference in F2 values in contexts where <a> is followed by an ATR word compared to when it is followed by an RTR word. All speakers and all particles showed the same pattern. We conclude that, contrary to previous claims, the Dagaare low vowel is not neutral to harmony, but rather has acoustically distinct variants in RTR versus ATR contexts. Bodomo, A. (1997). The structure of Dagaare. California: CSLI publications. [Funded by SSHRC.]

This paper provides a novel perspective on neutrality in vowel harmony, using evidence from Hungarian. Despite the extensive study of Hungarian vowel harmony, the intermediate neutrality of [e:], which can alternate harmonically with [a:], is rarely addressed in existing analyses. While many standard accounts of harmony assume that front unrounded vowels like [e:] are neutral due to the lack of back counterpart, the [a:]~[e:] alternation makes this approach unsupportable. Specifically, since both [a:] and [e:] lack harmonic counterparts, but [a:] participates in harmony by re-pairing to [e:], the theory must explain why [e:] is not consistently harmonic. I argue that this pattern forces a new, target-focused approach, where participation is based on the vowel-specific drive to undergo harmony; neutrality results when this drive is insufficient to force unfaithfulness. This idea is motivated by cross-linguistic and phonetic facts suggesting that vowels that are low and/or rounded are inherently better targets of front/back harmony. I implement this approach formally in Harmonic Grammar; the harmony constraint is scaled by the quality of a vowel as a potential target, parallel to Kimper's (2011) trigger strength scaling. This account can capture not only the basic Hungarian facts, but also the gradience of neutrality (the height effect) and the variability in Hungarian harmony. Moreover, I argue that this view of harmony is necessary beyond Hungarian and beyond front/back harmony: neutrality is crucially about the quality of a vowel as a potential target of harmony, where target quality is determined in a cross-linguistic, phonetically motivated way.

Thank you to Paul Tupper for discussion of the quantification measure, and to Gunnar Hansson, Douglas Pulleyblank, and the attendees of AMP 2018 for feedback on this work.

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This paper contributes to the typology of laryngeal harmony by analysing an unusual case of long-distance laryngeal co-occurrence restrictions and alternations in Lezgian. This pattern, previously unmentioned in the phonological literature, is the first known case of alternations involving ejective harmony. In Lezgian, local processes mask the interaction of ejectives and plain voiceless stops. This is robustly supported by our dictionary analysis, which reveals a ban on the co-occurrence of ejectives and plain voiceless stops within the foot. Both harmony alternations and static co-occurrence restrictions are sensitive to foot structure, unlike previous cases of consonant harmony. Harmony also interacts opaquely with vowel syncope, and certain co-occurrences of plain and ejective stops are resolved with dissimilation rather than harmony, showing a conspiracy to avoid co-occurrences. We demonstrate an account within the Agreement by Correspondence framework and discuss implications for the typology and analysis of consonant harmony.