200 In §6.4.1 below, I begin by describing the patterns of raising caused by these
suffixes. In §6.4.2 I then move into a more-detailed discussion of the reasons for analyzing raising as categorical and raising as gradient.
6.4.1 Description of the patterns
Both high vowels in Ikoma have the same effects on preceding vowels; both [i] and [u] are invariant and cause some level of raising. The four high-vowel suffixes are listed in
165 below, repeated from 145 above. 165
Verbal suffixes which trigger root vowel alternations
Causative -i
Passive -u
root vowel: e
Perfective -i i
Agentive -i
The causative, passive and agentive are derivational affixes. The causative and passive are used to modify the verb’s meaning and valency, whereas the agentive suffix is added
to the verb root, changing the verb to an agentive noun, meaning ‘a person who…’. The agentive suffix can be added to any verb, assuming the speaker can conceive of a person
who might do the particular action involved.
76
Along with the agentive suffix, the Class 1 prefix omo- is added as well, and it takes the regular Class 2 plural prefix a a-. The
76
The agentive is a productive suffix, but it has also resulted in a number of lexicalized nouns in the language. It is obvious that a number of the examples of mid-vowel raising in noun stems in §4.2 were
historically composed of a verb root in combination with the agentive suffix. In that section, I conclude that both front and back [-ATR] mid vowels are categorically raised. In this section, however, I deal more with
the agentive as a synchronically productive suffix, since it appears to have the same behavior as the other three high-vowel suffixes in this section. These suffixes cause raising of , but not , which is different
than the symmetric raising in noun stems. This raises the question of whether or not the agentive nouns follow the symmetric noun-stem pattern or the asymmetric verbal pattern. The answer to this question is
not fully understood at this time. Much of the confusion lies in the difficulty of determining whether or not the raising is gradient or categorical, which is the topic of this section.
201 perfective is an inflectional TA suffix. It is used for the perfective aspect, and the suffix
also combines with an a- prefix to form the past tense. Because my goal in this section is primarily to describe the vowel harmony
patterns related to high-vowel suffixes, which are quite consistent from one suffix to the next, I list the examples all together instead of looking at each one individually. In 166
below, examples of verbs with each different root vowel are shown in combination with these four suffixes. I also include the infinitive form of each verb in order to see the
unraised form of each root. The examples show one of the two verbs per vowel which are used in the vowel formant analysis presented below. These are the same verbs used in
other example sets throughout the chapter. 166
Examples of verbs with high-vowel suffixes N
N N
N J
J J
J .
. .
. H
H H
H 9
2 : 8
8 8
. :
8 8
8 8
8 9
8 8
8 8
8 8
8 8
8 8
8 8
8
Recall from §2.2.3 that Ikoma has a unique variation from the more typical causative and passive forms. The FV [-a] does not occur following these two derivational suffixes, so
the process of glide formation does not happen in these Ikoma verb forms. Instead, the causative [-i] and passive [-u] replace the FV.
In the perfective examples, instead of the infinitive prefix, the 1P subject prefix to- is used. The vowel of this prefix alternates just like that of the infinitive and all other
202 alternating prefixes. The verb is also preceded by the nasal prefix [n-], which is a regular
part of a number of affirmative, independent verb forms. See §2.2.2 for an overview of inflectional verb morphology.
Concerning vowel harmony, we find the same pattern for all four suffixes. Roots with underlying are raised to [e], and the front mid vowels merge. Roots with
underlying are gradiently raised, but they do not categorically merge with o. Phonetic data supporting these claims is given further below. Recall that we saw similar
mid-vowel raising in §4.2 when looking at noun stem co-occurrence patterns, but in that case there was symmetrical neutralization. There we saw that both and are raised
when followed by [i u]. In the case of noun stems as well as these verb root alternations, stem vowel alternations do not affect prefix alternations. Even when an underlyingly
[-ATR] root becomes [+ATR], the prefix vowel remains high as if there were still a [-ATR] vowel in the root see §5.1.1.
77
Vowel formant measurements support the root vowel alternations described above. The table in 167 below shows the average formant values of all seven vowels in
V1 position, with measurements from Speaker B. The first column shows average V1 measurements in basic infinitive verbs which have the FV [-a]. Each additional column
gives the V1 measurements for each vowel when the verb root is followed by each of the four high-vowel suffixes. Each of the averages below is from approximately six tokens
77
A single prefix harmony exception has been found. The passive form of the monosyllabic verb [ku- ] ‘to eat’ is [ko- ee- u] ‘to be eaten.’ The suffix [- u] is an allomorph of the passive suffix [-u], and it is used to
retain CV syllable structure when the suffix follows a vowel. Just like the normal passive form, [- u] causes the root vowel to become [+ATR], but the interesting thing to note here is that the prefix changes in
the passive form. This is different than the normal case in which the prefix remains high and is unaffected by stem changes.
203 per vowel from three V1 tokens per verb, with two verbs per root vowel. The same two
verb roots per vowel were used with each suffix. 167
Verb root vowel averages with different verbal suffixes Speaker B
Basic CVC-a
Causative CVC-i
Passive CVC-u
Perfective CVC-i i
Agentive CVC-i
M MM
M M
MM M
M MM
M M
MM M
M MM
M M
MM M
M MM
M M
MM M
M MM
M M
MM M
314 2413
03 +
404 1968
3 0+
3 3
476 1769
+ 3
3 +
3+ 3
282 689
+ +
+ 03
408 882
+0 00
033 3
467 967
33 3 3
3 637
1382 +
03 I have highlighted the two rows in focus, which show averages for underlying and
root vowels. When scanning across these two rows, we see significant F1 lowering for both of these vowels preceding the high-vowel suffixes compared to the F1 average of
the basic verbs. However, when the front and back mid-vowel pairs are compared, it becomes more clear that and e formant averages are closer to one another than the
and o averages. These averages are more easily compared in the five vowel plots in 168 below.
168 Plotted V
a V1 with FV -a
c V1 with passive -u
d V1 averages with suffixes b
V1 with causa
u d
V1 with perfec 204
sative -i
rfective -i i
e V1 with agentive -i
Comparing thes the front mid vowels te
back mid vowels tend t raised to some degree.
underlying [+ATR] vow lower across the board
whether or not all root does that inform our un
all seven vowels have a that this general F1 low
slightly raised, likely b even advancing of the t
target. Across-the-boa i
hese plots leads to a number of interesting point tend to merge in the environment of these suff
d to keep more space between them, even when . In fact, looking more broadly at the stem vow
vowels as well, it is interesting to note that F1 m rd for all vowels, not just [-ATR] vowels. This
ot vowels are affected by these high-vowel suff understanding of the raising of and ? Bas
e a lower F1 when they occur with all four suff lowering is the result of co-articulation. That is,
because of anticipatory raising of the tongue b e tongue root, in preparation for reaching the h
oard co-articulation is not, however, the end of 205
ints. First, notice that uffixes, whereas the
hen has clearly been owel measurements of
1 measurements are is raises the question of
uffixes, and if so, how ased on the the fact that
uffixes, it is likely that is, all vowels are
e body, and perhaps high-vowel articulation
of the story.
206 The table in 169 below shows the average amount of raising in Hertz which
occurs for all seven root vowels, calculated by subtracting the average F1 of the raised vowels from the F1 average of the unraised vowels, using the figures from 167 above.
Note that I have included the amount of difference for the root vowel before the subjunctive suffix as well.
169 Amount of F1 change of root vowels resulting from suffixes in Hz
K K
K K
K K
K K
. .
. .
K K
K K
H H
H H
K K
K K
-; . -; .
-; . -; .
K K
K K
M MM
M M
MM M
M MM
M M
MM M
M MM
M +
3 +
30 +
+ 3
3 When comparing the rows for o and , the amount of change in F1 is similar for many
of the suffixes, though the biggest difference is with the subjunctive. However, when comparing e and , the amount of raising is always much greater for , which allows
the two to arrive at much closer F1 averages. In general, we see evidence of wide-scale vowel raising of all vowels before [i u],
which suggests that some level of co-articulation is at work for all seven root vowels. However, because of the degree of raising and apparent merging of some of the mid
vowels in vowel plots above, we must ask whether and are only gradiently i.e. phonetically raised like the other vowels, or if there is any evidence that there is a
categorical i.e. phonological change of either. This is an important point which has
207 significant implications for an analysis of Ikoma vowel harmony. Therefore, in the
following section I approach this issue from a number of perspectives, examining the evidence for clues concerning how best to understand the raising of and . I conclude
below that does in fact categorically assimilate to the following [+ATR] vowel, which results in neutralization of the [ATR] contrast between and e. However, the same is
not true for the back vowels. Though is clearly raised to some degree, it does not merge with o in the harmonic environment.
Before moving on, recall that in noun stem harmony §4.2 there is a difference between raising in long and short vowels. In this chapter, I deal with raising only in the
context of short vowels. More research is needed to dertermine whether or not long vowels in verbs undergo the same raising as short vowels or if they are resistant to it, as
in noun stems. Note also that the question of categorical versus gradient assimilation comes up in terms of a raising as well. This is a different issue altogether, and it is
relevant not only in verbs, but also in noun stems and prefixes. Therefore, I deal with low-vowel raising separately in §6.7 below.
6.4.2 Evidence of categorical and gradient assimilation
