11 geographical and to an unknown extent genetic context. See especially §7.3 in which I
give more details about some of the vowel harmony differences between these languages and also discuss some possible histories of these language groups and how they might
have influenced the present state of Ikoma’s vowel system.
1.4 Theoretical and typological background
In this section I give background to many of the assumptions and terms which I rely on throughout this description. In particular, I am interested in the typology of African
vowel harmony systems and in the expectations that we might have for a 7V language with Ikoma’s inventory. As we will see, the analysis proposed in this thesis is that Ikoma
has the seven-vowel system i e a o u and seems to exhibit unusual forms of both [-ATR] and [+ATR] dominance.
In the following sub-sections, I draw together a number of different perspectives which help us to place Ikoma vowel harmony within its typological context. I begin with
a discussion of the issue of [ATR] markedness, which plays a significant role in the discussion of vowel harmony §1.4.1. I then briefly introduce the most common types of
vowel harmony systems in African languages §1.4.2, as well as the history of the debate between tongue root and height features in vowel harmony descriptions §1.4.3. See §1.5
for a preview of the results of the thesis, especially concerning how Ikoma’s harmony patterns do and do not match the typological expectations.
1.4.1 Markedness and dominance
Typological and theoretical issues in the discussion of vowel harmony are closely related to the idea of markedness. Essentially, vowel harmony can often be described in terms of
an asymmetric dominance of one feature or value of a feature over another, and these
12 types of asymmetries are central to the concept of markedness. In this section I review
phonological markedness, focusing on different uses of the term and on criteria commonly used to diagnose marked and unmarked segments and features, such as those
relating to phonological assimilations and distributional differences. I rely primarily on recent overviews of the concept of markedness by Rice 2007
and Hume 2011. As Rice explains, the term generally refers to “the central observation that not all elements in a phonological system are of equal status” 2007 79. Beyond this
basic concept, however, the terms “marked” and “unmarked” are used in very different ways. Hume notes three primary usages of the term, which are “descriptive markedness,”
“theoretical markedness” and the family of “markedness constraints” within the Optimality Theory framework. I do not address the OT usage here. Theoretical
markedness is concerned with universal principles governing language acquisition, inventory structure, etc., whereas descriptive markedness the main interest of this thesis
is more concerned with the asymmetric patterning of segments and features within specific languages.
As both Hume and Rice note, criteria for determining markedness relations can be quite controversial, but some criteria are widely accepted. Concerning phonological
patterning, Hume 2011 90 explains “the asymmetrical patterning of features and sounds in inventories and phonological processes has served as the basis for predicting
markedness relations.” More specifically, common criteria for distinguishing marked and unmarked segmentsfeatures is that “the unmarked member of an opposition patterns
differently than other members in being the target of phonological processes” e.g. assimilation, whereas “marked features are assumed to resist modification” 90,
13 emphasis in original. In other words, one of the main ideas associated with
descriptivefeatural markedness is that the active value of a feature is marked, whereas the inactive or inert feature is unmarked. The active versus inactive distinction is similar
to the concept of dominance, which is used synonymously with “markedness” throughout this thesis. In terms of [ATR] harmony in particular, the active, spreading value can be
described as “dominant” since it is preserved and “wins out” over the inactive, recessive value. The active value is markeddominant, whereas the inactive value is
unmarkedrecessive.
8
Aside from asymmetric patterning in alternations, another relevant criteria is that the marked featuresegment is often less frequent and has a more limited distribution,
whereas the unmarked featuresegment is more frequent and has a greater distribution. Some also predict that unmarked featuressegments will have a greater occurrence in
stems and affixes, whereas marked featuressegments might only occur in stems but not affixes Rice 2007; Beckman 1997; Steriade 1995. Note that distributional differences
seem to be more widely accepted as markedness criteria than are frequency differences. Finally, Rice 2007 82 uses another set of different and helpful terminology to
describe three different phenomena which are evidence of featural markedness, which are ‘the emergence of the unmarked’ e.g. passive neutralization and epenthesis, ‘the
submergence of the unmarked’ e.g. asymmetries in assimilation and coalescence and ‘the transparency of the unmarked’ e.g. non-local assimilation which ignores unmarked
features. In this thesis in particular, the first two of these three concepts are helpful,
8
Note that this use of the terms “marked” and “unmarked” is the opposite of that found in Bakovic 2000, which is an important recent work on vowel harmony.
14 especially in the consideration of different types of neutralization in noun stems see
§4.1. As a final point of clarification, it is important to note my equation of the terms
“marked” and “dominant,” as mentioned above. Because marked features and segments are often identified by their dominant, active behavior, a common assumption is that the
marked features in a language are the dominant ones. Therefore, in later chapters I use evidence of [ATR] markedness as a diagnostic for determining [ATR] dominance. See
Chapter 7 for more discussion on this point.
1.4.2 Types of African vowel systems
