Phonology: case studies

Turkish vowel harmony

In this module, we examine a phenomenon of vowel harmony that occurs in Turkish. In cases of vowel harmony, aspects of a vowel's quality are determined by qualities of another vowel, usually the vowel preceding or following it in the same word. Turkish has a symmetrical inventory of eight vowels, shown in (1).

(1)	Turkish has an inventory of eight vowel phonemes:

	[-back]		[+back]
[+high]	i	y	ɨ	u
[-high]	e	ø		o
[+low]			a
	--	LAB/[+rd]	--	LAB/[+rd]

The full set of forms that we will consider in this section is shown in (2). The nominative (nom) forms are unaffixed; each consists only of a free root morpheme. (Nominative is the case assigned to the subject of the verb.) The suffix marking possession by a 2nd person singular possessor (2nd singular gen) is the -Vn sequence following the root (I will refer to this simply as the genitive suffix, or just gen, in tables). Forms not designated as plurals are nonplural (in most cases, singular) forms.

(2)

Last root V		Nom		Gen		Nom Plural		Gen Plur	Gloss
[i]		ip		ipin		ipler		iplerin	'rope'
		tjilci		tjilcin		tjilciler		tjilcilerin	'fox'
[e]		el		elin		eller		ellerin	'hand'
		cep		cepin		cepler		ceplerin	'cap'
[y]		jyz		jyzyn		jyzler		jyzlerin	'face'
		ɟyt͡ʃ		ɟyd͡ʒyn		ɟyt͡ʃler		ɟyt͡ʃlerin	'power'
[ø]		cøj		cøjyn		cøjler		cøjlerin	'village'
		ɟøz		ɟøzyn		ɟøzler		ɟøzlerin	'eye'
[ɨ]		kɨz		kɨzɨn		kɨzlar		kɨzlarɨn	'girl'
		arɨ		arɨn		arɨlar		arɨlarɨn	'bee'
[a]		t͡ʃan		t͡ʃanɨn		t͡ʃanlar		t͡ʃanlarɨn	'bell'
		sap		sapɨn		saplar		saplarɨn	'stalk'
[u]		pul		pulun		pullar		pullarɨn	'stamp'
		boru		borun		borular		borularɨn	'pipe'
[o]		son		sonun		sonlar		sonlarɨn	'end'
		jol		jolun		jollar		jollarɨn	'road'

The final column of every chart containing examples provides a gloss for the noun root alone. As a model, the four forms for rope can be glossed as follows (from left to right): rope; your (singular) rope; ropes; your (singular) ropes.

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