Xinkan Vowel Harmony Revisited

Keywords

Xinkan languages, mesoamerica, lingusitics

Abstract

The Xinkan languages have been described as exhibiting a unique type of vowel harmony within the Mesoamerican linguistic area. However, these analyses have not considered the phonologically complementary distribution of vowels, leading to proposals suggesting that two separate constraints are needed: lexical stipulation within morphemes and harmonic assimilation between morphemes. However, a more unified analysis of Xinkan vowel harmony is possible—one involving only four contrastive vowels and an extrasegmental feature [-high], rather than the six vowels posited previously.

Original Publication Citation

" Xinkan vowel harmony revisited, submitted to Journal of Anthropological Linguistics; submitted March 2018, revisions requested June 2018."

Document Type

Peer-Reviewed Article

Publication Date

2018

Publisher

Anthropological Linguistics

Language

English

College

Humanities

Department

Linguistics

University Standing at Time of Publication

Assistant Professor

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