Vowel harmony in the Kihnu variety of Estonian: A corpus study
Published in Linguistica Uralica, 2023
Recommended citation: Vesik, K. (2023). Vowel harmony in the Kihnu variety of Estonian: A corpus study. Linguistica Uralica, 59(3), 181-199. https://dx.doi.org/10.3176/lu.2023.3.02 https://kirj.ee/wp-content/plugins/kirj/pub/ling-2023-3-181-199_20230910135940.pdf?v=3e8d115eb4b3
This paper investigates back/front vowel harmony in the Kihnu variety of Estonian. Data from the Estonian Dialect Corpus are analyzed to inform the description of harmony in this dialect, a phenomenon that has been understudied in the literature. Previously reported patterns of categorical harmony (/u/-/y/ and /ɑ/-/æ/ pairs) and transparency (/i/) are confirmed. However, the corpus provides insufficient direct evidence to either support or refute previous descriptions of the /o/-/ø/ pair as non-participatory. Subtleties of a relationship previously described as variable (/e/-/ɤ/ pair) are explored in more depth, with /e/ proposed as a second transparent vowel. Vowel harmony is also explored in Kihnu Estonian’s rich inventory of diphthongs, with intra-syllabic harmony in diphthongs shown to occur at a similar rate to that of inter-syllabic harmony between monophthongs.