The phonology of vocalic height in Kikuria

Abstract

Vowel height harmony is common in Bantu languages, but the language Kikuria has a particularly rich system of vowel height alternations, which are described in this paper. Included in the height-related phonology of the language are three regressive height harmonies and one progressive harmony. Certain of these processes are triggered by glides and palatal consonants, while for other processes these consonants are transparent, and stem-initial vowels behave exceptionally for some, but not all, of these processes.

Keywords

• vowel harmony
• vowel height
• Kikuria