Proto-Berber Mid Vowel Harmony

Abstract

The Berber nominal prefix allomorphs a-/ta- and e-/te- have been shown to be phonetically conditioned (Van Putten 2016). This paper will examine other cases of the Berber vowel e where it shows interchange with the vowel a, and will try to show that these alternations must also be seen as phonetically conditioned allophones of each other, through a process of what will be called Mid Vowel Harmony. The majority of attested cases of the vowel e in Berber can be understood as the result of this shift of *a to e. Some cases of a reconstructible *e remain, which cannot be explained as the result of Mid Vowel Harmony.

Keywords

• Berber
• Proto-Berber
• Historical Linguistics
• Vowel Harmony
• Historical Phonology