Vowel Harmony in the Kihnu Variety of ­Estonian: A Corpus Study

Abstract

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.

Keywords

• estonian dialects; kihnu; corpus: vowel harmony