Schwas in Moro Vowel Harmony
نویسندگان
چکیده
Moro is a Kordofanian language spoken in the Nuba Mountains of Sudan. It has a vowel height harmony system that presents an intriguing challenge due to the dual nature of the central schwa vowel. Schwas in some morphemes can trigger vowel harmony, while schwas in other morphemes do not. In addition, schwas can appear with both sets of harmonic vowels within morphemes, raising the issue of whether these vowels are transparent to harmony or whether they participate in and are affected by vowel harmony. In this paper, we present an acoustic analysis of schwas in different verb roots, and propose that Moro has two kinds of schwas, a higher one that raises vowels, and a lower one that does not. We also propose that “transparent” vowels participate in the vowel harmony system, and are acoustically affected by harmony.
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