[+ATR] Dominant Vowel Harmony ExceptWhen It's Not? Evidence from Ethiopian Komo

Abstract

The vast majority of documented Advanced Tongue Root [ATR] vowel harmony systems are found in languages of the Nilo-Saharan and Niger-Congo phyla of sub-Saharan Africa (Casali 2008: 247). Traditionally, the terms root-controlled and dominant-recessive have been employed to categorize ATR harmony systems. In root-controlled (or stem-controlled) systems, affixes assimilate in ATR value to that of the root value (Bakovic 2000: 7). In dominant-recessive ATR harmony systems, the ATR feature value underlyingly specified as dominant systematically causes segments containing the opposite feature value to assimilate, or “harmonize” in particular domains (Halle and Vergnaud 1981, Levergood 1984, Archangeli and Pulleyblank 1994). This paper aims to describe an unusual, heretofore unattested, ATR harmony system found in Ethiopian Komo. Based on original data, this paper will demonstrate that Komo exhibits two distinct and highly productive ATR harmony processes both of which are directionally constrained. The first process is anticipatory, spreading [+ATR] leftward from a [+high, +ATR] vowel to a preceding [-high, -ATR] vowel. The second process is progressive and spreads [-ATR] rightward from a [+high, -ATR] stem vowel to a following [+high, +ATR] suffix vowel. What is particularly significant about Komo ATR harmony is that the same [+high, +ATR] suffix vowels can serve either as triggers of [+ATR] harmony as well as targets of [-ATR] harmony as a function of the vocalic environment in a particular domain. The data will attempt to illustrate that Komo exhibits prototypical [+ATR] dominant harmony except when it doesn’t. Furthermore, this “exception to the rule” does not appear to be idiosyncratic, but rather phonologically conditioned, calling into question the notion of dominance in ATR harmony systems as well as traditional ATR harmony typologies.