The Even Yearbook 12 (2016)
#97
volume: 12 (2016)
pages: 1–10
author: Ágnes Benkő
title: A typological review of the phonetic characteristics of neutral vowels
keywords: vowel harmony, neutral vowels, typology, phonetic experiments
abstract: This paper focuses on neutral vowels in various vowel harmony languages. A review is presented with a focus on recent experimental findings, which describe the phonetic characteristics of neutral vowels. Neutral vowels are traditionally thought of as non-participating segments; however, examinations of neutral vowels in several vowel harmony languages show that neutral vowels are slightly different with respect to the harmonic feature in different harmonic environments, which may indicate that neutral vowels also participate in vowel harmony at a phonetic level. Phonetic experiments also imply that the distinction between participating and non-participating vowels is not simply a question of whether the vowel shows transparent or opaque behaviour, and a finer distinction of neutral vowels may be necessary.
PDF: full text
raw text: 16be-raw
refs: ⟨BibTeX⟩
⟨RIS⟩
⟨txt⟩
