Uralic vowel harmony database

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= 5.2. Transparency

^ ^ Finn. ^ Seto ^ Er. ^ HMr ^ MMr ^ Ud. ^ Hun. ^ SMn ^ SKh ^ VKh ^ Nga. ^ Ka. ^
^ F/B. | i, e | i | 0 | 0 | ə̆ | 0 | i(ː) > eː > ɛ  | ? | (i, e) | 0 | 0 | i |
^ R%%|%%T | – | – | – | – | ə̆ | – | 0 | ? | – | – | 0 | 0 | 

  ; Hungarian F/B harmony
  : /i/ is harmonic, however, two vowels can be opaque: /ɒli-nɒk/ ~ */ɒli-nɛk/ ‘Ali-DAT’ but /ɒlibi-nɒk/ ~ /ɒlibi-nɛk/ ‘alibi-DAT’. Marginally even one /i/ can be opaque: /minusinsk-bɒn/ ~ /minusinsk-bɛn/ ‘Minusinsk-INE’. The vowel /eː/ is usually transparent in native words and older loanwords: /kɑːveː-nɒk/ ~ */kɑːveː-nɛk/ ‘coffee-DAT’. Nonetheless, at least in some more recent loanwords, it can be opaque: /ɒrzeːn-nɒk/ ~ /ɒrzeːn-nɛk/ ‘arsenic-DAT’. In a sequence with /i/, it can be either vacillating (both transparent and opaque), or just opaque (but never just transparent):  /mɒtineːn-nɒk/ ~ /mɒtineːn-nɛk/ ‘matinée-DAT’,  */oksigeːn-nɒk/ ~ /oksigeːn-nɛk/. The vowel /ɛ/ can stand in a stem after back vowel only in loanwords. One /ɛ/ can be vacillating or opaque:  /fotɛl-nɒk/ ~ /fotɛl-nɛk/ ‘armchair-DAT’, */ko:dɛks-nɒk/ ~ /ko:dɛks-nɛk/ ‘codex-DAT’. However, a sequence of two vowels /ɛ/ is always opaque: */novɛmbɛr-bɒn/ ~ /novɛmbɛr-bɛn/ ‘november-INE’. (Some of the cases presented can be subject to dialectal or idiolectal differences.) To sum up: the lower the vowel, the less likely it is to be transparent (Height Effect); the more potentially transparent vowels are in a sequence, the less likely they are to be transparent (Count Effect).

  ; Southern Khanty
  : The vowels /i/ and /e/ are opaque when they do not undergo allophonic harmony. The allophones [ɨ] and [ɘ] can be both transparent and “opaque” (in the sense that they spread the feature typical for their front phonemic value; however, the interpretation seems to be much more reasonable that they simply fail to spread their phonetic back harmonic feature and the frontness of the following vowel is the result of the defaultness of frontness; cf. [[4.domain/4.2.sloping|§4.2]]).