Chapter 5 Vowel Harmony in Deori
5.3 Descriptive facts
5.3.4 Co-occurrence restrictions of vowels in derived domain
This section mainly highlights how the suffixal vowel induce vowel harmony in Deori by triggering a change in the [-ATR] specification of the vowels of the preceding syllables. Similar to the underived words it is also expected that [-high +ATR] vowels [e] and [o] are realized in the context of a following [+high +ATR] vowel in the derived domain. The root vowel undergoes vowel harmony change and agrees with the feature agreement of the suffixal vowel. In this section, vowel harmony in verbs will be discussed. Verbal roots are both monosyllabic and disyllabic in Deori and they inflect for tense and not for person. This section will show longer derived word sequences that will validate the directionality of vowel harmony in Deori.
5.3.4.1 Vowel harmony in verbs
In Deori, suffixes such as - ε and -ɹɔm are used to denote past tense/perfect aspect and the use of these suffixes are determined by the transitivity of the verb (Jacquesson, 2005; Wood, 2008).
The suffix -ɹɔm is attached to intransitive verbs and -bεm is attached to transitive verbs.
Furthermore, the suffixes -bεm and -ɹɔm changes to -mɛm and -nɔm respectively depending on
the nasality of the preceding vowel. Wood (2008) states that it is difficult to say whether these two suffixes refer to a past distinction or some kind of perfective aspect. At first, we discuss the monosyllabic verb roots followed by the disyllabic verb roots. Root verb consists of the following vowels /i/, /u/, /ε/, /ɔ/, /ɑ/. There are no monosyllabic roots with [-high +ATR] vowel [e] and [o]. The verbal roots containing each of the five contrastive vowels are mentioned below.
(45) Verbal conjugations in monosyllabic roots
Root vowel /ɑ/ /ɔ/ /u/ /ε/ /i/
ɦɑ kɔ ku kɛ dzi
‘eat’ ‘pluck’ ‘fall’ ‘go’ ‘buy’
Simple
Present ɦɑ.i ko.i ku.i ke.i dzi.i
Imperative ɦɑ.bε kɔ.bε ku.ɹɔ kɛ.ɹɔ dzi.bε Past ɦɑ.bε.m55 kɔ.bε.m ku.ɹɔ.m kɛ.ɹɔ.m dzi.bε.m
Future ɦɑ.n56 kɔ.n ku.n kɛ.n dzi.n
Future ɦɑ.ku.n ko.ku.n ku.ku.n ke.ku.n dzi.ku.n Perfect
Present
Progressive ɦɑ.ɹi ko.ɹi ku.ɹi ke.ɹi dzi.ɹi Past
Perfect ɦɑ.ɹu.m.dε57 ko.ɹu.m.dε ku.ɹu.m.dε ke.ɹu.m.dε dzi.ɹu.m.dε
In the verb paradigms above, the [+high +ATR] vowel /i/ always trigger a change in the preceding [-ATR] vowels /ε/ and /ɔ/ as in ke-ɹi and ko-ɹi but not in the following [-ATR] vowels /ε/ and /ɔ/ as in dzi- ε and ku- ε. The /e…i/ sequence which is not attested in the underived domain is present in the derived domain as in ke-ɹi “go.PRES PROG”, ko-ɹi “pluck. PRES PROG” etc. Some additional examples with /e…i/ sequence are, for example, le-ɹi ‘give.PRES PROG’, se- ɹi ‘spread. PRES PROG’,je-ɹi ‘bite. PRES PROG’etc. These examples show that [-high +ATR] vowel [e] occurs when followed by [+high +ATR] vowels /i/ and /u/. Verbs in Deori inflect in the order of Root+Aspect(Perfective/Progressive)+Tense. The verbal inflections of Deori are presented in (46) to provide a clearer picture of their occurrences.
55 /m/ is Perfective Predicative marker.
56 /n/ is Imperfect Predicative marker.
57 Following Jacquesson 2005 , we consider /dɛ/ as an enclitic Jacquesson 2005 .
(46) Morphological Markers in verbal conjugations in Deori Tense/Aspect Markers
Simple Present /-i/
Past /-m/
Future /-n/
Present Progressive /-ɹi/ /-n / Past Perfect /-ɹu/ /-nu / Future Perfect /-ku/
Imperative /-bɛ/ /-mɛ /, /-ɹɔ/ /-nɔ /
Similar to the monosyllabic roots, words in the disyllabic roots also agree with the [±ATR] feature as presented in (47) below:
(47) Verbal conjugations in disyllabic roots
A similar pattern is also observed in the disyllabic verbal roots. The verb roots consist of the vowels /i/, /u/, /ε/, /ɔ/ and /ɑ/ and outputs with [e] and [o] occur after inflection.
Root vowel /ɑ/ /ɔ/ /u/ /ε/ /i/
n ɑ ɔdzɔ g ɦidzɛ itɔ
‘cook’ ‘play’ ‘swim’ ‘see’ ‘look’
Simple n ɑ . odzo.i g . ɦidze . ito.i Present
Imperative n ɑ .mɛ ɔdzɔ.bε g .mɛ ɦidzɛ .mɛ itɔ.bε Past n ɑ .mɛ .m ɔdzɔ.bε.m g .mɛ .m ɦidzɛ .mɛ .m itɔ.bε.m Future n ɑ .n ɔdzɔ.n g .n ɦidzɛ .n itɔ.n Future n ɑ .ku.n odzo.ku.n g .ku.n ɦidze .ku.n itɔ.ku.n Perfect
Past
Progressive n ɑ .n odzo.ɹi g j .n ɦidzɛ .n ito.ɹi Past
Perfect n ɑ .nu .m.dɛ odzo.ɹu.m.dɛ g j .nu .m.dɛ ɦidzɛ .nu .m.dɛ itɔ.ɹu.m.dɛ
From the above examples in (47), it is evident that the [+high +ATR] vowel in the suffix induces vowel harmony by triggering a change in the [-ATR] specification of the vowels of the preceding root vowels, but not vice-versa. The verbal root ɔdzɔ changes to odzoi in the simple present form when the present tense marker /i/ gets affixed to it. Similarly, the verbal root ɦidzɛ changes to ɦid e .i in the simple present form but we do not get *ɦid e . because in this case the intervening nasal consonant and the nasal vowel are blocking the harmonic feature from propagating further.
Vowel harmony blocking by intervening nasal consonants will be discussed in detail in section 5.3.6. It is to be noted that the occurrence of the consonant -ɹ and -n in the verbal suffix -ɹi and - ni and -b and -m in the verbal suffix - ε and - ε is determined by the preceding [+nasal]
vowel. If the preceding vowel is nasalized, the following suffixal consonant surfaces as /n/ as in ɦidzɛ .ni, and if the preceding suffixal vowel is oral than the following suffixal consonant surfaces as [ɹ] as in odzo.ɹi. Similarly, the past progressive marker u dε is used when the preceding vowel is nasal and ɹu dε is used when the preceding vowel is oral. More discussion on the suffixal alternation based on the [nasal] feature of the preceding vowel will ensue in the next chapter.
Apart from the verbal inflection discussed above, some verbal roots are inflected with more than one suffix to denote a complete action. These verbal inflections show the occurrence of /o…e...i/ and /o…e…u/ which shows that the vowels to the extreme left also agree with the [±ATR]feature.
(48) equences of /o…e...i/, /e…o…i/
Root Gloss Inflected form
bɔ.tε58.ɹi ‘kill.action. PROG’ boteɹi jɔ.tε.ɹi ‘cut.action.PROG’ joteɹi bɔ.tε.dzu59 ‘beat.action.reciprocate’ botedzu jɔ.tε.dzu ‘cut.action.reciprocate’ jotedzu
In (48), the vowel on the root form and the vowel of the suffix tε agrees with the following [+ATR] high vowel /i/ and /u/ respectively. Similar to the underived domain, in derived domain too there are no words with vowel sequence /o…i…ɔ/ and /e…u…ɛ/ which would have been good test words to determine the directionality of the spreading. However, based on the available vowel sequences we conclude that [+high + ATR] vowel /i/ and /u/ can always trigger harmony on all preceding [-ATR] vowels thereby instantiating the fact that Deori exhibits regressive [ATR] harmony.
58 tε suffix denotes a complete action and it mainly affixes with verbs which means ‘kill’
59 dzu means reciprocate action.