음성음운형태론연구 19집 2호 Lee, Minkyung

Lee, Minkyung. 2013. Akan ATR harmony in serial harmony: No direction-specific blocking effect. Studies in Phonetics, Phonology and Morphology 19.2. 295-315. 

Vowel harmony (VH) as assimilation through feature spreading is not parallel

but serial in Harmonic Serialism (HS), a derivational OT model. In HS, harmonic

feature propagation is iterative via the multiple passes of Gen and Eval loop, thus VH

in HS guarantees serial harmony (SH). [ATR] harmony in Akan is controlled by the

[ATR] value of a root vowel. If a root vowel is [+ATR], all the vowels from a root to

affixes agree in [+ATR], otherwise the default [-ATR] takes place, instead. In an HS

derivation, harmony-inducing constraint Share-Domain causes root-internal VH

while Share-Juncture incurs root-outward VH. At a juncture, feature spreading

operates in different path of derivation, i.e., unidirectional in each path, thus it is

further split off to suffix and prefix given Akan morphology in which a prefix is

added to the stem with a suffixed root. Furthermore, low vowel varies in its behavior;

/a/ undergoes [ATR] harmony before [+ATR] while it is opaque after [+ATR] with no

its [ATR] agreement. [ATR] harmony in low vowel is not attributed to feature

spreading, rather to feature licensing and top-ranked grounding constraints. In

essence, direction-specific blocking effect and bidirectionality that Align in parallel

OT reveals are not supportive in HS. (Daegu University)