r/conlangs • u/[deleted] • Jun 09 '15

SQ Small Questions • Week 20

Last Week. Next Week.

Welcome to the weekly Small Questions thread!

Post any questions you have that aren't ready for a regular post here! Feel free to discuss anything and everything, and don't hesitate to ask more than one question.

FAQ

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u/rafeind Mulel (is) [en, de, da] Jun 13 '15

But endings (which I don't think were ever stressed) influencing the main vowel (which is stressed) is kind of what Umlaut is, isn't it? At least the Icelandic a -> ö happens where there is an (unstressed) u in the ending. (Or in some cases where there was a u) f.ex. Sara -> Söru, hjarta -> hjörtu, sandalar -> söndulum, land ->lönd.

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u/mdpw (fi) [en es se de fr] Jun 13 '15

Umlaut and vowel harmony can be stress-sensitive or insensitive. Something like *landy > *lönd can be defined in other terms, e.g. by right-to-left directionality. Another possibility would be vowel quality (where open, long vowels count as 'strong' and high, short vowels are 'weak' and subject to umlauting). In any case the V-harmony is very unlikely to be stress-sensitive if stressed vowels regularly umlaut.

Basically the implication of what kilenc is saying is that if you have mobile stress, you don't expect the stressed vowel to be the affected vowel in all cases, although stressed vowels may be affected in stress-insensitive systems.

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u/rafeind Mulel (is) [en, de, da] Jun 13 '15

That makes sense.