Vowel harmony in Oroqen (Tungus)

• Main Author: Zhang, Xi
• Format: Article in Journal/Newspaper
• Language: English
• Published: Department of Linguistics, University of Toronto 1995
• Subjects: Vowel Harmony; Tungus; Rounding Harmony; Retracted Tongue Root; Ewenki
• Online Access: https://twpl.library.utoronto.ca/index.php/twpl/article/view/6323

Oroqen is an endangered language of the Manchu-Tungus group spoken in China with 2,240 speakers in 1987. It exhibits an RTR harmony and a round harmony (RH). RTR harmony in Oroqen is similar to that found in the related Tungus languages (Ard 1981; Van der Hulst & Smith 1988) and provides support for Ard's proposal that the original harmony patters in Proto-Tungus was based on the position of the tongue root. RH in Oroqen has some special characteristics. The trigger and target vowels for RH are both low. Within a morpheme, RH has to have a minimally bimoraic domain. Between morphemes, RH has an unrestricted domain when the conditions are met. The traits of RH process in Oroqen have not been reported in other Tungus languages in Russia, but have been found in Ewenki, another Tungus language in China. The complexities of RH in Oroqen are worthy of further attention, both within the language itself and comparatively.