Issues in Uyghur phonology

Abstract

This article presents an overview of several significant aspects of the phonology of Uyghur (ISO: uig; pronounced [ʊjˈʁʊr]; Turkic: China). In addition to summarising previous research, we present new data and highlight its relevance for phonological theory. The paper focuses primarily on the processes of backness harmony, rounding harmony, and vowel reduction. Particular attention is paid to the complex, and sometimes opaque, interactions between these processes, as well as the role of phonological exceptionality.

Disentangling Words, Clitics, and Suffixes in Uyghur

“…In this section, we will first describe the relevant processes, and then show how their application (or failure to apply) can serve as a diagnostic for word-formation strategies. A full description of these processes is beyond the scope of this paper, but for more detail see Mayer et al (2022a).…”

“…Vowel harmony occurs at the word level, and thus can be used to distinguish between suffixes/clitics, which combine with stems to form a larger word, and auxiliaries, which begin a new word. 14 Backness harmony affects both high and low vowels 15 while rounding harmony targets only high vowels in most dialects of Uyghur (Mayer et al 2022a). In addition, rounding harmony typically applies only to epenthetic vowels that are inserted to repair syllable structure violations (see Mayer et al 2022a).…”

“…14 Backness harmony affects both high and low vowels 15 while rounding harmony targets only high vowels in most dialects of Uyghur (Mayer et al 2022a). In addition, rounding harmony typically applies only to epenthetic vowels that are inserted to repair syllable structure violations (see Mayer et al 2022a). This contrasts with suffixes such as the third-person marker -i, which surfaces faithfully in this form in all contexts.…”

“…A possible phonological analysis of these suffixes, following work like Clements (1976) and Archangeli and Pulleyblank (1989), treats the elements that fail to harmonize as underlyingly specified for the feature [back], while harmonizing elements are underspecified for this feature (e.g., Mayer 2021;Mayer et al 2022a). Suffixes in the examples in this paper that fail to harmonize with preceding material in the prosodic word may be assumed to fall into this latter category.…”