Vowel Harmony in the Optimality Theory-Candidate Chains and the Optimal Interleaving Models: A Case Study in Kalhori Kurdish

Document Type : Original Article

Authors

1 Assistant Professor of Linguistics, Department of English and Linguistics, Faculty of Literature and Human Sciences, Razi University, Kermanshah, Iran.

2 Associate Professor, Lomonosov Moscow State University & Institute of Linguistics RAS, Moscow, Russia.

Abstract

Two of the models in the Serial Optimality Theory in which derivational paths compete and are evaluated by Prec(a, b) family of constraints are Optimality Theory- Candidate Chains (OT-CC) and Optimal Interleaving (OI). The former operates exclusively at the level of phonology, while the latter postulates the interplay between morphology and phonology. This article presents a case study of vowel harmony in Kalhori Kurdish that necessitates a level where phonological and morphological processes alternate to account for both the application and lack of application of a phonological process. In Kalhori Kurdish, the features of [o] are spread regressively all the way to the leftmost edge of the verb; however, this is not the case when the coordinating conjunction clitic [=o] is added to the verb. The analysis of the data collected from 15 Kalhori Kurdish speakers revealed that OT-CC cannot simultaneously explain the root-prefix vowel harmony and the absence of this process between the clitic and the verbal ending, unless the morphological information is duplicated at this level. However, benefiting from the possibility of morphological processes alternating with the phonological ones, the OI model successfully explains both the presence and the absence of the vowel harmony.

Keywords

Main Subjects

References

Chomsky, N., & Halle, M. (1968). The sound pattern of English. Harper & Row.
Elfner, E. (2016). Stress–epenthesis interactions in harmonic serialism. In J. McCarthy & J. Pater (Eds.), Harmonic grammar and harmonic serialism (pp. 41–70). Equinox Publishing.
Fattahi, M. (2011). Morpho-phonological processes in Kalhori Kurdish [Unpublished master’s thesis]. Allameh Tabataba’i University. [In Persian]
Jam, B. (2020). Vowel harmony in Persian. Lingua, 246, Article 102905. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.lingua.2020.102905
Kimper, W. (2011). Competing triggers: Transparency and opacity in vowel harmony [Doctoral dissertation, University of Massachusetts Amherst]. ScholarWorks@UMass Amherst. https://doi.org/10.7275/5686162
Kiparsky, P. (2000). Opacity and cyclicity. In J. Dekkers, F. van der Leeuw, & J. van de Weijer (Eds.), Optimality theory: Phonology, syntax, and acquisition (pp. 345–367). Oxford University Press.
Mahmoodi, S., & Modarresi Ghavami, G. (2010). Epenthesis in two-consonant clusters in Azerbaijani Turkish: An optimality account. In G. Modarresi Ghavami (Ed.), The proceedings of the first workshop in optimality theory (pp. 57–65). Tehran, Iran: Linguistic Society of Iran. [In Persian]
McCarthy, J. J. (2000). Harmonic serialism and parallelism. In H. Dekkers, F. van der Leeuw, & J. van de Weijer (Eds.), Optimality theory: Phonology, syntax, and acquisition (pp. 119–161). Oxford University Press.
McCarthy, J. J. (2007). Hidden generalizations: Phonological opacity in optimality theory. Equinox Publishing.
McCarthy, J. J. (2008). Doing optimality theory: Applying theory to data. Wiley-Blackwell.
Pater, J. (2009). Weighted constraints in generative linguistics. Cognitive Science, 33(6), 999–1035. https://doi.org/10.1111/j.1551-6709.2009.01047.x
Razinejad, S. M. (2015). Vowel epenthesis in final consonant clusters of Azerbaijani Turkish. Research in Western Iranian Languages and Dialects, 2(7), 81–93. [In Persian]
Spencer, A., & Luís, A. R. (2012). Clitics: An introduction. Cambridge University Press.
Wolf, M. (2008). Optimal interleaving: Serial phonology–morphology interaction in a constraint-based model [Doctoral dissertation, University of Massachusetts Amherst]. Rutgers Optimality Archive. https://doi.org/10.7282/T39P30J3
Research in Western Iranian Languages and Dialects
Volume 13, Issue 3
September 2025
Pages 23-38

Files

Share

How to cite

Statistics