DYNAMICS AND TRANSPARENCY IN VOWEL HARMONY

This dissertation examines the phonological patterning as well as phonetic characteristics of transparent vowels in Hungarian palatal vowel harmony. Traditionally, these vowels are assumed to be excluded from participating in harmony alternations. The experimental data presented in this dissertation run contrary to this assumption. The data show that transparent vowels in Hungarian are articulated differently depending on the harmonic domain in which they occur. Based on this observation, the central claim defended and formalized in this dissertation is that continuous phonetic details of all stem vowels including the transparent vowels are relevant for the phonological alternation in suffixes. The dissertation proposes an integrated model that relates phonetic and phonological aspects of vowel harmony using the formal language of non-linear dynamic. The advantage of this approach is in its potential to capture both qualitative as well as quantitative aspects of the same pattern in a unified way. Crucially, a dynamic approach allows one to express both phonological and phonetic generalizations while maintaining the essential distinction between them. Hence, the dynamic approach provides a feasible research strategy in the quest for understanding one of the continuing challenges in the study of speech