Not All Round Vowels Are Created Equal: Trigger Strength Asymmetries in Kazakh Rounding Harmony

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Register for Zoom: https://uci.zoom.us/j/91644840724 

About the talk:

Cross-linguistic patterns of rounding harmony reveal a range of asymmetries. In particular, some vowel qualities tend to participate in harmony, as either triggers or targets, more than others. Phonological research on these patterns has found that these asymmetries are correlated with very concrete phonetic facts about each vowel and its place in the featural and acoustic space in each language. In this talk, McCollum will explore both the synchronic status and diachronic changes affecting Kazakh rounding harmony through a production study conducted in Kazakhstan. He will leverage results from his own work as well as historical corpora to inform an amphichronic approach to phonology wherein synchronic structure and diachronic change are interwoven.

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