Everything about Vertical Vowel System totally explained
Vertical vowel system refers to a system of
vowels in a language which requires just one
vowel dimension to phonemically distinguish vowels. Theoretically,
rounding,
frontness and
backness, and
vowel height could be used in one-dimensional vowel systems; however,
vertical refers specifically to the usage of vowel height as the sole distinguishing feature.
Two different diachronic mechanisms may give rise to a vertical vowel system. In some cases, a the front-back distinction may simply be lost when vowels are merged. This has occurred in
Wichita, in which an old vowel /u/ (preserved in the related language
Pawnee) has merged with /i/. However, the Wichita vowel system isn't
phonetically vertical, as /a/ is realised as
open back, /e/ as
open-mid front, and /i/ as
close to
close-mid front; hence, the feature [±back] is relevant to the
phonetics of the language, even though it isn't a salient phonological distinction. Similarly, the vowel [o] is heard in Wichita utterances, although this vowel is usually the phonetic result of a contraction of sequences of [shortvowel +
w + short vowel], a phenomenon also noted in other languages with vertical vowel systems.
More striking is a phenomenon whereby one or more phonological features of vowels are lost and reassigned to the consonants at the syllable periphery, leaving all vowels
underspecified for frontness, rounding, or both. This has occurred in
Arrernte, in which vowel rounding has been lost and consonantal
labialisation gained as a result; famously, in all members of the
Northwest Caucasian family, both rounding and frontness have been reassigned to the syllable periphery, the former surfacing as consonantal labialisation, and the latter as
palatalisation. This has also occurred in
Marshallese. Some argue that the short vowels of
Irish have similarly lost their frontness specification, forming a rudimentary vertical system. However, almost all Irish consonants appear in palatalised and non-palatalised forms, so the loss of frontness specification is viewed as a consequence, rather than a cause, of consonant palatalisation. Furthermore, the loss of frontness specification in Irish is limited to the
short vowels of the language; the
long vowels of Irish retain a front-back distinction.
Zero-dimensional vowel systems (one phonemic vowel only) have been postulated for some
Abkhaz dialects, and for Kabardian; however, it's generally accepted that these analyses are flawed.
Vertical vowel systems, invariably contrasting only in vowel height, have been noted for the following languages:
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