Examination of an unnatural shift in Mongolian consonant-vowel interaction (2014)

Undergraduate: Eli Hornstein

Faculty Advisor: Jennifer Smith
Department: Linguistics

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Halh Mongolian possesses an unnatural system of consonant-vowel interaction. Harmony among vowels is based on Advanced Tongue Root (ATR) vowel classes; vocalic ATR harmony is also proposed to govern regular variation between velar and uvular consonants, which can be grouped in terms of a [+/-high] feature. Under a prevailing view of phonological specification wherein consonants do not possess the +/-ATR feature, Halh consonant-vowel (C-V) harmony is difficult to describe in terms of phonetic motivation, and can be considered unnatural. Halh¿s ancestor Old Mongolian (OM) possessed a front-back, rather than ATR, vowel harmony as well as velar-uvular consonant variation; in contrast to Halh, this form of C-V interaction is common, well-studied and easy to motivate theoretically.
The unnaturalness of Halh becomes especially interesting in light of its origins in a more natural system; this study examined Old Mongolian data from 1200-1600 c.e. and successfully characterized irregularities in OM C-V interaction that may have thus far been overlooked. Irregularities identified in OM were then experimentally compared to acoustically analyzed modern Halh speech. In ongoing analysis, the ability of irregularity in Old Mongolian to predict irregularity in Halh is considered as an empirical approach to the broader question of whether irregularity in the natural phonological system of Old Mongolian helps account for transition to the unnatural system of Halh.