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Contents 1 Vowel harmony [1] 1.1 Rules 1.2 Exceptions 1.3 Vaiga and Alutaguse dialects 2 References 3 See also

[edit] Vowel harmony ^[1]

Back	Front
i̮	i
u	ü
o	ö
e̮	e
a	ä

[edit] Rules

• Every back vowel has it's counterpart among front vowels.
• Originally a word and it's suffixes could have either back vowels or front vowels only and never both of them.
• In practical terms, we might say that, if a word stem has any back vowel, then every suffix added to it may have back vowels only and vice versa e.g. levvettägō vs. ve̮te̮ttagō ^[2].
  • i is an exception, because it's counterpart occurres only in very recent Russian loanwords ^[3].

E.g. levvettī vs. ve̮te̮ttī ^[4].

[edit] Exceptions

• CERTAIN SUFFIXES DO NOT FOLLOW VOWEL HARMONY RULES.

1. ö is found in the first syllable only, excluding some Ingrian and Finnish loanwords and derivation suffixes ^[5]. Thus the following suffixes have no front vowel alternative:
   1. pesi-ko ('Did he wash?')
   2. elkō jättägō ('Let him not leave (it)!') ^[6]
   3. tüttär-ikko ('girl')
   4. pette-likko ('cheatful')
   5. petä-zikko ('pine forest')
   6. pǟ-tō ('headless')
2. Votian Imperative endings have back and front alternatives only in Lüganuse (and Kodavere) dialects ^[7]
   1. sȫ-kā ('Eat!')
3. The following suffixes have no front vowel alternative either:
   1. leivǟ-kā ('with bread')
   2. vere-kaz ('bloody')
   3. päivü-kke̮in ('sun')
   4. venä-лain ('a Russian')
   5. ȫ-nikka ('the one who spends a night (in a dorm etc.)')
   6. tšülǟ-ssā ('to the village (edge)')
   7. viďďe-ttomā ('the fifth's' <= genitive of viďďe-tō)

• CERTAIN ONOMATOPOETIC WORDS DO NOT FOLLOW VOWEL HARMONY RULES.
  • E.g. rǟkkumā ('shout')

• CERTAIN LOANWORDS DO NOT FOLLOW VOWEL HARMONY RULES.
  • E.g. rǟtua mȫ ('in lines' ~ Russian: ряд)

• SOME OLD COMPOUND WORDS DO NOT FOLLOW VOWEL HARMONY RULES.
  • E.g. kasta ('this' (partitive of ka-ze))
  • E.g. kaneita ('these ~ them' (partitive of ka-ne))

• SOME OLD COMPOUND WORDS REPRESENT REGRESSIVE VOWEL HARMONY.
  • E.g. ähüppǟlē ('onto an oven' < *ahjon pǟllen)

[edit] Vaiga and Alutaguse dialects

• Vowel harmony has almost disappeared in Vaiga and Alutaguse dialects (excluding Lüganuse and Kodavere) (influenced by Mid Estonian dialect).

1. Front vowels were finally preserved only in the second syllables before they were completely replaced with their back counterparts e.g. käsku ('order, demand' in Lüganuse dialect < *käskü ) or süö-Du ('eaten' in Lüganuse dialect < *süö-Dü ).
2. Nevertheless e̮ was replaced with e like in Mid Estonian dialect).
3. e may have substituted ä in some words ^[8] e.g. lüpseDä ('to milk (a cow)' in Lüganuse dialect < lüpsäDä).
4. ä may have falsely substituted a following a syllable, which includes e or i, even though the stem could have back vowels ^[9] e.g. ammasteGä ('with teeth' in Lüganuse dialect), e̮liväD ('they were').
5. ä may have substituted even e of the second syllable, if the first syllable includes ä or ü ^[10] e.g. üläs ('upwards' in Lüganuse dialect < üles) or pǟlä ('onto' in Lüganuse dialect < *pǟlle ).
6. ü may have been substituted by i in the second syllable of a stem, if the first syllable includes a short ü e.g. tüli ^[11] ('quarrel' in Lüganuse dialect) or püssiD ('guns' in Lüganuse dialect < *püssüD ).

• • In Lüganuse dialect only the a | ä opposition remained active ^[12] e.g. jättäGä ('Leave (it)!') vs. tuoGa ('Bring (it)!') or tüöGä ('with work') vs. maaGa ('with earth').
    • The u | ü opposition has left only rudiments ^[13] e.g. küsütti ('it was asked') or kinniDettüD ('fixed').
    • There are traces of late o | ö opposition like in Eastern Vaivara dialects ^[14] e.g. örsöttämä ('to boast').

[edit] References

[edit] See also

• Grammar of Votian dialects (syllabus)