[#DuolingoForumGems originally posted on 2020-06-29 on the Duolingo Hungarian for English speakers forum by peter.kristof.hu ]
Vowel harmony
Learning Hungarian is perhaps a big challenge. One of the several difficulties is probably the vowel harmony. I thought it appropriate to write about this because although it is mentioned in some places in the excellent “Tips & Notes”, there is no summary. Besides, a new theory has been born on the subject.
If we look around, vowel harmony is not uncommon in languages. It also exists in Finnish, Turkish, for example. In Hungarian, vowel harmony only applies to the stem and the subjunctive suffixes. The preverb before a verb does not belong to this range. For compound words, the last member counts. (For example, the well-known óvó-nő, óvónő-nek.)
Suffixes have one, two or three alternative forms. The most common is the two-form. Vowel harmony is a kind of formal agreement where the stem determines the type of suffixes. The suffixes associated with a given stem should be matched based on the phonetic features of the stem. These two features are frontness and rounding. So we can talk about frontness and rounding harmony, but we focus primarily on the former.
Hungarian vowels are different from English. They are a, á, e, é i, í, o, ó, ö, õ, u, ú, ü, ű Their pronunciation is phonetic. Each of Hungarian vowels a, e, i, o, ö, u, ü has a long pair: á, é, í, ó, ő, ú, ű but á and é differ in their openness from the sounds a and e respectively.
At this point, clarification of some phonological concepts is inevitable.
Frontness: The position of the tongue in relation to the parts of the mouth. Front vowels: e, é, i, í, ö, ő ü, ű, back vowels: á, a, o, ó, u, ú.
Rounding: The shape of the lips during the articulation. For front vowels only, rounded: ö, ő, ü, ű and unrounded: e, é, i, í.
A further feature of the vowel is the closedness.
Words contain only front vowels called front vowel words, words only with back vowels called back vowel words, and words contain both front and back vowels it is considered mixed vowel words. Examples of the three types:
| Back vowel word | Front vowel word | Mixed vowel word |
|---|---|---|
| ház | tűz | nüansz |
| január | híd | sofőr |
| barna | víz | tányér |
| fut | üveg | február |
| kutya | szeptember | október |
| anya | hétfő | bika |
| asztal | csütörtök | fiú |
| szobor | tükör | bürokrácia |
Suffixes: Understanding vowel harmony is not possible without knowing suffixes. As I mentioned, suffixes can have one, two, and three alternative forms.
One-form suffixes: -ig (hatig), -ni (futni), -ik (harmadik, mászik), -i (házi, lábai), -ít (tanít), etc. These are irrelevant to vowel harmony as they have only one version.
Two-form suffixes: -ban/-ben, -nál/-nél, -ból/-ből, -unk/-ünk, -ú/-ű, etc.
Tree-form suffixes: -on/-en/-ön, -hoz/-hez/-höz, etc.
The following table summarizes the alternate vowels in suffixes:
| Back vowel | Front unrounded vowel | Front rounded vowel | Suffix e.g. | Word e.g. |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| a | e | - | -ban/-ben | ház-ban/ember-ben |
| á | é | - | -nál/-nél | ház-nál/ember-nél |
| o | e | ö | -on/-en/-ön | ház-on/ember-en/tűz-ön |
| ó | - | ő | -ból/-ből | ház-ból/ember-ből |
| u | - | ü | -unk/-ünk | ház-unk/kert-ünk |
| ú | - | ű | -ú/-ű | arc-ú/szem-ű |
You can see that the vowels of the three-form endings are: o, e, ö. For example, such endings: -on/-en/-ön, -hoz/-hez/-höz. Notice that there are a back vowel (o) and two front vowel (e,ö) forms: e is unrounded, ö is rounded version.
Traditionally, the rule is that front vowel words take front suffixes, back vowel words take back suffixes, and mixed vowel words usually take back suffixes.
However, the problem with mixed vowel words is that there are many exceptions. Linguists have recently used a new theory, as this more precisely describes the vowel harmony rules, nevertheless, all statements so far are true. The following classification is used:
- Harmonic vowels
-- Front rounded vowels : ö, ü, ő, ű.
-- Back vowels : a, o, u, á, ó ú. - Neutral vowels (Front unrounded vowels): e, i, é, í.
The experience is that neutral vowels behave differently than others. Consider the following figure, which schematically shows the Hungarian vowel system only with short sounds:
i ü u
e ö o
a
The type of stem is determined by the last vowel. (We usually talk about stems and not inflected words.)
- Harmonic stems
-- simple harmonic
-- mixed harmonic
- Neutral stems
-- simple neutral
-- mixed neutral
The following table details each type, note that neutral vowels can occur anywhere as a non-last vowel, they are irrelevant, behave transparently.
| Stem Type | Last vowel (+ the long pairs) | Previous vowels (+ the long pairs) | Example |
|---|---|---|---|
| Simple Harmonic | a/o/u | a/o/u | ház |
| ö/ü | ö/ü | tűz | |
| Mixed Harmonic | a/o/u | ö/ü + any | nüansz |
| ö/ü | a/o/u + any | sofőr | |
| Simple Neutral | e/i | e/i | híd / víz |
| Mixed Neutral | e/i | a/o/u | tányér |
| e/i | ö/ü | üveg |
More examples, where the simple harmonic elements divided into front and back vowel stems (excluding neutral vowels):
| Simple harmonic, back vowels | Simple harmonic, front vowels | Mixed harmonic | Simple neutral | Mixed neutral |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| ház | tűz | nüansz | híd | tányér |
| január | hétfő | sofőr | víz | üveg |
| barna | csütörtök | bürokrácia | szeptember | október |
| fut | tükör | |||
| február | ||||
| bika | ||||
| fiú | ||||
| kutya | ||||
| anya | ||||
| asztal | ||||
| szobor |
The suffixes associated with the different types of stems are as follows:
- Regular: Simple harmonic with back vowels (a/o/u) stems (ház) take back-vowel suffixes.
- Regular: Simple harmonic with front vowels (ö/ü) stems (tűz) take front-vowel suffixes.
- Regular: Mixed harmonic stems a with back vowel in the last syllable (nüansz) take back-vowel suffixes.
- Regular: Mixed harmonic stems a with front vowel in the last syllable (sofőr) take front-vowel suffixes.
- Irregular: Simple neutral stems (híd/víz) take generally front-vowel suffixes. But there are about sixty exceptions which take back-vowel suffixes: híd, nyíl, cél, héj, derék, szid, irt, vív, iszik, nyílik, etc. (It's not too many!) Híd-on, nyíl-lal, etc.
- Irregular: Mixed neutral stems with a back vowel in front of the neutral vowel (tányér) take back-vowel suffixes, or it is fluctuating, see the next table.
- Regular: Mixed neutral stems with a front vowel in front of the neutral vowel (üveg) take front-vowel suffixes.
It can be seen that the exceptions occur only at the neutral stems (where the last vowel is e/ i/ é/í).
The mixed neutral stems with a back vowel in front of the neutral vowel can be grouped as follows:
| Last vowel in the stem | Back suffix | Front suffix | Fluctuating |
|---|---|---|---|
| e | haver-om | október-ben, parlament-be | fotel-ban/-ben |
| é | karéj-jal, kávé-ja | - | klarinét-on/-en |
| i, í | radír-ok | - | alibi-val/-vel |
Fluctuating means that both versions are correct. More examples:
férfi-val/-vel (but only férfi-as, férfi-ak), konkrét-an/-en.
Rounding harmony: An additional feature of the Hungarian vowel harmony is the rounding harmony. For endings with three forms (o/e/ö) if the last vowel of the stem is e/i /é /í, it is taken the suffix with -e. For example for -on-/en/-ön: ház-on, ember-en, csütörtök-ön, tűz-ön.
In the case of multiple suffixes, this regularity runs throughout the word based on the stem:
barn-ul-ás-otok-tól
zöld-ül-és-etek-től
kék-ül-és-etek-től
However, the rounding harmony depends on the previous syllable: víz-hez, viz-ünk-höz
What is said here does not fully apply to the connecting vowels. For example, four connecting vowel is used for the plural: -a/-o/-e/-ö (láb-ak, dal-ok, film-ek, sör-ök).
We can state that vowel harmony is very complicated in the Hungarian language. I admit, it took me a lot of effort to understand. Perhaps the Finnish or Turkish vowel harmony is more complicated :)
Souces (in Hungarian):
Új magyar nyelvtan
Kis magyar fonológia
Hányféle vegyes hangrend van?
A magyar magánhangzó-harmónia jellemzéséhez
---------------------------------------
Comment by peter.kristof.hu:
Checking test
Choose the right solution and click on it!
a/e alternatives
-val/-vel (with) suffix
Thank you for participating
comment by JohnWeber:
There is a lot to process here - I needed to save a bookmark :).
I do have a quick request for clarification, first, on the difference between ö and ő, then between ü and ű. You stated that the former is the short and the latter the long pair. Just these two pairs have the same sound - just the length is different? This is in contrast to the a/á and e/é differences?
Maybe this can help a new learner. It's really good information here!
comment by peter.kristof.hu:
They are practically identical sounds except for the pairs a-á, e-é, but note that they are different sounds from English. Specifically, the associated short and long vowels differ not only in duration but also in a bit of closedness. Check out the following word pairs! The difference is already noticeable at the a-á and e-é pairs, listening with TTS.
víz vizek
tűz tüzek
út utak
kő kövek
ló lovak
tél telek
nyár nyarak
No comments:
Post a Comment