Advanced Tongue Root (ATR) harmony is one of the most widely studied phonological phenomena in African languages. Vowels in ATR harmony systems are divided into two sets ([+ATR] and [-ATR]) and must typically agree for one or the other feature. Despite decades of research, ATR harmony systems continue to raise fundamental questions about how vowel inventories are structured, what governs the directionality and domain of harmony, and why certain vowels resist participating in the process.

This course provides an introduction to ATR harmony, covering both its phonetic foundations and its phonological behavior. We begin with the articulatory and acoustic basis of the ATR distinction and the relationship between ATR and related features like height and RTR. We then turn to the typology of ATR vowel inventories, the distinction between dominant-recessive and stem-controlled systems, and the strong correlation between inventory structure and which ATR value functions as dominant. The second half of the course addresses directionality, locality, and the behavior of the low vowel /a/ specifically, which frequently resists full participation in ATR harmony for reasons that are both articulatory and phonological. The final session introduces some of the more unusual patterns attested in ATR harmony systems, including cases where the outcome of harmony depends on non-local information.

Tentative Reading list:

Casali, R.F. 2008. ATR Harmony in African Languages. Language and Linguistics Compass, 2: 496-549. https://doi.org/10.1111/j.1749-818X.2008.00064.x pdf

Casali, R.F. 2016. Some inventory-related asymetries in the patterning of tongue root harmony systems. Studies in African Linguistics. https://doi.org/10.32473/sal.v45i1.107254 pdf

Dimmendaal, G. J. 2002. Constraining disharmony in Nilotic: What does an optimal system look like? Journal of African Languages and Linguistics 23: 153–181. https://doi.org/10.1515/jall.2002.010 pdf

Gick, B., Pulleyblank, D., Campbell, F., & Mutaka, N. 2006. Low vowels and transparency in Kinande vowel harmony. Phonology, 23(1), 1–20. https://doi.org/10.1017/S0952675706000741 pdf

Hyman, L. 2002. “Is there a left-to-right bias in vowel harmony?”. Paper presented at the 9th international phonology meeting in Vienna, Nov. 1, 2002. To appear in the proceedings (Phonologica). pdf

McCollum, A., Baković, E, & Mai, A. To appear. “On the inevitability of non-myopic harmony.” In Michela Russo and Rachel Walker (eds.), “Metaphony and Umlaut: Theoretical Issues” (special thematic issue of Phonology). pdf

Rose, S. 2018. ATR vowel harmony: new patterns and diagnostics. Proceedings of the 2017 Annual Meeting on Phonology. Ed. by Gallagher, Gillian, Gouskova, Maria & Yin, Sora Heng. https://doi.org/10.3765/amp.v5i0.4254 pdf