The Restrictions of the Vowel Harmony in Persian

The research aims at studying a frequent phonological process in Persian. A phonological process that is supposed to act in many Persian words, enjoying the respective phonological arrangements. As a content-oriented process, the vowel harmony may not act in certain Persian words even in the speakers' informal pronunciation. The research method is a survey, qualitative content analysis and the data included in 100 words, gathered by purposive sampling to make a questionnaire. The interviewees include 150 speakers who are fluent in standard Persian. They pronounced the words in an informal style. The findings show that the vowel harmony acts in many Persian words, while being encounter by some restrictions in many others. The frequency, the loanwords, the age, gender and education of the speakers, the vowel harmony output takes a similar phonetic representation to local dialects and accents, the amplification of using writing language in speaking, the required phonetic arrangement stands in two morphemes, bleeding, closed syllable, and sometimes the grammatical category of the words stimulated the vowel harmony and blocked it.

The phonological processes usually act in words. The phonological arrangement of words may pave the way for a phonological act or may not. The researcher aimed at taking a comprehensive study on the subject for his dissertation. The current paper is a part of the study based on discovering the reasons and finding out the situations in which the vowel harmony does not take place. The question of the research is “how to find out the restrictions that prevent the process to cover all potential words?”

The study is based on the generating morphology theory.

The research method is a survey, qualitative content analysis and the data included in 100 Persian words gathered by purposive sampling from books and written documents to make a questionnaire. The interviewees are 150 Persian native speakers, including 78 men and 72 women, at the age range of 25 to 65. Their education ranked from diploma to Ph.D. They have been asked to pronounce the words in an informal style. The questionnaire also included in a self-statement form to be filled with name, age, sex and … . The researcher filled and completed the questionnaires by a field method all over Tehran.  

The research data included in two main groups. The first are the words taking the vowel harmony when pronounced by the speakers and the second are the words did not take any vowel harmony, while having the required phonological context. One of the probable processes is the vowel harmony between short vowels with the vowel /ɑ/. When one of the short vowels followed by /-ɂɑ/ or /-hɑ/, they will be assimilated by the vowel /ɑ/. The frequently used words like /lahɑf/, /tʃahɑr/, /nahɑr/ and /ʃahɑmat/ have taken the respective vowel harmony by more than 50% of the speakers. Meanwhile the words like /rahɑ/, /maɂɑd/, /saɂɑdat/, and /raɂɑjat/ have not taken the corresponding vowel harmony by more than 50% of the speakers. The reason for such a lack of vowel harmony partly relates to the fact that the output of the speakers' pronunciation may take a sort of similarity to other language types. For example, if they harmonize the vowel in /sefid/ and pronounce it as /sifid/, it can be similar to Azeri language type. In the word /dahɑn/, there is also the same situation and if vowel harmony takes place, the phonetic representation will be /dɑhɑn/ but it does not occure. The speakers pronounce it as /dahan/ in which two vowel shortenings take place instead of vowel harmony.
Another koind of vowel harmony relates to the vowels of /e/ and /ɑ/. The word /ɂeltehɑb/ that takes less frequency, did not accompany with vowel harmony. The words /ɂemtehɑn/, /ɂeʃtehɑ/, /ɂentehɑ/ and /dehɑt/ harmonized a lot, while words like /ʃeɂɑr/, /ɂenʃeɂɑb/ and /ɂeltehɑb/ harmonized a little by the speakers.
Another kind of vowel harmony deals with /o/ and /ɑ/. The words like /mohɑceme/, /mohɑsere/, /mohɑsebe/, and /moɂɑʃerat/ took a regressive vowel harmony by 69%, 65%, 52% and 49% respectively. In some Arabic word of the Mofa'ala infinitive, as in /mobɑhese/, if the vowel harmony take place, the output will be /mobɑhɑse/ in which a progressive harmony occurs. But a progressive vowel harmony is not probable in such words, since the harmony in the similar phonological context is regressive. In other words, the first prerequisite (regressive harmony) does not exist, while the second prerequisite (the glottal consonant /h/ between the vowels) exists. So in the first rule (R1) we have: 
/# mo.bɑ.ha.sa#/
mo.bɑ.ha.sa
In the second rule (R2): 
R2: a → e/ --- #
R2: a → e/ c --- ce #
In the third rule (R3) the vowel /a/ changes to /e/ in the final position. In the forth rule (R4) the penultimate vowel (before final /e/) harmonizes with the syllable nucleus of 4th syllable.
 
/#mo.bɑ.ha.sa#/   UR
R3:           mo.bɑ.ha.se
R4:           mo.bɑ.he.se
[mobɑhese]        PR
 
Another kind of vowel harmony deals with those words in which the first syllable is a short CV with /e/ or /o/ in nucleus. In the second syllable nucleus there is a high vowel of /i/ or /u/. The results show that words like /sefid/, /resid/, /ceʃid/ and /ʃenid/ all enjoy such a syllable with /e/ in the second syllable nucleus. Persian speakers do not harmonize the vowel in /sefid/ and never pronounce it as /sifid/ in order to prevent any similarity of their pronunciation to other language type. Meanwhile the speakers harmonized the vowel /o/ to /u/ in the words like /sopur/, /ɂotu/, /dorus/, /ʃocuh/, /bolur/ and /vorud/.

The results showed that the sequence of the vowels with common features must be in accordance with the vowel harmony rules. The glottal consonants facilitate the vowel harmony, while the oral consonants block it. The frequency of a word regarded as the most important factor for taking the vowel harmony rules. The next factor is the kind of consonant stands between the vowels, because in some vowel harmonies, the glottal consonants play a critical role. In the vowel harmony, corresponding to the vowel raising, the process is just probable in simple words enjoying a target short syllable of CV. Otherwise the syllable is not short and the words are not simple as in /xod.dʒuʃ/, /xoʃ.puʃ/, /por.mu/, and /por.ʃur/, and vowel harmony does not occur. The Arabic loanwords frequently used in Persian may not follow the progressive vowel harmony.