Rounding and labial harmony in Turkısh language

Abstract

Rounding is the transformation of a unrounded vowel to a rounded vowel by a labial consonant or rounded vowel in a word, as a result of assimilation. The existence of affixes with rounded vowels since Old Turkish blocked the emergence of labial harmony in Old Turkish and Middle Turkish as today. Labial harmony first began to be seen in the East Turkish because of regressive rounding. Affixes with rounded vowels in Old Turkish continued to be seen in Karakhanid Turkish, Khorezmian Turkish, Caghatai Turkish and Old Anatolian Turkish in the same way too. This situation was observed in all these historical Turkish dialects at different levels. In respect to this, rounding continued in all Turkish dialects, due to the use of one common written language through long ages. Old Anatolian Turkish took rounding a step further, including labialisation as seen in the East Turkish. Labial disharmony appeared in written Old Anatolian Turkish too due to the cliched affixes with rounded vowels. Later, labial harmony became a rule for Turkish written language with the use of Latin alphabet. © 2018 Hacettepe University 1. All rights reserved.