VOWEL HARMONY IN TURKISH VS. UZBEK: A COMPARATIVE ANALYSIS

Аннотация

This article presents a comparative analysis of vowel harmony systems in Turkish and Uzbek, two related Turkic languages. While both languages exhibit vowel harmony, the specifics of their systems differ significantly. The paper examines the phonological rules governing vowel selection in suffixes, focusing on the dimensions of rounding harmony, backness harmony, and height harmony. It analyzes the extent to which vowel harmony is maintained in contemporary usage, considering factors such as loanword integration, dialectal variation, and the influence of standard language norms. The study highlights the similarities and differences in the vowel inventories of the two languages and their impact on the operation of vowel harmony. It also investigates the productivity of vowel harmony in each language, examining the degree to which speakers consistently apply harmony rules in novel words and constructions. Finally, the article discusses the implications of these findings for language acquisition, language teaching, and historical linguistics within the Turkic language family. Data sources include descriptive grammars, phonological analyses, and corpus-based investigations. The analysis seeks to provide a clearer understanding of the evolution and current status of vowel harmony in these two important Turkic languages.