Substantive bias affects phonological acquisition in a way that learners may more readily learn phonetically motivated patterns. Some previous experimental work has proved the effect of substantive bias in a synchronic context, whereas how the bias influences diachronic changes has hardly been studied. This paper investigates the role of substantive bias in phonological transmission. We employed the iterated learning paradigm to compare the transmissions of two artificial languages exhibiting vowel harmony (phonetically natural) or vowel disharmony (phonetically unnatural). In general, participants performed equally well in the two conditions, and the proportions of the two patterns showed a similar decreasing tendency over generations, suggesting no bias effect in the process of language transmission.

Similar patterns of vowel change in loanword adaptation have been documented for several Iranian languages and language varieties including Mazandarani. However, no convincing accounts of the nature of these processes in Mazandarani have been presented in the literature. We argue that for this language, these vowel alternations are best explained as low vowel dissimilation, a process affecting adjacent syllables with low vowels whereby one of the vowels is raised. Low vowel dissimilation is typologically rare, with the overwhelming majority of the cases identified belonging to the Oceanic family. To show that the vowel changes in question are indeed cases of low vowel dissimilation, we invoke evidence from the language’s verbal morphophonology where vowel changes show a more regular behavior and then expand the analysis to loanword adaptation. The dialects discussed in the articles are those of Amol, Reineh, and Babol. The two vowels that trigger the process in Mazandarani are the low vowels /æ/ and /ɑ/, but only the former can undergo change. We show that unlike almost all other known cases of this phenomenon, it is the second vowel that undergoes raising in the Mazandarani case in many situations, with this seemingly being the preferred way in the dialect of Babol. We end the paper with a discussion of why the two low vowels behave differently, suggesting that /ɑ/’s resistance to change is due to the fact that it is a long vowel phonologically, even if not phonetically.

Finally, languages that do have vowel harmony often allow for lexical disharmony, or words with mixed sets of vowels even when an opaque neutral vowel is not In phonology, vowel harmony is a phonological process in which vowels assimilate ("harmonize") to share certain distinctive features. Vowel harmony is often confined to the domain of a phonological word, but may extend across word boundaries in certain languages. Generally, one vowel will trigger a shift in other vowels within the domain, such that the affected vowels match the relevant feature of In phonology, vowel harmony is a phonological process in which vowels assimilate ("harmonize") to share certain distinctive features. Vowel harmony is often confined to the domain of a phonological word, but may extend across word boundaries in certain languages. Generally, one vowel will trigger a shift in other vowels within the domain, such that the affected vowels match the relevant feature of the trigger vowel. Intervening segments are common between affected vowels, meaning that the vowels do not need to be next to each other for this change to apply. This is… Nasalization (i.e., oral or nasal) (in this case, a nasal consonant is usually the trigger) Rhoticity, like in Yurok. Unconventional systems, like the one in Nez Perce, that do not seem to be based on any obvious phonetic feature at first. In many languages, vowels can be said to belong to particular sets or classes, such as back vowels or rounded vowels. Some languages have more than one system of harmony. For instance, Altaic languages are proposed to have a rounding harmony superimposed over a backness harmony. Even among languages with vowel harmony, not all vowels need to participate in the vowel conversions; these vowels are termed neutral. Neutral vowels may be opaque and block harmonic processes or they may be transparent and not affect them. Intervening consonants are also often transparent. Finally, languages that do have vowel harmony often allow for lexical disharmony, or words with mixed sets of vowels even when an opaque neutral vowel is not involved. Van der Hulst & van de Weijer (1995) point to two such situations: polysyllabic trigger morphemes may contain non-neutral vowels from opposite harmonic sets, and certain target morphemes simply fail to harmonize. Many loanwords exhibit disharmony. For example, Turkish vakit, ('time' [from Arabic waqt]); *vakıt would have been expected. Other examples from Finnish include olympialaiset ('Olympic games') and sekundäärinen ('secondary') which have both front and back vowels. In standard Finnish, these words are pronounced as they are spelled, but many speakers intuitively apply vowel harmony – olumpialaiset, and sekundaarinen or sekyndäärinen.

The formation of plurals in the three classes of nouns in 'Afar is discussed, as well as vowel changes in particular environments. (SC)