SOAS Research Online

Abstract

This chapter focuses on Chadic languages, which typically demonstrate feature spreading within a word. The result can be partial or total agreement between the vowels of a word, as well as palatalization or labialization of consonants across the word. In the latter case, these processes are often referred to as prosodies. Central Chadic languages have the most robust prosody systems, to the point where it is claimed that some languages have no contrastive vowel qualities. However, the majority of Chadic languages have only height harmony and/or fronting and rounding harmony (rarely advanced tongue root-type harmony) across an inventory of five to seven vowels, and some have no vowel harmony at all. From a historical perspective, it can be argued that the oldest Chadic systems had a minimal number of contrastive vowel qualities, and that larger inventories of vowels are derived from an interaction of these few vowels with prosodies of palatalization and labialization.