Vowel Harmony in Armenian

Abstract This chapter outlines the harmony system of the Goris dialect of Armenian. This variety displays a number of interesting features, including variable transparency vs. opacity of neutral vowels, locally optional bidirectional harmony targeting weak (reduced or epenthetic) vowels, with [round] harmony parasitic on [back] harmony, and complex ordering interactions between vowel harmony and other phonological processes such as vowel reduction and epenthesis. The chapter proposes that the dialect exhibits three distinct harmony processes. Suffix/enclitic harmony propagates contrastive [back] values rightward, affecting suffixes, connectives, and enclitics. Weak vowels optionally undergo weak back harmony and parasitic round harmony. These processes are locally optional, and bidirectionally propagate [back] and [round] within the lexical word (prefix–root–suffix, excluding clitics); [round] spreading is parasitic on [back] harmony.