Transparency and blocking in Old Norwegian height harmony

Abstract

AbstractThis paper provides a new phonological and philological analysis of previously unexplained disharmonic patterns in Old Norwegian height harmony. Old Norwegian displays cross‐linguistically rare forms of blocking and transparency, which under traditional assumptions of Old Norwegian vowels and vowel harmony are both phonologically and orthographically irregular. I show that these patterns make perfect phonological sense if we reinterpret the Old Norwegian neutral vowels æ–ǫ as [−low, −ATR] /ɛ, ɔ/ and assume that Old Norwegian height harmony was relativized to [high] contrastive visibility and bounded by high‐sonority elements, resulting in the transparency of [high] non‐contrastive items and blocking by high‐sonority [+low] vowels. This featural interpretation fits with the later diachronic development of Old Norwegian vowels and additionally helps explain patterned spelling variation found in both roman and runic writing.