ABSTRACT
The Kazakh vowel system is characterized by the opposition of front versus back, high versus low and rounded versus unrounded. Vowel lengthening may appear as a result of other phonetic processes. Sound harmony is a key feature of the Kazakh language. This particle is realized in six allophones, each of which contains either the back or front vowel. Kazakh displays intersyllabic front versus back harmony that affects most suffixes. The quality of the suffix's initial consonant is determined by the stem-final segment: a voiceless stem-final consonant is followed by a voiceless suffix-initial consonant, and the other way round. The maximal number of suffix alternates is three. Kazakh exhibits suffix allomorphs that are distributed with respect to consonant assimilations at morpheme borders. Stress is not distinctive in Kazakh; thus, it does not differentiate the meaning of words. Nouns of foreign origin do not conform to the Kazakh stress pattern.
