Votian/Vowel Harmony

Rules
E.g. levvettī  vs. ve̮te̮ttī .
 * Every back vowel has it's counterpart among front vowels.
 * Originally a word and it's suffixes could have either back vowels or front vowels only and never both of them.
 * In practical terms, we might say that, if a word stem has any back vowel, then every suffix added to it may have back vowels only and vice versa e.g. levvettägō vs. ve̮te̮ttagō.
 * i is an exception, because it's counterpart occurres only in very recent Russian loanwords.

Exceptions

 *  CERTAIN SUFFIXES DO NOT FOLLOW VOWEL HARMONY RULES. 
 * 1) ö is found in the first syllable only, excluding some Ingrian and Finnish loanwords and derivation suffixes . Thus the following suffixes have no front vowel alternative:
 * 2) pesi-ko  ('Did he wash?')
 * 3) elkō jättägō  ('Let him not leave (it)!')
 * 4) tüttär-ikko  ('girl')
 * 5) pette-likko  ('cheatful')
 * 6) petä-zikko  ('pine forest')
 * 7) pǟ-tō  ('headless')
 * 8) Votian Imperative endings have back and front alternatives only in Lüganuse (and Kodavere) dialects
 * 9) sȫ-kā  ('Eat!')
 * 10) The following suffixes have no front vowel alternative either:
 * 11) leivǟ-kā  ('with bread')
 * 12) vere-kaz  ('bloody')
 * 13) päivü-kke̮in  ('sun')
 * 14) venä-лain  ('a Russian')
 * 15) ȫ-nikka  ('the one who spends a night (in a dorm etc.)')
 * 16) tšülǟ-ssā  ('to the village (edge)')
 * 17) viďďe-ttomā  ('the fifth's' <= genitive of viďďe-tō)


 *  CERTAIN ONOMATOPOETIC WORDS DO NOT FOLLOW VOWEL HARMONY RULES. 
 * E.g. rǟkkumā  ('shout')


 *  CERTAIN LOANWORDS DO NOT FOLLOW VOWEL HARMONY RULES. 
 * E.g. rǟtua mȫ ('in lines' ~ Russian: ряд)


 * SOME OLD COMPOUND WORDS DO NOT FOLLOW VOWEL HARMONY RULES. 
 * E.g. kasta  ('this' (partitive of ka-ze))
 * E.g. kaneita  ('these ~ them' (partitive of ka-ne))


 * SOME OLD COMPOUND WORDS REPRESENT REGRESSIVE VOWEL HARMONY. 
 * E.g.  ähüppǟlē  ('onto an oven' < *ahjon pǟllen)

Vaiga and Alutaguse dialects

 * Vowel harmony has almost disappeared in Vaiga and Alutaguse dialects (excluding Lüganuse and Kodavere) (influenced by Mid Estonian dialect).
 * 1) Front vowels were finally preserved only in the second syllables before they were completely replaced with their back counterparts  e.g. käsku  ('order, demand' in Lüganuse dialect < *käskü ) or süö-Du  ('eaten' in Lüganuse dialect < *süö-Dü ).
 * 2) Nevertheless  was replaced with e like in  Mid Estonian dialect).
 * 3) e may have substituted ä in some words  e.g. lüpseDä ('to milk (a cow)' in Lüganuse dialect < lüpsäDä).
 * 4) ä may have falsely substituted a following a syllable, which includes e or i, even though the stem could have back vowels  e.g. ammasteGä  ('with teeth' in Lüganuse dialect), e̮liväD ('they were').
 * 5) ä may have substituted even e of the second syllable, if the first syllable includes ä or ü  e.g. üläs ('upwards' in Lüganuse dialect < üles) or pǟlä  ('onto' in Lüganuse dialect < *pǟlle ).
 * 6) ü may have been substituted by i  in the second syllable of a stem, if the first syllable includes a short ü e.g. tüli   ('quarrel' in Lüganuse dialect) or püssiD  ('guns' in Lüganuse dialect < *püssüD ).
 * In Lüganuse dialect only the a | ä opposition remained active e.g. jättäGä ('Leave (it)!') vs. tuoGa ('Bring (it)!') or tüöGä ('with work') vs. maaGa ('with earth').
 * The u | ü opposition has left only rudiments e.g. küsütti ('it was asked') or kinniDettüD ('fixed').
 * There are traces of late o | ö opposition like in Eastern Vaivara dialects e.g. örsöttämä ('to boast').