Vowel harmony in Jingulu

Jingulu, a language of North-Central Australia, exhibits a pattern of regressive vowel harmony which is not only difficult to characterise accurately in descriptive terms, but also poses challenges for current theories of vowel harmony. The purpose of this article is thus threefold: to describe a fascinating phonological phenomenon, to formulate accurate generalisations which capture the phenomenon, and to bring the phenomenon within the range of current theories. I argue that the phenomenon cannot be understood in purely phonological terms, but must also take morphosyntactic properties of the language into account.