Consonant harmony Totally Explained

Everything about Consonant Harmony totally explained

Consonant harmony is a type of "long-distance" phonological assimilation akin to the similar assimilatory process involving vowels, for example vowel harmony.

Examples

There are several kinds of consonant harmony. One of the most commonly found, called sibilant harmony, requires all the sibilants of the word to belong either to the anterior class (s-like sounds) or the nonanterior class (sh-like sounds). Such patterns are found in Chumash, Navajo, Western Apache, Kinyarwanda, and elsewhere. For example, in Western Apache the verbal prefix si- is usually an alveolar fricative, as can be seen in the words below:

siką̄ą̄ "a container and its contents are in position"
sitłēēd "mushy matter is in position"
siyį̄į̄ "a load/pack/burden is in position"
sinéʼ "three or more flexible objects are in position"
siłāā "a slender flexible object is in position"
siʼą̄ą̄ "a solid roundish object is in position"
sitsooz "a flat flexible object is in position"
siziid "liquid matter is in position"

However, when si- occurs before a verb stem that starts with a post-alveolar affricate, the si- assimilates to the alveolar place of articulation (becoming shi-):

shijaa "three or more solid rigid inanimate objects are in position" Various Austronesian languages exhibit consonant harmony among the liquid consonants, with [r] assimilating at a distance to [l] or vice versa. Likewise, in Sanskrit, [n] is retroflexed to [ɳ] if certain consonants precede it in the same word, even at a distance. Guaraní shows nasal harmony, by which certain affixes have alternative forms according to whether the root includes a nasal (vowel or consonant) or not. For instance, the reflexive prefix is realized as oral je- when preceding an oral stem like juka "kill", but as nasal ñe- when preceding a nasal stem like nupã "hit", where the ã makes the stem nasal.
Some Finnish speakers find it hard to pronounce both 'b' and 'p' in foreign words (for example pubi), so they voice (bubi) or devoice (pupi) the entire word.

Further Information

Get more info on 'Consonant Harmony'.

External Link Exchanges

Do you know how hard it is to get a link from a large encyclopaedia? Well we're different and will prove it. To get a link from us just add the following HTML to your site on a relevant page:

<a href="http://consonant_harmony.totallyexplained.com">Consonant harmony Totally Explained</a>

Then simply click through this link from your web page. Our crawlers will verify your link, extract the title of your web page and instantly add a link back to it. If you like you can remove the words Totally Explained and embed the link in article text.
As long as your link remains in place, we'll keep our link to you right here. Please play fair - our crawlers are watching. Your site must be closely related to this one's topic. Any kind of spamming, dubious practises or removing the link will result in your link from us being dropped and, potentially, your whole site being banned.