Re: Consonant Harmony?

Thomas R. Wier <trwier@...> writes:

> I was sitting here reading an article about word classes in
> Winnebago when all of a sudden, more or less out of nowhere, I
> began to wonder if there were conlangs with consonant harmony.
Guarani (spoken around the rivers Paraná and Paraguay
in Argentina, Uruguay, Brazil and Paraguay, and very
much alive and well in Paraguay where it's IIRC the
second official language) has nasal harmony, whereby
some affixes change according to whether there's a
nasal consonant in the root.

    jajo-echa-peve 'until we see' < (h)echa 'see'
    ñaño-endu-meve 'until we hear' < (h)endu 'hear'

where |j| (/j/? /Z/?) changes to |ñ| /n_j/ and |p| > |m|.

The harmony found in consecutive Greek aspirated stops
looks more like a case of mere assimilation. Greek also
has this delightful dissimilation thing when two aspirated
stops start consecutive syllables...


--Pablo Flores
  http://www.angelfire.com/scifi2/nyh/index.html
  "The future is all around us, waiting, in moments
   of transition, to be born in moments of revelation.
   No one knows the shape of that future or where it
   will take us. We know only that it is always born
   in pain."  -- G'Kar quoting G'Quon, in "Babylon 5"

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