Re: Consonant Harmony?

mktvr@COMCAST.NET writes:

>
> From: "Thomas R. Wier" <trwier@...>
> Subject: Consonant harmony?
> > 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.
> > (I suppose some of the examples reminded me of some examples
> > of palatal harmony I'd studied last year.) None of my languages
> > have it, and I've never heard of any.  How about it? Are
> > there any?
>
> The only example that jumps to my head is Greek stops that are brought together
> sharing their voicing type--voiced/voiceless/aspirate, so: phth, khth, but not
> pth, gth.
>
> I imagine consonant disharmony would be a lot more common.  "Root constraints"
> like those seen in Semitic or PIE have to come from
> somewhere... but I don't
> know if there are any live examples offhand...

A great example of consonant harmony appears in Chumash:

kishkin "I save it"  /kiSkin/

but when the suffix -us "for him" is applied, then the word becomes:

kiskinus "I save it for him" /kiskinus/

There is a harmony between /s/ and /s/ on the one hand /S/ and /S/ on the other.

Another example:
ushla "with the hand"               /uSla/
uslasiq "press firmly with the hand /uslasiq/


Elliott Lash