Consonant harmony

Consonant harmony is a type of "long-distance" phonological assimilation, akin to the similar assimilatory process involving vowels, i.e. vowel harmony. One of the more common harmony processes is coronal harmony, which affects coronal fricatives, such as s and sh. Then, all coronal fricatives belong to the +anterior class (s-like sounds) or the -anterior class (sh-like sounds). Such patterns are found in the Dene (Athabaskan) languages such as Navajo (Young and Morgan 1987, McDonough 2003), Tahltan (Shaw 1991), Western Apache, and in Chumash on the California coast (Applegate 1972, Campbell 1997). In Tahltan, Shaw showed that coronal harmony affects three coronal fricatives, s, sh and the interdental th. The following examples are given by de Reuse: in Western Apache, the verbal prefix si- is an alveolar fricative, as in the following forms: 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 the prefix si- occurs before a verb stem that contains a post-alveolar affricate, the si- surfaces as the post-alveolar shi-: shijaa "three or more solid rigid inanimate objects are in position" Thus, all sibilant obstruents (fricatives and affricates) in these languages are divided into two groups, +anterior (s, ts, dz) and -anterior (sh, ch, j). In Navajo, as in most languages with consonant harmony, there is a constraint on the shape of roots (a well-formedness constraint) that is identical to the harmony process. All roots with sibilant affricates or fricatives have the same value for anteriority. Shaw (1991) provides a phonological analysis of this process, using data from research on Tahltan. There are two interesting aspects of the process in Navajo.