Editing Vowel harmony (section)

==Other types of harmony==

Although vowel harmony is the most well-known harmony, not all types of harmony that occur in the world's languages involve only vowels. Other types of harmony involve consonants (and is known as [[consonant harmony]]). Rarer types of harmony are those that involve [[Tone (linguistics)|tone]] or both vowels and consonants (e.g. ''postvelar harmony'').

===Vowel–consonant harmony===

Some languages have harmony processes that involve an interaction between vowels and consonants. For example, [[Chilcotin language|Chilcotin]] has a phonological process known as ''vowel flattening'' (i.e. post-velar harmony) where vowels must harmonize with [[uvular]] and [[pharyngealisation|pharyngealized]] consonants.

Chilcotin has two classes of vowels:

* "flat" vowels {{IPA|[ᵊi, e, ᵊɪ, o, ɔ, ə, a]}}
* non-"flat" vowels {{IPA|[i, ɪ, u, ʊ, æ, ɛ]}}

Additionally, Chilcotin has a class of pharyngealized "flat" consonants {{IPA|[tsˤ, tsʰˤ, tsʼˤ, sˤ, zˤ]}}. Whenever a consonant of this class occurs in a word, all preceding vowels must be flat vowels.

{|
| {{IPA|[jətʰeɬtsˤʰosˤ]}} || 'he's holding it (fabric)'
|-
| {{IPA|[ʔapələsˤ]}} || 'apples'
|-
| {{IPA|[natʰákʼə̃sˤ]}} || 'he'll stretch himself'
|}

If flat consonants do not occur in a word, then all vowels will be of the non-flat class:

{|
| {{IPA|[nænɛntʰǽsʊç]}} || 'I'll comb hair'
|-
| {{IPA|[tetʰǽskʼɛn]}} || 'I'll burn it'
|-
| {{IPA|[tʰɛtɬʊç]}} || 'he laughs'
|}

Other languages of this region of North America (the Plateau culture area), such as [[St'at'imcets language#Phonological processes|St'át'imcets]], have similar vowel–consonant harmonic processes.

===Syllabic synharmony===
Syllabic synharmony was a process in the [[Proto-Slavic language]] ancestral to all modern [[Slavic languages]]. It refers to the tendency of frontness (palatality) to be generalised across an entire syllable. It was therefore a form of consonant–vowel harmony in which the property 'palatal' or 'non-palatal' applied to an entire syllable at once rather than to each sound individually.

The result was that back vowels were fronted after ''j'' or a palatal consonant, and consonants were palatalised before ''j'' or a front vowel. Diphthongs were harmonized as well, although they were soon monophthongized because of a tendency to end syllables with a vowel (syllables were or became open). This rule remained in place for a long time, and ensured that a syllable containing a front vowel always began with a palatal consonant, and a syllable containing ''j'' was always preceded by a palatal consonant and followed by a front vowel.

A similar process occurs in [[Skolt Sami language|Skolt Sami]], where palatalization of consonants and fronting of vowels is a [[Skolt Sami language#Suprasegmentals|suprasegmental]] process applying to a whole syllable. Suprasegmental palatalization is marked with the letter ''ʹ'', which is a [[Modifier letter prime]], for example in the word ''vääʹrr'' 'mountain, hill'.

=== Rhotic harmony ===
The Mawo dialect of [[Northern Qiang language|Northern Qiang]] displays rhotic harmony, where vowels must align with the previous vowel's [[rhoticity]].<ref name=":04">{{harvp|LaPolla|2003}}</ref>

=== Unconventional systems ===
Languages such as [[Nez Perce language|Nez Perce]] and [[Chukchi language|Chukchi]] have vowel harmony systems which can not be easily explained in terms of height, backness, tongue root, or rounding. In Nez Perce, Katherine Nelson (2013){{sfn|Nelson|2013}} proposes that the two sets of vowels ("dominant" /i a o/ and "recessive" /i æ u/) be considered as distinct "triangles" of vowel space, each by themselves maximally dispersed, where one set is somewhat retracted (further back) in comparison to the dominant. Note here that /i/ can behave as a dominant or recessive vowel depending on the root it is in; it is not transparent to vowel harmony.{{sfn|Nelson|2013}}