Similarity and contrast in consonant harmony systems

Recent typological studies (Hansson 2001, Rose & Walker 2004) argue that segments participating in consonant harmony systems must be highly similar to one another. This paper proposes that contrastive features within a language determine similarity. Contrasts are determined by hierarchic ordering of features with some features taking scope over others (Jackobson and Halle 1956, Dresher 2003). This is applied to the analysis of consonant harmony in Anywa, Luo, and Bumo Izon. In these languages, segments which participate in harmony processes are similar to one another in that they form a natural class of segments contrastively specified for the harmonic feature.