Analogs of Tahltan Consonant Harmony in English CVC Syllables

Tahltan is an Athapaskan language with perhaps the world's only three-way consonant harmony system (dental, alveolar, and alveopalatal). Although most explanations have depended on feature analysis, Gafos [1] proposed that differences in tongue grooving could account for the pattern. Here, we use ultrasound to examine the initial plausibility of this argument by determining whether a language without consonant harmony, American English, also shows such groove patterns. Finding such a pattern would support its possible existence in the precursors to Tahltan, from which the harmony system could arise. Coronal sections of the anterior portion of the tongue of three speakers of English uttering CVC syllables were collected via ultrasound and the depths of the groove measured. The data are consistent with Gafos's predictions, with three groove depths differing for the three classes of consonants. This pattern supports the possibility that the consonant harmony derives from this ancillary feature of consonant production.