harmonic phonology

In PHONOLOGY, an approach which recognizes three levels of REPRESENTATION working in parallel: MORPHOPHONEMIC (‘M-level’), WORD/ SYLLABLE tactics (‘W-level’), and PHONETIC (‘P-level’). Each level is characterized by a set of WELL-FORMEDNESS statements (‘tactics’) and a set of unordered ‘intralevel’ RULES which collectively define the paths an input representation has to follow in order to achieve maximum conformity to the tactics. This maximal well-formedness is called ‘harmony’. The levels are related by ‘inter-level’ rules. The approach avoids the traditional conception of the organization of a GENERATIVE grammar in which each level of representation is seen to precede or follow another (as would be found in the ordered steps within a DERIVATION).