Harmony Rules Research Articles

Tracking phonological regularities: exploring the influence of learning mode and regularity locus in adult phonological learning

Abstract Research on phonological learning has shown that adult learners are capable of effectively tracking regularities in phonological patterns. In our study, we investigated the dynamics of the learning process for regularity tracking. Adult learners participated in a phonological learning experiment where they acquired vowel harmony rules for forming plurals. The experiment had four conditions, varying in learning mode (goal-oriented vs. exploratory) and the locus of phonological regularity (phonotactics vs. alternation). When learners had no explicit learning goal and when the language involved random alternation patterns, their learning process showed a strong preference for regularity. This suggests that the application of statistical learning metrics is influenced by two factors: greater uncertainty in the exploratory conditions compared to the goal-oriented conditions, and a stronger inclination to avoid irregularities in alternation compared to phonotactics.

The effect of expertise in music reading: cross-modal competence

We hypothesize that the fundamental difference between expert and learner musicians isthe capacity to efficiently integrate cross-modal information. This capacity might be anindex of an expert memory using both auditory and visual cues built during many years oflearning and extensive practice. Investigating this issue through an eye-tracking experiment, two groups of musicians, experts and non-experts, were required to report whether afragment of classical music, successively displayed both auditorily and visually on a computer screen (cross-modal presentation) was same or different. An accent mark, associated on a particular note, was located in a congruent or incongruent way according to musical harmony rules, during the auditory and reading phases. The cross-modal competence of experts was demonstrated by shorter fixation durations and less errors. Accent mark appeared for non-experts as interferences and lead to incorrect judgments. Results are discussed in terms of amodal memory for expert musicians that can be supported within the theoretical framework of Long-Term Working Memory (Ericsson and Kintsch, 1995).

한국어와 몽골어의 종결어미 대조 연구

This paper examines the response patterns according to the meaning and function of individual termination endings by comparing the termination endings system of Korean and Mongolian. The characteristics of the system are summarized as follows by comparing the termination ending system of the two languages.
 First of all, in the case of the Korean and Mongolian ending systems, there are two criteria for classifying the terminating endings in Korean: the sentence style and the Korean relative honorifics system. The ending of the Korean language ends the sentence, so the sentence style is the standard. In addition, Korean relative honorifics system becomes an important criterion because the ending end treats the opponent. On the other hand, in Mongolian, the ending is classified according to the tense and number of personal names.
 Next, similarities and differences were examined in contrast to the end of Mongolian, focusing on the end of Korean. As a result, the imperative ending of Mongolian was most consistent with the ending form of each Korean relative honorifics system. In addition, in the case of the request ending, the promised ending, the permitted ending, and the boundary ending, respectively, it was Korean relative honorifics system did not appear separately and correspond to one form. In addition, when the Mongolian form of '-ya/ye/yo' indicates the speaker's will, it corresponds to the promised ending of the Korean language. When suggesting joint participation to listeners, it corresponds to the request ending of the Korean language, respectively. Looking at this, it can be seen that one morpheme represents two meanings. In the case of declarative, exclamatory, and interrogative endings, the corresponding forms are different depending on the verb and adjective. However, there are four Mongolian declarative endings corresponding to one form of Korean, and two for the interrogative endings. The final ending of the Korean language varies according to the Korean relative honorifics system, and there are these forms according to the vowel harmony rule. In addition, when conjugation it, there is a form depending on whether the previous word stem is a vowel or a consonant, so irregular use should be noted. On the other hand, in Mongolian, there is a form according to the rules of vowel harmony, but there is no form according to irregular use.
 There is also an end to Mongolian that does not correspond to Korean. In other words, the Mongolian blessing origin '-tygai/tugei, hope -aasai4, -sygai/sugei, -g' does not have a termination ending corresponding to the Korean language. However, there are grammatical expressions that can correspond to each other in terms of function and meaning. In this paper, the Mongolian blessing origin ‘-tygai/tugei is corresponding to the Korean ‘-기를 바란다’ grammatical form, and the Mongolian hope ‘-aasai4’ is expressed in the Korean grammar form ‘-었/았/였으면 한다’, ‘-sygai/sugei’ as a “-m” genitive ending, and the “-g” ending is corresponding to the Korean ‘-도 좋다, -도록 하다’ grammatical forms.
 There will also be linguistic significance in revealing parts that have not been made through system classification and functional contrast studies of these termination ends. In addition, it is expected to be a basic material that can be used in Korean-Mongolian translation and foreign language education.

Bilateral Rules as Complex Rules

Proof-theoretic semantics is an inferentialist theory of meaning originally developed in a unilateral framework. Its extension to bilateral systems opens both opportunities and problems. The problems are caused especially by Coordination Principles (a kind of rule that is not present in unilateral systems) and mismatches between rules for assertion and rules for rejection. In this paper, a solution is proposed for two major issues: the availability of a reduction procedure for tonk and the existence of harmonious rules for the paradoxical zero-ary connective \(\bullet\). The solution is based on a reinterpretation of bilateral rules as complex rules, that is, rules that introduce or eliminate connectives in a subordinate position. Looking at bilateral rules from this perspective, the problems faced by bilateralism can be seen as special cases of general problems of complex systems, which have been already analyzed in the literature. In the end, a comparison with other proposed solutions underlines the need for further investigation in order to complete the picture of bilateral proof-theoretic semantics.

Automatic Piano Harmony Arrangement System Based on Deep Learning

Harmony, which plays an important role in enriching melody expression, is a combination of multiple notes. Melody coordination involves adding harmony effect to a single note of melody, which involves professional knowledge of basic music theory and harmony rules, and requires a high technical threshold. Under the macro background of deep learning and neural network technology, artificial intelligence is widely used in music retrieval, music creation, and music teaching. In this article, we provide a powerful tool for piano music creation by manually arranging melody and harmony instead of using deep learning. In this paper, harmonic elimination is divided into three subtasks: note detection, measurement, and multifundamental frequency estimation and model training. The music signal is divided into several segments by note detection, and the main notes and harmonic components of each segment are extracted by multifundamental frequency estimation, which are used as the features and labels of the neural network, so as to give a model with the ability of arrangement and harmony.

Outward-sensitive phonologically-conditioned suppletive allomorphy vs. first-last tone harmony in Cilungu

We present a case study of grammatical tone allomorphy in Cilungu (Bantu). Tense/Aspect/Mood designations (TAMs) are realized via co-exponence of prefixes, suffixes, and floating tones. In a minority of TAMs, there is allomorphy with the floating tones. For example, in the Recent Past one allomorph involves floating tone targeting the final mora of the stem () versus one targeting the stem’s second mora (2). For all such allomorphic TAMs, the alternation is conditioned by the tone of subject agreement markers (SMs) at the left edge of the word. If the SM is high-toned the variant occurs, but if it is toneless then 2 occurs. We present two competing accounts of these data. Under a morphological account, we posit contextual realizational rules with multiple suppletive exponents conditioned by SM tone. In contrast, under a phonological account a ‘first-last tone harmony’ applies here, morphologically restricted to the context of SMs with a small set of TAMs. Such a harmony rule captures a generalization of these alternations: if the SM is high at the left edge then there is a grammatical high at the right edge, but if the left edge is toneless then grammatical tone does not fall on the right edge. We present several arguments in favor of the morphological analysis (suppletion) over a phonological one (harmony). Specifically, the patterns are not subject to phonological locality, other TAMs involving similar tone patterns are not subject to this harmony, and the proposed first-last tone harmony would be a highly phonologically-unnatural rule with little cross-linguistic support, and exceeding the computational properties of all well-known and established phonological operations. We conclude by discussing a major theoretical implication of the morphological account: this constitutes outward-sensitive phonologically-conditioned suppletive allomorphy, standardly argued to be unattested and/or impossible. Ultimately, we hold that under either account Cilungu presents a novel and important contribution to linguistic theory.

Vocal Ornamentation in the 18th century - Tosi and Mancini, first Theorists of Bel Canto

In a time of change, the two great vocal singing theorists, Tosi and Mancini, wrote their theoretical papers with the stated aim of clarifying for both students and their tutors what they considered to be good landmarks in that era. Too much freedom in ornamentation, through an abusive and discretionary use, highlighted more the virtuosity of the singers than the melodic line in the context of words and music. Thus, forced by circumstances, the two authors tried to develop, in the 18th century, a methodology capable of balancing freedom of expression with theoretical rigor. Their effort was directed towards collecting and organizing the data available at the time about the mechanics and theory of ornamentation applicable to the principles and rules of harmony, while supporting freedom of expression and variety of inventiveness and having as sole purpose the beauty of sounds harmoniously intertwined with expression. They evaluated and criticized their contemporaries, highlighting both the defects and abuses of vocal performances, considering as the only point of reference the balance of expression subordinated to the fundamental elements of vocal precepts considered at that time true axioms. They generously offered their knowledge and science with the ultimate goal of creating a vocal show based on balance, beauty and spontaneity.

Impact of Danish Livestock and Manure Management Regulations on Nitrogen Pollution, Crop Production, and Economy

Reduction of nitrate (NO3) and ammonia (NH3) emission to the environment has, since the 1980s, been targeted by Danish environmentally friendly regulations. Nitrate pollution of aquifers and surface waters caused by farming was observed at the start of the 1980s, and in the mid-1980s, NH3 emission was known to contribute reactive nitrogen (N) to the environment. Manure is a significant source of plant nutrient loss, because there might be a lack of economic incentives and knowledge for the farmers to obtain a high nutrient utilization of the manure. This article gives a presentation of the initiatives and regulations intended to reduce the emission, the actual reduction in emission achieved, and the effect of the regulation on farmers' economy, which is considered important in the discussion about how we can reduce pollution of the environment and at the same time have an economically sustainable agriculture. In the 1980s, the Ministry of Environment and the farmers' union agreed on launching a “good agricultural practice” program, aimed at reducing N loss by increasing N use efficiency and reducing fertilizer N import. This had no or limited effect on emission, and in the late 1980s, regulations were introduced with mandatory stipulations on manure storage capacity, application of manure during the growing season, and limitation on the number of animals per hectare agricultural land (Harmony Rules). Early introduction of the Harmony Rule in 1985 has since prevented very high local surpluses of N and phosphorus. In 1993/94, legislation was introduced for a system of farm-specific N quotas and minimum requirements for utilization of N in animal manure, controlled by the Ministry of Agriculture and Environment based on fertilizer accounts for each farm. The legislation requirements for utilization of N in manure were based on research at the universities and a large number of trials on commercial farms conducted by the Danish extension service (SEGES). These convinced most farmers of the potential manure N fertilizer efficiency. From 1993/94, the N quotas were based on optimal N levels to the crops, but from 1998/99 to 2016/17, they were reduced to 10–20% below the economically optimal rate. From 2016/17, the reduced N quotas were replaced by an expansion of the catch crop requirement in the legislation. The effect is that NO3- leaching has been reduced by 45% by restricting manure application to the period with crop demand for plant nutrients, by undersupplying with N as related to the economically optimum application rate, and by compulsory cultivation of crops that take up N during most of the year. Regulation has resulted in a 51% reduction in NH3 emission from livestock buildings, manure stores, and manure application. In 2020/21, the required N fertilizer efficiency of manure N (equivalence to N in mineral fertilizers) is 75% of N in cattle slurry and 80% for pig slurry, higher than in any other countries known to us. The N quotas are based on the optimal level, and the requirement for compulsory catch crops is 40–50% for the main part of the country. The farmers can use alternatives to catch crops like a reduced N quota or early establishment of winter cereals. The revision of the “regulation system” was intended to improve the economy of the crop production, but the effect was that complexity and volume of legislation have increased significantly, without much effect on farmers' economy. It is recommended that the regulation is kept simple and that it reflects the processes leading to plant uptake and emissions.

THE MONOPOLY PRACTICE AND UNFAIR BUSINESS COMPETITION IN THE TECHNOLOGY TRANSFER ACTIVITY THROUGH THE FOREIGN PATENT IN INDONESIA

It is a common knowledge that technology development shall be in line with the development of a nation. This fact is raising the need of developing countries as Indonesia to maximize potential in the field of technology. However, it is not easy as it sounds, there are many obstacles for a country to develop its potential in technology, notably for the expert in the relevant country to master the necessary skills. Due to this limitation, many countries are beginning to fill-in the gap by registering license of foreign patent. It is expected that the use of foreign patent will replace the higher cost and longer time needed in developing local technology in the developing countries. Unfortunately, the use of foreign patent license does not itself automatically enhance one’s ability to master the necessary skills. Many cases where developing countries were deceived by the ‘grant-back’ clause attached to the foreign patent license. The licensee’s position is consequently considered has lower than of the licensor, which in its turn may rise monopoly practice and unfair business competition. This study is conducted with the purpose to formulate an effective technology transfer through the licensing of foreign patent that can refrain from the repetition of monopoly practice and unfair business competition, according to the TRIPs signed by WTO and the positive law in Indonesia. This study is using juridical-normative approach as the methodology of research, it also use analytical approach through the Law Number 13 of 2016 concerning Patent; Law Number 5 of 1999 concerning Prohibition of the Monopoly Practice and Unfair Business Competition as well as the Agreement on Trade-Related Aspects of Intellectual Property Rights signed by the World Trade Organization, with respect to the license agreement of the foreign patent. Based on the issue as established previously in this journal, the expected outcome of increased information dissemination towards countries using patent licensing agreement in technology and information development related to any matter in intellectual property specifically in licensing agreement, which has higher possibility for Monopolistic Practices and Unfair Business Competition. Therefore, shows that in principle in order to prevent the licensing of foreign patent to lead onto the monopoly practice and unfair business competition, a country must establish a controlling entity to supervise the execution of the foreign patent and at the same time, enacting harmonious rules and regulations with such supervision.

ПРИНЦИПЫ СТРУКТУРНОЙ ОРГАНИЗАЦИИ И КОМПОЗИЦИИ В МУЗЫКЕ И АРХИТЕКТУРНОЙ СРЕДЕ

The article explores the basic principles of the structural organisation in music and architecture. We analyze development and transformation of these principles through the various stages of human culture from ancient times to the present. We explore understanding of harmony and aesthetics in different cultures. We review the basic rules of harmony taking the art of ancient Greece and Rome as an example. We review the history of the Golden Ratio and its realisation in practice. The central section gives the calculation of the Golden Ratio in the J. S. Bach`s Chromatic Fantasia in D minor. Finally, we describe the formation and development of the fractal aesthetics and give the examples of fractal art in architecture and music.

THE MONOPOLY PRACTICE AND UNFAIR BUSINESS COMPETITION IN THE TECHNOLOGY TRANSFER ACTIVITY THROUGH THE FOREIGN PATENT IN INDONESIA

It is a common knowledge that technology development shall be in line with the development of a nation. This fact is raising the need of developing countries as Indonesia to maximize potential in the field of technology. However, it is not easy as it sounds, there are many obstacles for a country to develop its potential in technology, notably for the expert in the relevant country to master the necessary skills. Due to this limitation, many countries are beginning to fill-in the gap by registering license of foreign patent. It is expected that the use of foreign patent will replace the higher cost and longer time needed in developing local technology in the developing countries. Unfortunately, the use of foreign patent license does not itself automatically enhance one’s ability to master the necessary skills. Many cases where developing countries were deceived by the ‘grant-back’ clause attached to the foreign patent license. The licensee’s position is consequently considered has lower than of the licensor, which in its turn may rise monopoly practice and unfair business competition. This study is conducted with the purpose to formulate an effective technology transfer through the licensing of foreign patent that can refrain from the repetition of monopoly practice and unfair business competition, according to the TRIPs signed by WTO and the positive law in Indonesia. This study is using juridical-normative approach as the methodology of research, it also use analytical approach through the Law Number 13 of 2016 concerning Patent; Law Number 5 of 1999 concerning Prohibition of the Monopoly Practice and Unfair Business Competition as well as the Agreement on Trade-Related Aspects of Intellectual Property Rights signed by the World Trade Organization, with respect to the license agreement of the foreign patent. Based on the issue as established previously in this journal, the expected outcome of increased information dissemination towards countries using patent licensing agreement in technology and information development related to any matter in intellectual property specifically in licensing agreement, which has higher possibility for Monopolistic Practices and Unfair Business Competition. Therefore, shows that in principle in order to prevent the licensing of foreign patent to lead onto the monopoly practice and unfair business competition, a country must establish a controlling entity to supervise the execution of the foreign patent and at the same time, enacting harmonious rules and regulations with such supervision.

Learning Exceptions in Phonological Alternations.

The present study explores learning phonological alternations that contain exceptions. Participants were exposed to a back/round vowel harmony pattern in which a regular suffix obeyed a vowel harmony rule, varying between /e/ and /o/ depending on the back/round phonetic features of the stem, and a non-alternating suffix that was always /o/ regardless of the features of the stem vowel. Participants in Experiment 1 learned the behavior of both suffixes, but correct performance for the non-alternating suffix was higher when the suffix happened to be in harmony with the stem. Participants in Experiment 2 were exposed to the non-alternating affix in harmonic contexts only, and continued to show a bias towards harmony. Experiment 3 replicated Experiment 2 with minimal training on disharmonic cases of the non-alternating morpheme. However, participants were less likely to learn the alternating affix without exposure to morphological stem, stem + suffix alternations in Experiment 4, suggesting a bias towards morphophonological alternations in learning vowel harmony patterns.

4성부 화성학 기초학습을 위한 컴퓨팅 구현과 화성학 규칙에 관한 연구

The goal of this study is to explicate a series of process relevant to the development of online-based harmony learning contents and to verify the validity of outputs by activating the automatic music composition algorithm based on artificial intelligence(AI) technology. Automatic music composition is a field that many researchers who study AI become interested in; and diverse attempts to adapt harmony to automatic music composition have been ceaselessly made and still ongoing. In this study, we took Monte Carlo Tree Search and had AI as an objective evaluator evaluate a learner’s solution using the rules and weights for the learning theory of harmony. In addition, we presented an exemplar to the various plausible solutions using artificial intelligence techniques that automatically generate music in accordance with the theory of harmony. The study has designed three types of voice-leading exercises in the four-voice setting: one fills out the lower three voices against a given soprano; one writes out the upper three against a given bass; and one provides the outer voices against given inner ones. The study has shown that the automatic music composition algorithm took appropriate recommendations from AI via MCTS and thus generated legitimate instances of harmony and voice leading and that scores assigned to the harmony rules successfully guide exemplars conforming to the rules. This study has limited the scope of harmony rules for beginners: the appropriate rules were singled out and defined; and then the algorithm was developed to enable automatic music composition according to these rules. This algorithm and learning methodology are expected to be of a great help in online harmony learning.

Unlearnable phonotactics

The Subregular Hypothesis (Heinz 2010) states that only patterns with specific subregular computational properties are phonologically learnable. Lai (2015) provided the initial laboratory support for this hypothesis. The current study aimed to replicate and extend the earlier findings by using a different experimental paradigm (oddball task) and a different measure of learning (sensitivity index, d′). Specifically, we compared the learnability of two phonotactic patterns that differ computationally and typologically: a simple rule (“First-Last Assimilation”) that requires agreement between the first and last segment of a word (predicted to be unlearnable), and a harmony rule (“Sibilant Harmony”) that requires the agreement of features throughout the word (predicted to be learnable). The First-Last Assimilation rule was tested under two experimental conditions: one where the training data were also consistent with the Sibilant Harmony rule, and one where the training data were only consistent with the First-Last rule. As in Lai (2015), we found that participants were significantly more sensitive to violations of the Sibilant Harmony (SH) rule than to the First-Last Assimilation (FL) rules. However, unlike Lai (2015), we also found that participants showed some residual sensitivity to the First-Last rule, but that sensitivity interacted with rule type so that participants were significantly more sensitive to SH rule violations. We conclude that participants in Artificial Grammar Learning experiments exhibit evidence of Universal Grammar constraining their learning, but patterns predicted to be unlearnable as a linguistic system can still be learned to some degree, due to non-linguistic learning mechanisms.

Общие фонетические особенности говоров северного диалекта азербайджанского языка в контексте влияния кыпчакской и огузской языковых групп

We consider the general phonetic features of the northern patois (patois of the north-western group) of the Azerbaijani language. We analyze long and short vowel variants, offence of the harmony rule, sound transitions, phonetic differences created by consonant sounds in patois, as well as the characteristic features of phonetic changes in morphology and syntax in the compara-tive context of Oguz and Kipchak languages. We also address the problems of naming dialects and patois of the Azerbaijani language. We examine the specific features of the Kipchak language elements in the phonetic characteristics of the northern dialects. We determine that in the 17th-18th centuries the Azerbaijani language developed under the influence of various dialects of the Oguz and Kipchak languages, as evidenced by the peculiarities of phonetic changes. These are, in particular, the more frequent use of velar n, a lot of sonorant consonants, the replacement of the sound ə with e, more stunning vowels, etc. The analysis of the patois vocabulary of the Azerbaijani language northern dialect confirmed the opinion of researchers about the influence of migration processes and the presence of many Turkic ethnic groups in the region on these processes. Some of these features of linguistic influence are observed to this day.

Geminate blockage in Logoori harmony with no added machinery

Following the demise of the SPE theory of phonology, little attention was paid to how rules should be formulated. Instead, there was a general trend to minimize the language-specific component of a grammar, to factor out recurring patterns and state them as independent constraints or parameters. The richer representations of autose­gmental phonology additionally led to uncertainty in rule formulation, primarily because of questions about what the correct representations are, but also because specifying dominance and precedence relations is more complex than just specifying precedence relations.
 
 This paper discusses a vowel harmony rule in the Bantu language Logoori, which is blocked by an intervening gemi­nate consonant. It is typologically surprising that an intervening geminate has an effect on harmony, and there is no clear model for how such an effect in a rule should be encoded. It is shown that the effect follows naturally from correctly formalizing the rule, with attention to how rule and representational substrings are matched, and no rule-external conditions on the rule are necessary.

Vowel Harmony Peculiarities in Ekwulobia Igbo

Patterns of vowel harmony in the Igbo language vary from one variant of Igbo to the other. Employing a descriptive framework, this study examines the operations of vowels and their harmonic peculiarities in the Ekwulobia dialect of Igbo. It established that Ekwulobia Igbo has eight phonemic vowels dividing neatly into two sets, and one phonetic vowel [ɛ] that occurs in a mutually exclusive environment. Unlike the Standard and the Onitsha Igbo, the perfective marker suffix in Ekwulobia Igbo adheres strictly to vowel harmony rule within the perfective verb form. Observed also is the fact that the cv (where c is the alveolar nasal /n/) and vcv (where c is the voiced glottal fricative /h/) demonstrative markers also conform to the vowel harmony rule; a pattern which is not obtainable in Standard and the Onitsha Igbo. Finally, in marking negation in the Ekwulobia Igbo, there is a strict correspondence of the vowel of the suffix with the vowel of the root. It might suffice to say, therefore; that in the Ekwulobia Igbo, there seems to be a stronger harmony pattern as demonstrated in the perfective marker suffix, demonstrative markers, and negation marker suffix than seems to operate in the Standard and Onitsha Igbo dialects, a feature which is quite peculiar to it.

Harmony Rules and the Suffix Domain: A Study of Maya Scribal Conventions

In 2004, Lacadena and Wichmann proposed a set of orthographic rules for the Maya script. The choice of using one of three different patterns of syn- or disharmonic spellings allowed Maya scribes to signal whether word-final syllables contained a short vowel, a long vowel or a glottal stop. In our earlier paper we focused on the lexical evidence for these orthographic «harmony rules». Although it was stated that the rules apply equally well when a suffix is involved and when no suffix is involved, the data relating to the former situation were not discussed in detail. This is the aim of the present paper.

Electrophysiological Correlates of Key and Harmony Processing in 3-year-old Children

Infants and children are able to track statistical regularities in perceptual input, which allows them to acquire structural aspects of language and music, such as syntax. However, much more is known about the development of linguistic compared to musical syntax. In the present study, we examined 3.5-year-olds’ implicit knowledge of Western musical pitch structure using electroencephalography (EEG). Event-related potentials (ERPs) were measured while children listened to chord sequences that either 1) followed Western harmony rules, 2) ended on a chord that went outside the key, or 3) ended on an in-key but less expected chord harmonically. Whereas adults tend to show an early right anterior negativity (ERAN) in response to unexpected chords (Koelsch, 2009), 3.5-year-olds in our study showed an immature response that was positive rather than negative in polarity. Our results suggest that very young children exhibit implicit knowledge of the pitch structure of Western music years before they have been shown to demonstrate that knowledge in behavioral tasks.

Harmony rules in Chinese backpacker groups

Despite recognition that Chinese backpackers travel in small, self-organised groups, studies have yet to examine how group dynamics affect the travel experience. Multi-sited ethnography and netnography were deployed to follow Chinese backpackers in Europe to explore their group dynamics. The findings reveal that Chinese backpackers sustain hierarchical group relations by applying cultural attributes of ‘respect for authority’ and ‘keqi’. A conflict-free status is achieved by following the codes of ‘guanxi’ and ‘conformity’. Harmony is practiced to either develop harmonious relationships or resolve potential discord. This study contributes to the literature on harmony by synthesising relevant cultural attributes to understand their applications in group dynamic. It furthermore contributes to the literature on backpacker tourism and self-organised travel group dynamics.