Sound Change Quickie Thread

[KathTheDragon]

Since I now have an answer, yes. Armenian seems to have had hw > ʍ > kʍ > kʰ, so you could feasibly either continue that as kʰ > x (cf. Modern Greek, iirc) or instead do ʍ > xʍ > x.

[Zaarin]

Perfect, thanks. My conlang already has aspirates, but the second change would work perfectly.

[vtardif]

I'm newer to conlanging, so I hope i don't say something completely implausible, but anyway is it plausible for [ts] and [dz] to be allophones of velar consonants before front vowels? Thanks in advance!

That seems entirely probable. Diachronically, this would likely look like [k g] > [c ɟ] > [tʃ dʒ] > [ts dz]. Something to think about: are there other instances of [ts dz] (or [tʃ dʒ] etc. if you want to go that route) which /k g/ might then merge with before front vowels?

Also: this is why we have soft C. All Cs in Latin represented the same sound /k/, but before front vowels it changed in much the way I described above, then on to [s z], as in English <center> /'sen.tɹ/ (a borrowing from the French <centre>, now pronounced /sɑ̃tʁ/).

[sangi39]

I'm newer to conlanging, so I hope i don't say something completely implausible, but anyway is it plausible for [ts] and [dz] to be allophones of velar consonants before front vowels? Thanks in advance!

I don't see why not. Didn't Spanish /θ/ derive from older [ts], which itself came from [k] before or [e]?

[Mugitus]

Thanks to both of you!

[finlay]

Since I now have an answer, yes. Armenian seems to have had hw > ʍ > kʍ > kʰ, so you could feasibly either continue that as kʰ > x (cf. Modern Greek, iirc) or instead do ʍ > xʍ > x.

or ʍ → x since the sounds are very similar. you don't have to make it difficult or add in extra stages all the time, you know.

[Zaarin]

Since I now have an answer, yes. Armenian seems to have had hw > ʍ > kʍ > kʰ, so you could feasibly either continue that as kʰ > x (cf. Modern Greek, iirc) or instead do ʍ > xʍ > x.

or ʍ → x since the sounds are very similar. you don't have to make it difficult or add in extra stages all the time, you know.

That works even better.

[8Deer]

In languages with both implosives and modal voiced stops, which series is most likely to lenite, or is there any sort of tendency one way or another?

[Tropylium]

Define "lenite"?
Implosives are not obstruents, so if you wanted fricativization, the modal voiced stops are a better bet for that. OTOH if you wanted lenition towards sonorants, the implosives are a better starting place (ɓ > m, ɗ > l etc.) You can find examples of voiced stops going to sonorants in plenty of languages but that almost always involves a fricativ intermediate stage and no implosives hanging around.

[gach]

A quick question since I'm finally trying to settle down with the sound history of Kišta. Suppose that there's a change of Vi sequences to plain long vowels VV with optional fronting or raising but this change doesn't happen for all vowels. Is this type of a straightening generally more likely to happen for [low vowel]+i or [high vowel]+i sequences?

[WeepingElf]

A quick question since I'm finally trying to settle down with the sound history of Kišta. Suppose that there's a change of Vi sequences to plain long vowels VV with optional fronting or raising but this change doesn't happen for all vowels. Is this type of a straightening generally more likely to happen for [low vowel]+i or [high vowel]+i sequences?

I think the latter. /ei/ > /e:/ seems more common to me than /ai/ > /a:/, though the latter is attested, too.

[gach]

Yep, it's well possible throughout the vowel space. I just want to make it a partial sound change and would be interested to learn what are its statistics for happening for different base vowels.

Basically this is a question of developing the vowel /ø/ in stressed syllables from *oi and whether it will appear in the inherited lexicon only in the diphthong öi or as a long vowel öö.

[GreenBowTie]

/oi/ /ø:/ and /oi/ /øi/ both seem pretty reasonable to me though the latter seems likely to turn into /øy/

[Click]

A quick question since I'm finally trying to settle down with the sound history of Kišta. Suppose that there's a change of Vi sequences to plain long vowels VV with optional fronting or raising but this change doesn't happen for all vowels. Is this type of a straightening generally more likely to happen for [low vowel]+i or [high vowel]+i sequences?

I think the latter. /ei/ > /e:/ seems more common to me than /ai/ > /a:/, though the latter is attested, too.

And in tact they are both attested in various dialects of English.

I know regressive assimilations are more common, but is it plausible for a nasal to assimilate in place to an obstruent on its left, as in [tm] → [tn]?
Also, how to make [tn] eventually become [nd]? Perhaps [tn] → [nˀ] → [nd]?

[Nortaneous]

German has place assimilation for -en but that's a special case, basically a weird reversed preinitial

it's too bad it doesn't have a Tibetan-style script to leave people confused a dozen or two centuries from now

[CatDoom]

I know regressive assimilations are more common, but is it plausible for a nasal to assimilate in place to an obstruent on its left, as in [tm] → [tn]?
Also, how to make [tn] eventually become [nd]? Perhaps [tn] → [nˀ] → [nd]?

The former seems fine to me, since nasals are on the whole more prone to assimilation than oral stops. As for the latter, I would imagine that it would depend on what position in the word we're talking about. Glottalized nasals are more commonly preglottalized than postglottalized, so I'm not sure about the sequence of changes you propose, but word-initially you might have [tn] lose the initial stop, before undergoing fortition to [nd]. Of course, in that case other instances of initial [n] would become prenasalized stops as well, regardless of whether or not they were prestopped.

[zyxw59]

If /c ɟ ç ʝ/ → /t͜ɕ d͜ʑ ɕ ʑ/, what could happen to /cc ɟɟ/?

[Pogostick Man]

If /c ɟ ç ʝ/ → /t͜ɕ d͜ʑ ɕ ʑ/, what could happen to /cc ɟɟ/?

The obvious choice is long affricates. If you want to have those long affricates lenite to long (or plain) fricatives that might be possible too.

[zyxw59]

I guess then my question is, how exactly are long affricates realized? Is the stop part lengthened, the fricative part lengthened, or both?

[Pogostick Man]

I guess then my question is, how exactly are long affricates realized? Is the stop part lengthened, the fricative part lengthened, or both?

I'm not sure what the tendency is cross-linguistically. I think I typically pronounce them extending the stop.

[Mugitus]

Any idea of what I could turn /ɬ/ into?

[Pogostick Man]

Any idea of what I could turn /ɬ/ into?

/s/, /ʃ/, debuccalize it into /h/, maybe have it conditionally turn into /l/.

[TaylorS]

Any idea of what I could turn /ɬ/ into?

IIRC it became /S/ in many Semitic languages.

[----]

Any idea of what I could turn /ɬ/ into?

If you believe it was a part of Proto Algonquian's phonology, then /n/, /θ/, and /t/ are some acceptable reflexes.

[CatDoom]

Any idea of what I could turn /ɬ/ into?

Earlier in this thread it was suggested that /ɬ/ could become /ħ/ by way of /ɬˤ/.