Sound Change Quickie Thread

[Whimemsz]

Nort, also Rumantsch, apparently (/saptʃa/ < */sapja/)

[Tropylium]

Was trying to derive lateral obstruents and remove l in consonant clusters from an earlier language. Are the following changes plausible?

ɸl, sl, hl > ɬ / _{e,i}
hʷl > ɬʷ / _{e,i}
dl, tl, gl, kl > tɬ / _{e,i}
gʷl, kʷl > tɬʷ / _{e,i}
l > ʷ / C_{a, ə, o, u}
bl, pl > bʲ, pʲ

Looks fine to me, although it'd make much more sense with the order reversed. I'm also not sure about /bl pl/ palatalizing even in back-vowel environments when nothing else does, but that could come before l-velarization before back vowels.

I don't see that being implied by the current order. OTOH l ʷ should probably either go before devoicing, or devoicing should apply in a back-vowel environment as well. There's no reason for front vowels to trigger devoicing, but if /l/ before back vowels already became labialization, then it can be simply an incidental environment.

I also don't see why you're devoicing the affricates; /dɮ/ is underrated enuff as-is (possibly largely because linguistic areas with lhateral affricates and voiced stops do not overlap much).

[Melteor]

Orthographic decision:
What do guys think of writing /t ʧ ʃ s d ʤ ʒ z/ <t tj sj s d dj zj z>

[Whimemsz]

That's fine, and I can't imagine that anyone would have any objection to it

[WeepingElf]

Orthographic decision:
What do guys think of writing /t ʧ ʃ s d ʤ ʒ z/ <t tj sj s d dj zj z>

Makes perfect sense. Nice and elegant.

[Click]

Are these sound changes plausible?
gg > j before front vowels
ɣ > w before rounded vowels
ɣ > h otherwise

[----]

Navajo did the first two, and I don't see anything wrong with the third one; I think it's happened by itself in several languages, I don't see why it couldn't along with the first two changes.

[Grimalkin]

ɣ > j /#_
ɣ > v

Has it ever been done? Could it be done?

[sirdanilot]

The first, yes, but the second must be a typo because I can't conceive ɣ becoming v ever?

[brandrinn]

Isn't this similar to -jevo < jego in Russian?

[Nortaneous]

G > v isn't that odd... if it helps, just say G (> M\) > w > v

[WeepingElf]

The first, yes, but the second must be a typo because I can't conceive ɣ becoming v ever?

Happened in Finnish in some environments.

[Grimalkin]

Aha, interesting. I knew /ɣ/ > /v/ would be a bit of an odd sound change, but it's good to know there is some precedent for it. I'm guessing /ɣ/ > /w/ would be much less outlandish? I can work with that.

[Eschatologist]

Is a change /θ ð/ → /r/ too implausible? I imagine /θ/ first lenites to /ð/, then it goes something like ð → ð̞ → ɹ, merging with the pre-existing /r/ after that point.

[Nortaneous]

or D > l > r

the hard part there is that i'd expect all the fricatives to voice in whatever environment if one does

[tezcatlip0ca]

Is /d/ > /ð/ [ð̞ˤ] > /ʕ/ > vowel retraction plausible? I was thinking that for a descendant of Dŕbatkovi I could have /d/ and syllable-final /t/ and /θ/ pharyngealize and cause all kinds of damage on the surrounding vowels, to eventually have a 3-vowel system with length and an overload of glottal stops in the daughterlang...

[Grunnen]

ɣ > j /#_
ɣ > v

Has it ever been done? Could it be done?

I see I'm a bit late, but Dutch had /ft/ >/xt/ (hence German Luft, Dutch lucht [English loft, if I'm not mistaken]), which is the other way around, but which is sometimes said to have come about because these sounds are rather similar.

[sangi39]

Is it possible for /c/ and /ɟ/ to become /t/ and /d/ unconditionally, either through a single step or multiple steps?

[communistplot]

Is it possible for /c/ and /ɟ/ to become /t/ and /d/ unconditionally, either through a single step or multiple steps?

I wouldn't think that much of a stretch. Other ways of deriving /t/ & /d/ could be from /c/, /J\/ via /t_j/ & /d_j/. You could also get /k_j/, /g_j/ > /k/, /g/ > /t/, /d/.

[Melteor]

How do languages get tongue root harmony. Really.

[Whimemsz]

Long-distance vowel assimilation.

[Tropylium]

Is it possible for /c/ and /ɟ/ to become /t/ and /d/ unconditionally, either through a single step or multiple steps?

Yes. Happened in Egyptian.

[Qwynegold]

Is a change /θ ð/ → /r/ too implausible? I imagine /θ/ first lenites to /ð/, then it goes something like ð → ð̞ → ɹ, merging with the pre-existing /r/ after that point.

or D > l > r

the hard part there is that i'd expect all the fricatives to voice in whatever environment if one does

Or maybe something like ð > ɾ > r. Also Finnish. >.< But I don't know how exactly that happened.

[Tropylium]

Is a change /θ ð/ → /r/ too implausible? I imagine /θ/ first lenites to /ð/, then it goes something like ð → ð̞ → ɹ, merging with the pre-existing /r/ after that point.

or D > l > r

the hard part there is that i'd expect all the fricatives to voice in whatever environment if one does

Or maybe something like ð > ɾ > r. Also Finnish. >.< But I don't know how exactly that happened.

Most plausible way to get /θ/ into /r/ here might be to first turn it into /r̥/, which would be more expected to voice than original fricativs.

[Melteor]

A) kt>s ?

B) Kind of a related albeit weird question, does anyone have any phonological processes that they feel a little shy about? Like, when I had problems pronouncing r + coronal consonant, I actually give it a retroflex or geminate pronunciation to the following constant, and then I found it was a feature of Norwegian and it felt more legitimate putting it in my lang. (Maybe that should be a separate thread.)