I'd first say that I think any of these could be perfectly stable, in case you decide you want to have a conservative branch of the family that preserves most or all of the distinctions intact.Das Public Viewing wrote:So, I'm trying to make a language family along the lines of Indo-European or Afroasiatic, and I was trying to think of a couple mega-unstable phonemes for the proto-lang. Could y'all tell me which of these are plausibly unstable?
I like this idea./ɬ/ the Magnificent: It is of course alongside a /l/ and a /ʎ/, but I was thinking of a satemization-type distinction between evolving it into /θ/ or /ʃ/, which then can become /f/t/s/ and /s/ʂ/x/, respectively, plus maybe others if I think of it.
I use this setup in some of my conlangs, and a fourfold contrast of k/kʷ/ḳ/ḳʷ in others (here the ones with dots are ejectives). In my languages, non-ejective voiceless stops are always aspirated. One side of the family also has p/pʷ/ṗ/ṗʷ, the other just has a single p.PIE Dorsals Plus: This consists of the theory I've often seen lurking on the PIE threads here, of a uvular-velar-labiovelar distinction, but with an added labiouvular series/consonant/haven't decided. This set of /k/kʷ/q/qʷ/ could then become any of /c/cʷ/k/kʷ/, /k/p/kˤ/pˤ/, etc.
I've done a lot of things with them, which I can share. Plus, other ideas from natlangs you might like:
If you have no voicing distinction and want to grow one, you might want changes like these:
/k/ > /k/, but /kʷ/ > /gʷ/ and possibly later to /g/ (stops become voiced before [w] in Mingo, a language of West Virginia)
/k kʷ/ unchanged, but /q qʷ/ > /g gʷ/ (/q/ > /g/ is found in some dialects of Arabic)
Other ideas:
/k kʷ/ unchanged, but /q qʷ/ > /x xʷ/. European languages seem resistant to /q/, but tolerate postvelar fricatives such as /χ/, which could then either remain or shift forward to /x/.
Labialization affects surrounding vowels, then drops. Especially useful if your parent language has only a few vowels, especially if there is an incomplete set of rounded vowels or none at all. Note, though, languages like these would probably have more labialized consonants besides just velar and uvular stops.
/k kʷ q qʷ/ > /c kʷ k kʷ/. I generally avoid labialized palatals in my conlangs, and although there are quite a few languages that do have them, there's definitely also a precedent for labialized consonants resisting palatalization (as they did in satem languages in IE). The presence of /q/ could help the labialized consonants hang on to their distinctive labialization even after the original plain [k] slips away.
/c p k p/. Combination of the above shift and the /kʷ/>/p/ type shift. Will produce a language with relatively sparse use of dorsal consonants.
/k kʷ q qʷ/ > /k kʷ 0 w/. No natlang precedent that I know of, but I've used this in a language where the consonant inventory is minimal and the language is nearly CV, so I expect consonant weakening to be common and nearly unconditional. I used a glottal stop as an intermediary,
One other thing to keep in mind is that most sound changes are conditional, so these are likely to be merely the most common outcomes. Even in PIE the satemization rule had quite a few exceptions. I was actually about to type out an example of a shift Ive done right now, but I think it's not one of my best ideas so I'll just link to https://chridd.nfshost.com/diachronica/ if youre not familiar with it already, where there are ample examples of attested natlang shifts in both directions.
Those sound like good ideas. I think ejectivization of voiceless geminates is also attested, and I think aspiration of voiced ones also is, but the latter change may have first involved devoicing.Gemination Constipation: There are so many things this could become! It could rhinoglottophilia! It could affricates! It could failure to lenit! etc.
Tone generally has no effect on vowel quality, if that's what you're saying, but there are a few exceptions.Tone: Okay, this may not have any far-reaching distinction, but could tone produce differing stress patterns depending on the duaghters? Or does it produce mostly the same effect? Also, this could maybe affect vowels?