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Perhaps tC > ʔC > hC > ʕC > Cˤ ?

But my main question still stands: how to generate (and then dispose of, preferably interestingly) pharyngealised consonants.

Relevant.

Old Chinese is sometimes reconstructed as having developed word-level pharyngealization from uvulars and retroflexed vowels.

As for getting rid of it: the articulatory and acoustic paths are opposite, so they could eject either low or high on/offglides onto surrounding vowels, round, palatalize, or just turn to length (cf. ɜʕ ʕʷ > a: ɥ in Abkhaz), or merge with geminates as in Karacalar Ubykh, or cause diphthong metathesis (je > ej) as in Chechen.

Would the chain shift /qʰ > h > x > f/ be plausible?

What about that shift:?

/t k/ (before back vowels) → /ʈ kʷ/ → /k p/

(with other consonants at these POA behaving analogically)

CatDoom wrote:Would the chain shift /qʰ > h > x > f/ be plausible?

I'd say so, the only snag being that I can really only see h > x before a back vowel (cf. h > ç / _i in English).

So here's a slightly odd idea I had.

Let's say we have a sound change where vowels are uniformly lowered in the vicinity of uvulars; a pretty common shift, at least synchronically. As part of this change, /o/ shifts to /a/, losing its rounding distinction. Would it be plausible for the rounding distinction in this case to migrate to a preceding consonant? The change would be something like:

Co > Cʷa /_C[+uvular]

Yea, definitely. Especially if [o] is perceived as /ʷo/, and , if it exists, likewise, maybe in contrast to [ə] /o/ or [e] /ʲe/.

You could even have
[a e i o u] /a ʲə ʲɨ ʷə ʷɨ/

I believe something of the sort happened in Alan/Ossetian, at least historically.

That is one of the classic changes of Northwest Caucasian (possibly Northeast as well, but I don't know that group as well), which is probably the origin of the Ossetian change.

What Ossetian change are we talking about here though? The only vaguely similar change in Ossetian I can think of is ku > kʷɨ in Iron Ossetian, together with a broader u > ɨ change.

Acid Badger wrote:What Ossetian change are we talking about here though? The only vaguely similar change in Ossetian I can think of is ku > kʷɨ in Iron Ossetian, together with a broader u > ɨ change.

To be honest, I was taking it as a given that Rusanov had a clue what he was talking about (bad move), because I didn't want to look it up in my Ossetian PDF, which is images and thus unsearchable.

R.Rusanov wrote:I believe something of the sort happened in Alan/Ossetian, at least historically.

and why do you believe that

/h/ > /f/ next to a rounded vowel, yes?

If there's space throw in a hʷ stage, otherwise yes.

ObsequiousNewt wrote:/h/ > /f/ next to a rounded vowel, yes?

Japanese does something very similar, turning /h/ into /ɸ/ before the rounded high vowel. Although that could represent a retention of earlier /ɸ/ in that context rather than a change into it.

yes, f turned to h.

also better to just say /u/ because it's questionable whether it's "rounded" or not.

Isn't it in fact unrounded? [Is it known what it was when it was still /fu/?]

It's sometimes/often said to be [ɯ^β], meaning unrounded but with a fricated bilabial release, thus adding some degree of lip-rounding.

It is “rounded” but not rounded.

I thought it just had compressed rounding instead of protruded rounding.

it *is* a retention from an earlier labial fricative stage, this is *known*

h > f / _V[+round] should be fine tho

Working dialects a little at the mo. Standard Lartau distinguishes labialisation in stops and fricatives, but in Black River Lartau, labialisation has become velarisation, e.g. t^w t^ɣ.

All's well till we get to <x^w>. I'm pretty sure <x^ɣ> isn't a thing, so what are the chances of x^w χ, given there aren't any other uvulars?

I feel like having uvular non-stops without other uvular consonants is pretty okay. That being said, do you mean there's no velars in your original pool except /x/? (You could also try weirder things like /xʷ/ > /ʍ/ or /w/ or /ɣ/ or /g/ or something.)

So, here's a question regarding palatalization:

Let's say you've got a language that has a velar series and one coronal series. First, coronal consonants undergo palatalization under the usual conditions. Subsequently, velar consonants are also palatalized. Would it be plausible for the existing palatal(-ized) consonants to shift forward, becoming alveolar consonants, with the existing coronal consonants becoming dental, thereby preserving the original coronal-velar distinction in all environments?

Seri contrasts /x χ/ (and xʷ χʷ) but doesn't have any other uvulars.

CatDoom, that sounds plausible, but look up palatalization in Slavic and Chinese.

As far as I understand something like this happened in some Pama-Nyungan languages, where original palatals shifted forward to be dental when another series was palatalized, thus bringing the total amount of coronal POAs up to four.