I suppose this is what I get for taking so long with the challenge. I wanted to turn Hawaiian into Old Irish too, Soap, though my methog would've involved a series of unstressed vowel epentheses and intervocalic lenitions. I’m not sure what you mean by “bare” consonants though – maybe intervocalic ones?
Now, let's try your challenge, shall we? As a preface, I’ll say that this diachronic description is based on the assumption that the simple tone, ă, is the default and unmarked one, which fits its description.
Start: /p m w/ /t d n s l r/ /č ǯ š ž j/ /k ŋ x ɣ h/ /kʷ xʷ ɣʷ hʷ/ /a i u ə/ /ā ī ū ə̄/
(C)[V,N̩]([N,l,h,k])
Sound changes:
1)Preparation for tonogenesis 1:
k → ʔ/V_ !_V
2)Tonogenesis 1:
Vʔ → V́ The glottal stop is reinterpreted as an integral part of the first tone. V̄ʔ → V̄ This tone achieves a noticeably higher pitch than the short high tone, with a correspondingly steeper fall in pitch in the next syllable, which quickly becomes one of its main phonetic features.
3)Schwa oppression begins:
ə̄ → ə ə → ə[-stress]
4)Labialised fricative shenanigans
xʷ → x ɣʷ → w hʷ → ɸʷ → pʷ This is directly inspired by Japanese, where /h/ to /b/ is a frequent consonant mutation.
5)Syllabic nasal vocalisation:
[ŋ,m] n → ũ ĩ These vowels are distinguished from their allophonically nasalised before nasals oral counterparts by their higher degree of nasalisation.
6) /d/ lenition and devoicing
d → ð/V_V d → t
7)Vowel length neutralisation, glide elision, rising tone formation and diphthong formation.
V̄[+tone] → V All long toneless vowels shorten, but long high tone ones stay put. CVwə → CVu̯ CVjə → CVi̯ CV([h,ɣ,ð])ə → CV CVwə́ → CV̋u̯ CVjə́ → CV̋i̯ CV([h,ɣ,ð])[ə,ə́] → CV̋ C[V́,V̄]w[ə,ə́] → CV̄u̯ C[V́,V̄]j[ə,ə́] → CV̄i̯ C[V́,V̄]([h,ɣ,ð])[ə,ə́] → CV̄ ð → z → r ə → a V̋ is at this point realised as rising in all environments and peaking at a noticeably lower pitch than the long high tone. Consequently, the drop in pitch in the next syllable is not as noticeable.
8)/h/ cluster reinterpretation and preparation for tonogenesis 2 h → ʔ/V_ !_V hC → Ch → Cʔ → Cˀ
9)Nasal vowel denasalisation
ĩ ũ → e o The lower height of nasal vowels becomes their main distinguishing feature and the nasality is lost.
10)Tonogenesis 2
VCˀ →VˀC → V̂C Vʔ →Vˀʔ → V̂ V́Cˀ → V́ˀC → V̀C V́ʔ → V́ˀʔ → V̀ [V̄,V̋]Cˀ → V̄ˀC → V̏C This is the long strong coarse tone, which won’t survive for long. It does, however, have the long high tone’s, ability to lower the following syllable as one of its phonetic features, and another one of those features is its ability to also lower the tone of the preceding syllable, which arose from the rising contour of one of its predecessors, the rising tone. [V̄,V̋]bʔ → V̄ˀʔ → V̏ ʔ → Ø Here, glottalisation shfts to pharyngealisation, which is hardly even a phonetic change.
11)Tone merger 1
V̋ and V̄ merge into one phonetically long high tone, higher than the unmarked tone but lower than the V̄ tone used to be, everywhere except word – finally, with the main distinguishing characteristic of V̄ now being its ability to cause a significant drop in pitch in the next syllable. Word – finally, V̄ becomes, phonetically, a long falling tone.
12)Coda /l/ vocalisation l → u̯/V_ !_V This sound change isn’t really required for the end result, but I personally think that having nasals as the only available coda is a nice touch/ 13)Tone merger 2 V̏ delengthens, merging with V̀ unconditionally. The strong coarse tone also inherits the long strong coarse tone’s ability to lower the pitch of the surrounding syllables.
End: Consonants: /p pʷ m f w/ /t n s l r/ /č ǯ š ž j/ /k kʷ ŋ x ɣ h/ /a e i o u/
The simple tone, spelled ă, is a short mid tone. The high tone, spelled á, is a short high tone, usually followed by a glottal stop. Vowels with this tone are slightly centralized. The long high tone, ā, is longer and does not have a glottal stop. It also makes the following syllable lower than normal. When final, it becomes a long falling tone. The low coarse tone, spelled â, is low, long, and pharyngealized. The strong coarse tone, spelled à, is also pharyngealized, but pronounced on a higher tone. It makes surrounding syllables on both sides become low-tone. The rising tone, spelled a̋, is similar to the long high tone, but does not affect surrounding syllables. When final, it becomes a rising tone.
Last edited by Knit Tie on Sun Jun 25, 2017 10:48 am, edited 1 time in total.
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