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I am trying to figure out what changes to make to Old Laqar (more information for Proto-Laqar) for Early Middle Laqar. The problem I have, though, is that almost all the "irregular" forms found apply to entire stem classes or even across multiple stem classes, making it less likely that they are going to be leveled out. For instance, there are often stem changes between indefinite plural and definite and possessed plurals of masculine nouns, but changes between these are present on a broad level across stem classes. Likewise, while very many stem classes have highly "irregular" forms for possessed definite singular forms, these are widely present across stem classes. The only ones that are likely to be leveled out are ones where they apply to rather rare stem classes, and there are a number of stem classes which are quite rare (i.e. only one or two members at the present).

One change I have been thinking of is the loss of the relativizing clitic zə, as it has very little semantic weight and is very likely to be reduced even further than it already is. Another change is to simplify the masculine definite plural forms, because it contains a /td/ cluster that is just asking to be simplifed. Other changes I have been thinking of include further reduction of Vj and Vw sequences where /j/ or /w/ fall in a coda position (these had undergone some reduction in Old Laqar, but only before vowel elision, so such sequences that existed after vowel elision were unaffected).

The big change to make is, now that the original Proto-Laqar stem classes have been obscured by subsequent sound change (e.g. /e/ and /o/ are not from just /i/ and /u/ but also from, say, Proto-Laqar /æj ɒj/ and /æw ɒw/ respectively), to make words change between stem classes. The only problem is that there are only a few ways words can change between stem classes, since the presence or lack of stem-final consonants or stem-medial consonant clusters or geminates are likely to limit the ways that words can change between stem classes. (E.g. a word is likely to change between CVC and CV:C stem classes, or CVCV and CV:CV stem classes, but not between CVC and CVCV stem classes.) Also note that changes from CVC to CV:C and CVCV to CV:CV are more likely than the other way around, since vowels identified with Proto-Laqar long vowels are more "regular" than vowels identified with Proto-Laqar short vowels. However, I will have to look into this further before I make any decisions.

I think I am going to change all Vj sequences where /j/ falls in a coda to /e/ and all Vw sequences where /w/ falls in a coda to /o/ (ij and uw sequences already disallowed). This results in the following paradigms:

Stem *jænæ

yanyə "travel.IPFV-3.S.M"
yənyin "travel.IPFV-3.S.F"
yənewə "travel.IPFV-3.S.M-3.S.M"
yəneri "travel.IPFV-3.S.M-3.S.F"
yənyašwə "travel.IPFV-3.S.M-SJV-3.S.M"
yənyəšri "travel.IPFV-3.S.M-SJV-3.S.F"

Stem *liːɣʷæ

liġyə "pay.PFV-3.S.M"
liġyen "pay.PFV-3.S.F"
liġewə "pay.PFV-3.S.M-3.S.M"
liġeri "pay.PFV-3.S.M-3.S.F"
liġyašwə "pay.PFV-3.S.M-SJV-3.S.M"
liġyəšri "pay.PFV-3.S.M-SJV-3.S.F"

Edit:

No, I am going to make /æj ɔj/ differ from /əj ej oj/ as /ɛ/ versus /e/, with /ɛ/ written as è, giving the following paradigms:

Stem *jænæ

yanyə "travel.IPFV-3.S.M"
yənyin "travel.IPFV-3.S.F"
yənèwə "travel.IPFV-3.S.M-3.S.M"
yəneri "travel.IPFV-3.S.M-3.S.F"
yənyašwə "travel.IPFV-3.S.M-SJV-3.S.M"
yənyəšri "travel.IPFV-3.S.M-SJV-3.S.F"

Stem *liːɣʷæ

liġyə "pay.PFV-3.S.M"
liġyen "pay.PFV-3.S.F"
liġèwə "pay.PFV-3.S.M-3.S.M"
liġeri "pay.PFV-3.S.M-3.S.F"
liġyašwə "pay.PFV-3.S.M-SJV-3.S.M"
liġyəšri "pay.PFV-3.S.M-SJV-3.S.F"

Another change is to have a shift, following the shift in Old Laqar of ɒ > ɔ, of æ > a, making more distinction between it and the new phoneme /ɛ/ and filling in the space opened up by the raising of ɒ > ɔ.

To parallel è for /ɛ/, in the Latin-script orthography for Early Modern Laqar I am changing å to ò for /ɔ/.

I will also have the sound changes /yj yw/ > /y/ and /øj øw/ > /ø/ (I had forgotten about these sequences when discussing Vj and Vw earlier).

This gives us the following vowel system:

i y u
e ø o
ɛ ɐ ɔ
a

Another change I thought of is to make the ubiquitous Cj clusters in Old Laqar into C: geminates, yielding the following paradigms:

Stem *jænæ

yannə "travel.IPFV-3.S.M"
yənnin "travel.IPFV-3.S.F"
yənèwə "travel.IPFV-3.S.M-3.S.M"
yəneri "travel.IPFV-3.S.M-3.S.F"
yənnašwə "travel.IPFV-3.S.M-SJV-3.S.M"
yənnəšri "travel.IPFV-3.S.M-SJV-3.S.F"

Stem *liːɣʷæ

liġġə "pay.PFV-3.S.M"
liġġen "pay.PFV-3.S.F"
liġèwə "pay.PFV-3.S.M-3.S.M"
liġeri "pay.PFV-3.S.M-3.S.F"
liġġašwə "pay.PFV-3.S.M-SJV-3.S.M"
liġġəšri "pay.PFV-3.S.M-SJV-3.S.F"[/quote]

Now that I think of it, I don't really like /y ø/, so I'm going to merge them into /i e/, giving the following vowel system:

i u
e o
ə
ɛ ɔ
a

I need more sources of /ɛ/ as /æj ɔj/ with coda /j/ are mostly found in certain verb conjugation forms. But I don't want to do a generalized umlaut either, because that will obliterate too many cases of /a/.

To justify having /ɐj/ go to [e] rather than [ɛ], I am going to raise /ɐ/ to [ə] before that change.

(This should precede /æ/ > [a] too.)

Another change is with stems where alveolopalatal consonants alternate with velar consonants, if the alveolopalatal consonants are only present in a limited subset of the forms, they are leveled back to the velar consonants. If most of the forms have alveolopalatal consonants, though, the remaining velar consonants are leveled to being alveolopalatal.

I need more sources of /ɛ/ as /æj ɔj/ with coda /j/ are mostly found in certain verb conjugation forms. But I don't want to do a generalized umlaut either, because that will obliterate too many cases of /a/.

You can probably have umlaut conditioned by _$j without umlaut conditioned by _$V[+front]. ($ here represents a syllable division, so V1$V2 means V1 followed by V2 in the next syllable.) You can definitely have processes that look like umlaut conditioned by _$j if the intermediate steps are ignored, as with liquid metathesis in Greek: *-anj- > -ain- > -en-.

You can also have less far-reaching umlaut than happened in Germanic. Umlaut processes like this can affect both vowels, as with *a$i > ɛ$e in some Chadic languages, or only the stressed vowel, as with *ǽ$a > á$a in Tocharian. Samic has particularly complex umlaut which could be mined for precedent, and often there are processes which are only conditioned by one particular V2, especially *ɪ: *e > *ɪ / _$ɪ, *ǟ *ā > *ē *ō / _$ɪ, *ō > *ū / _$ɪ. (These three sound changes happened at different times, in that chronological order.) So you'd have, say, *æ$i > *ɛ$e, followed by the *Vj > e changes.

Another possibility is to develop them from *æ or *e followed by certain coda consonants, and then simplify clusters or codas, as in Tibetan <-ad> /ɛ/ or dialectal Spanish -as > -æ.

Or ø could just become ɛ instead of e, or you could have a chain shift of ə > ɛ, ø > ə, or you could have ø > e but maintain y (as in Albanian), lower y > ø > œ (cf. Souletin Basque y > ø), and finally shift œ > ɛ.

One change I thought of is æ > ɛ / _[+(alveolo)palatal] and æ > ɛ / [+(alveolo)palatal]_ after Cj > C: and before the alveolopalatal/velar leveling, resulting in both alveolopalatal-containing and velar-containing paradigms that contain ɛ as well as paradigms with forms containing Vjɛ or initial jɛ (without there being too many instances of ɛ, thanks to Cj > C: preceding this change).

I am also doing the same for ɑ ɔ, and otherwise am chainshifting ɑ > ɔ and, as mentioned, æ > a. So hence the name of the language in Early Middle Laqar will be lòkòr.

I am assimilating aspirated-voiced clusters to aspirated-aspirated clusters, and then reducing /tʰː/ in definite plural masculine forms to /tʰ/. I am also dropping the final /ɾ/ in definite masculine forms.

One thing I have been wondering if I should do it is to turn ejectives into unaspirated voiceless consonants. I probably won't do it, because I like ejectives, but it seems like a natural outcome of the current phonology.

Another change I might make is to turn the modal verbs into modal particles, specifically:

-pə råhə "it is possible (that) (ipfv.)" > rò
-pə gawə "it is necessary (that) (ipfv.)" > gò
-pə tsʼiyə "it is probable (that) (ipfv.)" > ts'i
-pə låģá "it is supposed to be (that) (ipfv.)" > lò
-pə nayə "it will happen (that) (ipfv.)" > nè
-pə ġiyə "it tends to be (that) (ipfv.)" > ġi
-pə tayə "it is allowed (that) (ipfv.)" > tè

I have also significantly reduced the subordinating constructions; rather than constructions involving relational nouns they can probably be considered actual subordinating conjunctions now.

I also made some sound changes including eliding /w/ and /x/ after consonants.

The alignment/case marking of Early Middle Laqar is as follows:

The default pattern is that both the agent and the patient of transitive verbs are unmarked if the agent is higher on the person/animacy/topicality/definiteness hierarchy than the patient. For volitional transitive verbs where the agent is lower on the person/animacy/topicality/definiteness hierarchy than the patient, the agent is put into agentive case. For avolitional transitive verbs where the agent is lower on the person/animacy/topicality/definiteness hierarchy than the patient, the patient is put into patientive case. For volitional intransitive verbs, animate subjects are unmarked and inanimate subjects are put in agentive case. For avolitional intransitive verbs, inanimate subjects are unmarked and animate subjects are put in patientive case. This is a fluid-S arrangement, where the same verb can be volitional and avolitional when intransitive depending on how they are used.

Going along with the general theme of reduction in Early Middle Laqar, I have eliminated the relativizer/attributive and complementizer clitics that were present in Old Laqar.

I also have added a periphrasic perfect in addition to the existing periphrasic future.

I have managed to split the velar series into velar and uvular series of voiceless plosives and palatal and uvular series of fricatives, partially restoring a uvular series that had been present in Proto-Laqar.

I have created a set of nasal vowels /ɛ̃ ã ɔ̃/ ⟨ę ą ǫ⟩ where /ɛ̃/ is derived from Old Laqar /i e/ and sometimes (after /j/ not after a consonant) Old Laqar /æ ɑ ɔ/, /ã/ is derived from Old Laqar /æ ɐ ɑ/, and /ɔ̃/ is derived from Old Laqar /ɔ o u/ before a nasal consonant that was in a coda position in Old Laqar, Note that nasal vowels can appear before intervocalic nasal consonants in Early Middle Laqar due to elision of consonants after formerly coda nasal consonants before coda nasal consonants were lost.