Lhazareen Historical Linguistics

See also: Proto-Plains language

The sound changes that occurred from Proto-Plains to Lhazareen are described in the following text. Note that this description of the sound changes should not be considered exhaustive.

Abbreviations

• _: indicates the phoneme's place in a phonological environment
• (): indicates an optional phoneme in a phonological environment
• #: word boundary
• $: syllable boundary
• ∅: null, elision
• V: vowel
• C: consonant
• N: nasal
• P: plosive, stop
• L: liquid

• [...+]: has feature
• [...-]: does not have feature
• [voice]: voicing
• [back]: backness

Sound changes

• Vowel harmony (Vowel fronting)

  a, o, u > ä, ö, ü / _...V[back-], V[back-]..._

  • Back vowels shifted to their fronted counterparts when there was a front vowel (i or e) in the word.
• Intervocalic voicing of obstruents

  C[obs+] > [voice+] / V_V

  • Obstruents voiced between vowels.
• Word-final devoicing of obstruents

  C[obs+] > [voice-] / _#

  • Obstruents devoiced at the end of words.
• Palatalization

  t, d, lh, k, g > ts, dz, ly, ch, j / _V[back-]

  • Alveolars t, d, and lh, as well as velars k and g palatalized before front vowels.
• Central vowel shift

  ə, ɨ > a, i / _

  • Ubiquitous change.