Review of Stage II

Last time, we changed quite a few things from Stage I. The phonemes *p, *b, *d, *g, *z and *j were created while *ʔ got lost, and also *x changed to other things or was lost in many places. The phonemic difference between aspirated and unaspirated *t, *k and *tʰ, kʰ has been weakened in unstressed with the emergence of the voiced consonants *b, *d and *g.

MOA	bilabial	alveolar	palatal	velar	glottal
nasals	*m	*n		*ŋ
plosives	*p *b	*t *d		*k *g
			*tʰ		*kʰ
taps/flaps		*r
fricatives		*s *z		*x	*h
approximants	*w	*l	*j

We also created the vowel phonemes *e, *o and *ɨ while weakening *ə, as well as creating long versions of all of them (except for *ə) and the diphthongs *iɪ, *ɨɪ, *uɪ and *aɪ:

Height	Front	Central	Back
high	*i, *iː *iɪ	*ɨ, *ɨː *ɨɪ	*u, *uː *uɪ
mid	*e, *eː	*ə *əɪ	*o, *oː
low		*a, *aː *aɪ

Stage II to Stage III

1. Palatalization of *Cj sequences:

• *j → *ʲ / C _

2. Simplification of word-final coda clusters:

• *C₂ → Ø / VC₁ _ #

Word-final coda clusters get simplified by losing the last consonant, e.g. like

• *a.kúsk → *a.kús → *kús,
• *ga.táns → *ga.tán and
• *pu.kʰánt → *pu.kʰán.

3. Apocope in post-tonal unstressed open syllables:

• *V → Ø / [–stress] C _ #

Vowels in post-tonal open syllables get lost but only under the condition of not creating new final clusters. Examples:

• *í.da → íd,
• *ká.ga → kág and
• *náː.dʲa → náːdʲ.

This change may have gone through a stage akin to Latvian weak final vowels or by a weakening of the vowel to ^?ə, which was subsequently lost, as e.g. in many Upper German dialects (Kariņš 15–34; König 159, Paul 109–111). This change goes hand in hand with the next one:

4. Vowel reduction in unstressed open monosyllables:

• *V → *ə / # [–stress] (C) C _ #

Example: *ga → *gə.

5. Loss of short-vowel only and schwa-containing simple initial unstressed syllables:

• *V[–long] → Ø / [–stress] # _ $
• *Cə → Ø / [–stress] # _ $
• *əC → Ø / [–stress] # _ $

Examples:

• *u.kʰɨ́ɪt → *kʰíət;
• *gə.krú → *krú; and
• *əŋ.sú → *sú.

6. Loss of *r with compensatory lengthening:

• *VCr → *VːC

Long vowels and diphthongs don’t get extra length, again. Example: *káː.dra → *ká:.da.

7. Weakening of initial *x:

• *x → Øː / _ a
• *x → *j / _ [–back]
• *x → *w / _ [+back]

*x weakens to a labial and palatal approximant respectively before back and non-back vowels; it drops out completely before *a (possibly going through *x → ^?ɰ → Ø). In all cases, it leaves compensatory lengthening behind. Examples:

• *xá.gas → *áː.gas;
• *xís.kri → *jíːs.kri; and
• *xú.gʲu → *xúgʲ → *wúːgʲ → *úːgʲ.

8. *ns simplifies:

• *ns → *s

Example: *sáns.kun → *sás.kun.

9. Generate diphthongs with *ʊ:

• *(w)u → *ʊ / V _
• *w → Ø / _ u

Again, don’t create long diphthongs. Examples:

• *da.wús → *dáʊs;
• *tɨ́ws.tal → *tə́ʊs.tal.

10. Avoid vowel hiatus:

• *ɪ → *j / V _ V
• *ʊ → *w / V _ V

A diphthong in *ɪ with another vowel following is turned into a *VjV sequence to avoid hiatus. The same goes for *VʊV, where *ʊ turns into *w.[1. This is not attested as happening in my list of 2000 generated words, so I don’t know if it actually happens.] Example: rúɪ.wuk → ^?rúɪʊk → *rú.juk.

11. Open *iɪ, *ɨɪ, lower *iʊ, *ɨʊ:

• *iɪ, ɨɪ → *iə
• *iʊ, ɨʊ → *əʊ

Examples:

• *nas.kɨ́ɪs → *nas.kíəs,
• *síɪ.sa → *síəs;
• *i.kʰɨ́wk → … → *kʰɨ́ʊ → *kʰə́ʊ,
• *kɨ́w.ku → *kɨ́ʊ.ku → *kə́ʊ.ku.

12. Initial stress

Probably under foreign influence:[1. Or more accurately, because reasons.] change all stress to initial.[2. My Python script also has a thing here to clean up weird syllabifications: VCCV → VC.CV; CCC → CC.C everywhere else; VCV → V.CV. This doesn’t always work perfectly, but well enough to require very little manual fixing.]

13. Move length from long unstressed vowel to preceding short stressed vowel:

• *V́ … *Vː → *V́ː … *V

This is in parallel with the stress shift, though not limited to words that experienced it. Again, no long diphthongs or doubly long vowels. Examples:

• *su.túːs (→ ^?sú.tuːs) → *súː.tus;
• *táŋ.goːm → *táːŋ.gom.

14. Apocope of *ə:

• *ə → Ø / V C _ #

Where it still exists, drop final *ə, but only so that there are no final consonant clusters. Example: *té.srə → téː.sə → *téːs.

15. Lowering of remaining *ə:

• *ə → *a (except in diphthongs *iə, *əʊ)

This gets finally rid of all *ə, basically.[1. Not sure if this is believable, but let’s go with it for now. I guess, you could also interpret this as *ɐ (〈a〉 on its head if it doesn’t appear as such), rather.] Example: *sá.gəs → *sá.gas.

Phonemic Inventory for Stage III

In this stage, we did … things! Most radically, a stress shift to first syllables. We also kind of killed off schwa and created diphthongs with *ʊ. The consonant inventory hasn’t changed much, but there are palatalized variants of *d, *k, *g and *s (at the very least) now. This feels kind of imbalanced, so we will see some more regularization in the next step.

Consonants

MOA	bilabial	alveolar	palatal	velar	glottal
nasals	*m	*n		*ŋ
plosives	*p *b	*t *d		*k *g
			*tʰ		*kʰ
			*dʲ		*kʲ *gʲ
taps/flaps		*r
fricatives		*s *z		*x	*h
			*sʲ
approximants	*w	*l	*j

Vowels

Height	Front	Central	Back
high	*i, *iː	*ɨ, *ɨː	*u, *uː
mid	*e, *eː		*o, *oː
low		*a, *aː

Height	Front	Central	Back
high	*iə		*uɪ, *uʊ
mid
low		*aɪ, *aʊ