User:Soap/Mevumep

Spoken in Mevumep.

NE Cluster Group I

THis is the more complicated of the two.

1. The voiceless alveolar stops t d shifted to c ʒ (IPA /ts/).
2. Shifts involving fronting of consonants. These may be interleaved with others when the list fills out:
   1. The postalveolar affricates č ǯ shifted to s z, except possibly in some codas where the /č/ had already assimilated to the onset of the following syllable.
   2. Shifts of velars:
      1. The velars k g ŋ h shifted to č ǯ ň š before any /i/, including the sequence /Ci/ before a vowel.
      2. The velars k g ŋ h shifted to kʷ gʷ ŋʷ hʷ before any /u/. (The labials p b also shifted to pʷ bʷ.)
      3. Elsewhere, the plain velars k g ŋ h shifted to dentals t d ṇ ṣ. (The stops are spelled undotted since they had mostly disappeared earlier; it is unlikely that these will contrast with the marginal inherited stops.) Note that these never occurred before /i/ and possibly not before /u/.
   3. Finally, the labiovelars kʷ gʷ ŋʷ hʷ delabialized to k g ŋ h, becoming the only velars in the language.
3. The sequences əi əu shifted to ī ū.
4. The voiceless bilabial stops p pʷ lenited to fricatives f ɸ in many positions (unconditionally between vowels, possibly conditionally elsewhere).
5. Geminate stops (including many that were not described in this list) became single. This restores /p/ to phonemic status, since the geminates had always been voiceless (e.g. /gb/ [kp], probably shifting early to [pp] though unlisted here) and also had escaped the previous shift.
6. The schwa vowel ə disappeared to Ø, creating clusters, except where rules disallowed a collapse, in which case it became i.

NE Cluster Group II

1. The voiceless alveolar stops t d shifted to s z (IPA /ts/).
2. The postalveolar affricates č ǯ shifted to š ž, except possibly in some codas where the /č/ had already assimilated to the onset of the following syllable. These sounds do not immediately merge with either /s z/ or with /sʲ/ below (there is no voiced form), but most likely will merge eventually. In theory these could even have their own separate palatalized forms, making a four-way contrast of /s sʲ š šʲ/ as in Slavic.
3. The velars k g ŋ h shifted to kʷ gʷ ŋʷ hʷ before any /u/. (The labials p b also shifted to pʷ bʷ.)
4. The velars k g ŋ h shifted to tʲ rʲ nʲ sʲ.
5. The vowels ə i shifted to i ʲi unconditionally.