As I described in my introduction post, Aexinkkao has this weird nasal consonant harmony system that affects suffixes. Notably, even though the harmony system only affects consonants, it can be blocked by vowels.

Evolution

So, how did this evolve? Well, Proto-Aexinkkao had a (C)(H)V(N) syllable structure, where H is a semivowel and N is a coda nasal sharing place of articulation with the following consonant (uvular when word-final).

This coda nasal then caused preceding non-high vowels to nasalize before disappearing in all contexts. Aexinkkao later developed vowel nasalization harmony, which spread left to right and was blocked by high vowels. Nasal vowels then caused neighboring plosives to become prenasalized.

In CV syllables where V was a high vowel, the consonant became palatalized (before /i/) or velarized (before /ɯ/). In CHV syllables, /j/ triggered palatalization of the preceding consonant and disappeared while /ɰ/ triggered velarization of the preceding consonant before disappearing. HV syllables were left unchanged.

Later, epenthetic consonants were inserted to break some hiatus. If the first vowel was oral, that consonant would be /h/, /j/, or /ɰ/. However, if the first vowel was nasal, that epenthetic consonant would be /n/, /nj/, or /nɰ/. Some other hiatus were resolved by the disappearance of high vowels.

Some of the palatalized and velarized consonants then shifted place or manner of articulation. Finally, all nasal vowels were denasalized back to oral vowels.

The Result

The result is a system where prenasalization spreads left to right, is always blocked by high vowels, and is sometimes blocked by consonants that either are or used to be palatalized or velarized. The nasal harmony also affects epenthetic consonants, causing /h/ -> /n/, /ç/ -> /ɲ/, /ɸ/ -> /nˠ/, /j/ -> /ɲ/, and /ɰ/ -> /nˠ/. Non-epenthetic instances of these consonants, however, aren't affected.

Examples

Kyō and Kyō are homophones meaning day and head. However, Kyō, meaning day, has -N nasal harmony while Kyō, meaning head, has +N. So let's take a look at how this situation evolved.

In proto-Aexinkkao, the word for day was /kjɤː/, while the word for head was /ki.ɤːɴ/.

/ki.ɤːɴ/ later evolved to /ki.ɤ̃ː/. The /i/ then palatalized the /k/, causing /ki.ɤ̃ː/ -> /kʲi.ɤ̃ː/.

A similar shift caused /kjɤː/ -> /kʲɤː/.

Next, the hiatus in /kʲi.ɤ̃ː/ was prevented by removing the /i/, causing /kʲi.ɤ̃ː/ -> /kʲɤ̃ː/.

/kʲ/ -> /c/ t

I'm familiar with the Ingvaeonic nasal spirant law which achieved somewhat similar results in a few continental Germanic languages, but I can't find much information about what happened in North Germanic languages.

I'm assuming there were at least two sound changes at different times, first along with the split from West Germanic, second along with that between West and East Norse.

Please help elucidate what processes led to these linguistic differences.

Is anyone aware of any sources that discuss this? Or, as a native speaker, would you employ such a realization? Here’s a video describing the phenomenon in more detail; the examples given are all of word-final dropping, but I would also be interested in cases of consonant cluster simplification, such as “lunch” as [lʌ̃tʃ] or “send” as [sɛ̃d]. Thanks a lot!

Examples:

p̃ = m̊, b̃ = m

p̪̃ = ɱ̊, b̪̃ = ɱ

t̃ = n̊, d̃ = n

ʈ̃ = ɳ̊, ɖ̃ = ɳ

c̃ = ɲ̊, ɟ̃ = ɲ

k̃ = ŋ̊, ɡ̃ = ŋ

q̃ = ɴ̊, ɢ̃ = ɴ

Are the above correct?

Hello everybody,

I am conducting an experiment investigating the perception of phonemes in pre-verbal infants and just spotted an unexpected effect whose origin I am trying to understand. I am a PhD student in neuroscience (I use neuro-imaging, and more specifically EEG) , not a big expert in linguistics. That is why I would very much benefit of some external advice :)

In my data, and beside the effects we could expect by shared manners and places of articulation, I see that the neural representation of the "b" is more similar to that of nasals (i.e. "m", "n", "ɲ"), relative to the other voiced stops "d" and "g".

According to your knowledge and experience is there any characteristic which is shared by /b/ and /m/ /n/ /ɲ/ but not /d/ and /g/ ? It can be at the acoustic level, in the articulation... I need a clue!

Thanks a lot in advance!

Apologies if my terminology is inaccurate at all.

What I mean is: are there any cases in English where pronouncing a word ^([edit: that contains a nasal consonant followed by a plosive]) (e.g. "bump") with a different nasal consonant (e.g. as /bʌnp/ or /bʌŋp/ instead of /bʌmp/) would turn it into a different word?

The inspiration for this question is the nasal consonant "ん" in Japanese. It is always pronounced as a nasal (consonant or vowel), but which specific nasal sound it represents depends on the surrounding phonemes.

Like, ngo 我 and nga 牙 has recently (last 30 - 40 years) been merged with just o and a by increasingly more younger Cantonese speakers, but other nasals, like mo 魔, ma 媽, no 拿 and na 那, or other velars such as k'a 卡, ko 個 and ka 家 never does that. And also, the velar nasal (ng) syllabic consonant merges with the bilabial nasal (m) syllabic consonant by younger speakers too (ng 五, 伍, 吴, or 蜈 all becomes pronounced like m).

Is there like a reason why specifically only the velar nasal (ng) initial or syllabic consonant gets supressed like that by younger speakers? What are the reasons why velar nasals without vocals before it grows increasingly unpopular amongst younger Cantonese people?

It’s actually the hardest sound for me to pronounce in German. I know we have it in “put” but I can’t pronounce it at the beginning of a word.

Hi everybody! I've got this problem that's killing me.

I live with a kinda stuffy nose everyday. Not fully-blocked, but the air doesn't flow like it does in the rest of the people.

The thing is, when I search about this problem, all I find is "Learn how to stop singing nasally, only the n, m and ng should come from the nose, blah blah blah"..

I know that, I have no problems with vowels.. what nobody seems to answer (or even ask) is how to make the sound of the N, M, and NG if the air doesn't flow freely as it should...

If a phrase doesn't contain a nasal consonant, my singing is exactly as I want to be. But an N comes by and suddenly the sound is shut and it all sounds dull and even childish, like underwater.

>It's not only in the singing, but also when speaking.

Sorry if it's a stupid question, but I googled it until the 29th page and nothing.

I'm going to see a doctor soon to see if it's something health-related, but in the meantime, does something like this happened to you? Could you solve it?

Thank you, greetings from Argentina.

The International Phonetic Alphabet Keyboard(2005 revised edition)

Missing some symbols? Apply Doulos SIL font

Consonants (Pulmonic)

BilabialLabiodentalDentalAlveolarPostalveolarRetroflexPalatal Velar UvularPharyngealGlottalPlosivepbtdʈɖcɟkɡqɢ ʔ NasalmɱnɳɲŋɴTrillʙrʀTap or FlapⱱɾɽFricativeɸβfvθðszʃʒʂʐçʝxɣχʁħʕhɦLateral fricativeɬɮApproximantʋɹɻjɰLateral approximantlɭʎʟ

Where symbols appear in pairs, the one to the right represents a voiced consonant. Shaded areas denote articulations judged impossible.

Consonants (Non-Pulmonic)

ClicksVoiced implosivesEjectivesʘBilabialɓBilabialʼExamples:ǀDentalɗDental/alveolarpʼBilabalǃ(Post)alveolarʄPalataltʼDental/alveolarǂPalatoalveolarɠVelarkʼVelarǁAlveolar lateralʛUvularsʼAlveolar fricative

Vowels

📷FrontCentralBackCloseClose-midOpen-midOpeniyɨʉɯuɪʏʊeøɘɵɤoəɛœɜɞʌɔæɐaɶɑɒ

Where symbols appear in pairs, the one to the right represents a rounded vowel.

Other Symbols

ʍVoiceless labial-velar fricativeɕʑAlveolo-palatal fricativeswVoiced labial-velar approximantɺAlveolar lateral flapɥVoiced labial-palatal approximantɧSimultaneous ʃ and xʜVoiceless epiglottal fricativek͡p t͜s
◌͡◌ ◌͜◌

Affricates and double articulations can be represented by two symbols joined by a tie bar if necessary.

ʢVoiced epiglottal fricativeʡEpiglottal plosive

Suprasegmentals

ˈPrimary stressˌSecondary stressˌfoʊnəˈtɪʃənːLongeːˑHalf-longeˑ◌̆Extra shortĕ|Minor (foot) group‖Major (intonation) group.Syllable breakɹi.ækt‿Linking (absence of a break)

Diacritics

Diacritics may be placed above a symbol with a descender, e.g. ŋ̊

◌̥Voicelessn̥d̥◌̤Breathy voicedb̤a̤◌̪Dentalt̪d̪◌̬Voiceds̬t̬◌̰Creaky voicedb̰a̰◌̺Apicalt̺d̺ʰAspiratedtʰdʰ◌̼Linguolabialt̼d̼◌̻Laminalt̻d̻◌̹More roundedɔ̹ʷLabalizedtʷdʷ◌̃Nasalizedẽ◌̜Less roundedɔ̜ʲPalatalizedtʲdʲⁿNasal releasedⁿ◌̟Advancedu̟ˠVelarizedtˠdˠˡLateral releasedˡ◌̠Retractede̠ˤPharyngealizedtˤdˤ◌̚No audible released̚◌̈Centralizedë◌̴Velarized or pharyngealizedɫ◌̽Mid-centralizede̽◌̝Raisede̝(ɹ̝ = voiced alveolar fricative)◌̩Syllabicn̩◌̞Lowerede̞(β̞ = voiced bilabial approximant)◌̯Non-syllabice̯◌̘Advanced Tongue Roote̘˞Rhoticityɚa˞◌̙Retracted Tongue Roote̙

Tones and Word Accents

LevelContoure̋or˥Extra highěor˩˥Risingé˦Highê˥˩Fallingē˧Mide᷄˦˥High risingè˨Lowe᷅˩˨Low risingȅ˩Extra lowe᷈˧˦˧Rising-falling↓Downstep↗Global rise↑Upstep↘Global fall

I've heard some of Tibetan languages distinguish them.

And of the languages that do employ this feature (if any) are there any that use words that are exclusively nasal consonants that have minimal pairs which differ only in tone?

Also, if nasal consonants don't have tones, what is the phenomena that's occurring with English affirmative

"mm-hmm" and negative "mm-mm?"

Thanks in advance!

This might be strange question, but in Taiwanese people tend to pronounce nasal consonant in syllable end like n, m, or ŋ (≒ng) longer, do they?

Like while in Mandarin they pronounce "saan" or "saaŋ ", in Taiwanese "sammm", "sannn", or "saŋŋ" ?

Thank you in advance!

I'm starting to learn Japanese, and I want to get my pronunciation right from the start. I can tell that ん is pronounced differently in different environments, but I the only ones I'm sure of are:

[ŋ] before [k] and [g]

[m] before [b] and [p]

[n] before [t], [d]

At the end of a word it sounds like it might be [ɴ] but I'm not positive. But what about before [w] like in 'denwa', or before [j] (if there are any words with that combination?) or [r]? Or before fricatives?

Hi folks! I'm new to Reddit and I love this subreddit. It's the perfect place to ask something that's been bothering me a long time.

To me the vowel /æ/ seems to take two different forms: one before nasal consonants and one before oral ones. That is, ram, ran, and rang seem to have a different vowel than rat, rack, rap, or rash. Are these allophones at work? If so, what's the precise phonetic description of them? Or am I just crazy, and it's all [æ]?

I'm from Western Pennsylvania...that'll probably be a factor.

Following Ferguson, Greenberg (1966) considers that, universally, nasal vowels correspond to an earlier stage in the language in which the vowel was adjacent to a nasal consonant. This is supported empirically by PIE reconstruction and the observation that there has never been a language found to have more nasal vowels than oral ones. In poking around some comparative Na-Dene stuff, however, I come across what seem to be nasal vowels that can't be motivated this way, like Kaska gūdzį̄h, Proto-Athabaskan *(wu)dzəx (reconstruction is Leer 1992, can be downloaded from ANLA).

Any other ideas/resources on where nasal vowels can originate from without the presence of nasal consonants.

http://www.jstor.org/stable/411706

I'm a native English speaker. I've recently started learning Sanskrit and Hindi, and while I can pronounce most of the letters fine I am still struggling with pronouncing the nasal consonants ङ ञ ण and the voiced aspirated consonants घ झ ढ ध भ - in the latter case I just sound like I'm saying the voiced unaspirated counterparts of the letters (ie when I say घ it sounds like ग etc).

Does anyone have any advice on getting the pronunciation right?

I just did a quick check on Wikipedia and it appears that in a lot of languages -- certainly, as far as I could tell, most IE languages -- the word for nose indeed begins with /n/ (or sometimes /m/). Of the remaining, which I understand (as they don't have phonetic transcriptions), most seem to have a nasal in a syllabic position.

I'm kind of thinking-out-aloud here (always dangerous), but it might be interesting to see some statistics for this... Presumably, as it's a fairly trivial observation, they exist.

The other day, I came across a sign in a Vietnamese-American shopping center, called "Hoàng's Electronics."

I thought this was noteworthy since it insisted on the full orthographic tone marking of Vietnamese on an otherwise English shop name.

Most importantly, when I said it out loud (I am a fluent and native speaker of both languages), it felt natural to pronounce the first part as /hwæŋs/ , not /hwæŋz/. I confirmed this with a few other bilingual speakers.

The final ''s' should be voiced based on the final consonant of the noun being a voiced nasal consonant, like in so many other phonologically analogous examples in English, like in "the bang's..." or "it hangs". Vietnamese lacks any consonant clusters, although it's worth noting that the only final consonants allowable in Vietnamese are /n/ , /ŋ/ , /ɲ/, /m/, /t/, /k/, and /p/.

Why does the English voicing rule with 's fail to extend to the incorporated Vietnamese word? Is there a name of this phenomenon when languages are mixed? Are there other analogous examples?

When reading up on the English mode I read this passage > "A superimposed horizontal line indicates a preceding nasal of the same series." What does it mean by a nasal of the same series.

Source in the consonant modifications section.

So in my studies of Ancient Greek, I was looking at charts of endings to both nouns and verbs when I realized incongruities between the endings for the 1st person singular secondary indicative/optative terminations and the accusative sing/plural endings for the 3rd declension. Both of these endings were originally a nu and nu-sigma respectively (with the accusative singular being a nu). However, before a consonant (which puts them in a syllabic setting) they morphed into an alpha. Can anyone explain to me why this is?

I’ve heard it a few times since moving here, but I only have two examples off the top of my head. One is of a young speaker pronouncing 寂しい like さみしい and the other is of an elderly speaker pronouncing 戻りたい as ものりたい. What is the significance of this nasalization? Is it a sort of “baby talk” or something else like a dialect/regional accent? Does it affect sounds besides /d/ and /b/? Thanks, and よろしくお願いします！

I'm still learning but I am aware this must be a silly question. a few years ago I encountered a man speaking in an assumed Cajun accent. He pronounced 'Gilbert' as something like /ʒɪlbɛ̃ə̃/. I'm curious if this is a legitimate form or just the result of rampant faux-French nasalization like I expect.

On a mildly related note: I've seen examples of /n/ shifting to /r/, via rhotacism, is there any form of reverse process by which /r/ becomes /n/?

I am a slightly experienced songwriter but I am pretty new to writing lyrics. Yesterday I was listening to Jukebox the Ghost and I realized that in all the songs Tommy Siegel sings there are way more nasally consonant sounds than when Ben Thornewill sings, and you can kind of hear it in their voices even if you're not paying attention. So my question is do lyricists usually write to minimize or completely get rid of these consonants? Or is it perfectly ok to have these sounds in your singing, as long as you're not singing through your nose for vowels or non-nasally consonants, or is there some sort of happy medium lyricists tend to shoot for?

Joke conlangs out!

1 - s͜sums͜sⱥk [ʃumʃå̤k] has very symetrical vowel inventory. so symetrical that they even have unvoiced vowels (pretty unique amongst every cloŋ I've encountered) and they're: i [i], ɨ [i̤̊], u [u], ʉ [ṳ̊], e [ə], ɇ [ə̤̊], a [a], ⱥ [å̤], o [ɑ], ø [ɑ̤̊]

2 - Sygxt [ʂɪɢꭓʧ̠̝] (AKA super klingon) spunds even more harsh with labiodental m, ng, nqg, ch, dzh, q, qg, th, dh, sh, zh, hebrew h, french r, american r, wh, non-labial w, vw (bilabial approximant), voiced and voiceless bilabial trills, rr, velar trill, tshl & dzhl (voiced and voiceless retroflex lateral fricatives), velar l, jw (labialized j), palato-velar plosives and fricatives, ang glottal stop
additionally they don't have any "a sound", they only have rounded i, o-umlaut sound, unrounded u, english i sound, english oo sound, close oe sound, schwa, and unrounded o

3 - but no matter how weird sygxt was with its superharsh sound inventory, nothing can beat
Fik L̛oʈɂꜵhrq̛y [ɸyq ɺ̥ɤʈ͡ꞎʔɒɦᶉɴ̥ʉ], althrough it's not joke conlang, it's used in joke conworld... and was designed to have exactly 0 common sounds with emperatorish (with fail, since fik have /j/). and it's sounds are (listing the very weirdest): m̥, ɳ̊, ɳ, ɹ̝̊, ɹ̝, ʋ̥, ʋ, ⱱ̥, ⱱ, {palatal trills}, c͡ʎ̝̊, ɟ͡ʎ̝, k͡ʟ̝̊, ɡ͡ʟ̝, ɧ, ɧ̬ (damn, voiced "sj-sound"); ɞ~ɒ & ɤ (the vowel that is still unpronunciable for me)

Title

Pulmonic consonants only. Other sound categories like implosives and clicks would serve to complicate this further

Sèu is meant to be a naturalistic language but I still have some doubts and questions about the current phonology’s naturalism, which I will ask as I explain the phonology itself, questions will be indicated with a quote and sometimes extra info will be added below the question to add more context.

If there’s anything else I didn’t ask about that comes off as unnaturalistic, please tell me about it and how I can change it.

Consonants and Vowels

/ɯ/ is actually more centralised [ɯ̽]

Phonotactics

Syllable Structure: (C)(G)V

G here means the glides, /j/ and /w/, but having this as a slot in the syllable can be disputed as /j/ can only occur if C is a bilabial consonant, and even then it’s often realised as a palatalised consonant rather than a consonant-glide sequence, i.e. /pj/ would actually be [pʲ]. The same goes for /w/, where it’s often realised as labialisation on the preceding consonant, though it cannot occur after palatals.

> Should I just say that the language has palatalised bilabials and labialised consonants and just have the syllable structure as (C)V? Is this type of labialisation even naturalistic to begin with?

> I can’t help but feel iffy about the labialisation. I mainly added it in just cause it sounds nicer to me than a consonant + w sequence, I could just as easily have the obstruents de-voice it and have more /w̥/s if it would ruin my goal of naturalism however.

Only palatals and bilabials can precede /i/, with the bilabials being palatalised.

Primary stress is always on the second syllable of a word, and the first syllable of a word always receives secondary stress.

> Is fixed second syllable stress well attested? I know that WALS has a map on this and some languages do feature it but I’d just like to make sure.

Unaspirated stops, unaspirated affricates and fricatives become voiced when in between two resonants.

/ɯ/ isn’t allowed to proceed bilabial consonants as it rounds to /u/ in said environment, and /ɑ̃/ also undergoes this change, rounding to [ɒ̃] when next to bilabial consonants.

Liaison and Sandhi

When nasal vowels appear word-finally and

edit: Alright, here is an edit in case anyone else is searches for this in the future. So the consensus from this post is that yes it really is just blowing air out of your nose while your tongue is behind your teeth to make the voiceless n. I think Rynfel came up with the most clever explanation of the sound. They describe it like "coughing through your nose."

I am really struggling with the proper pronunciation of the voiceless N. I feel like I can barely find any resources that explain how to do it correctly. All I can find is explanations of people saying to essentially breathe out of the nose, however when I hear native speakers do this it does sound like an N sound is somewhat being made. Sometimes I feel like I also don´t even hear a sound being made.

This video gives a decent explanation, although I feel that I need a more in-depth explanation on the exact way to correctly make the sound: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tiPUAaSm1io

Any other resources or videos would be a big help, takk fyrir og gleiðileg nýtt ár

is it really realized as /æ/, even in the U.S.? even growing up way before i learned linguistics, i thought stuff like the vowel in “hand” and the middle vowel in “banana” were way different from the other /a/ sounds we learned. when i hear british speakers say “hand”, that does definitely sound like /æ/, but one of my profs told us it would be transcribed like that most of the time, not just with british speakers. to me it sounds more like “hey-und” (i don’t have IPA on my phone lol) if i slow down my pronunciation of it, like some really subtle diphthong.

As usual, in this thread you can ask any questions too small for a full post, ask for resources and answer people's comments!

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I love learning about sound changes, so let's share some constructed changes that are interesting, quirky, or have produced phonologically distant cognates!

In one conlang I wanted to go from a height harmony system to a frontness system. I ended up doing so through a somewhat strange clockwise vowel shift inspired by the vowel shift from PIE to Tocharian. The ancestor had /i ə u/ opposite /e a o/. Then the following occured:

• *u *o > wo ɵ

• *i > ɨ after velars, and jɨ elsewhere; *e > i, pushing ɨ further back to ɯ

• the raising of *e leads to *a fronting to æ; ə lowers to a to differentiate itself from ɵ

So you end up with /ɯ a o/ vs. /i æ ɵ/, where [+close] has become [+back] and [-close] has become [-back].

I also want to give a shout-out to coronal stops + w, which can go to whatever PoA:

• tw > tʷ > t

• tw > tʷ > p

• tw > tʷ > kʷ > k

• tw > tʷ > kʷ > q

• tw > pw > pj > tʃ

• tw > tsʷ > ʈʂ

etc.

So, what cool sound changes have you used?

In lots of Asia, people cannot distinguish between L and R, because L and R are not separate phonemes in their language. Is there any such examples in English, where a pair of separate phonemes used in another language is difficult for adult English speakers to distinguish?

Or is English a universe language, where all possible sounds are used (except for tongue clicks, which I know are part of some African languages, although even this is kind of used in English as an onomatopoeia for disapproval)

Zieth (Zieth: Þe Zeeþ Spraake [θɛ zeːθ ˈspɹɑːkə] or just Zeeþ [zeːθ]) is a Germanic language spoken in Ziethland, a Oculo-AlloGeo country. I based Zieth on mainly Germanic languages such as Dutch, Afrikaans, West Frisian, and some English. Zieth is written with a modified Latin alphabet.

Consonants

• there is no Final-Obstruent-Devoicing, unlike many other Germanic languages

Vowels

Articles

DEFINITE

þe [θɛ] "the"

INDEFINITE

een [eːn] "one/a(n)"

Plural Nouns

Noun + (e)n

hond "dog" > honden "dogs"

Verbs

Verbs usually end in -n

Here is the verb eeten "to eat"

So that's the end! If you have any questions about Zieth, let me know! Bye!

Hello all. (You can skip to the last paragraph for the main point if you don't want my intro.. haha :D)

I am new to learning Welsh. Many a moon ago I dabbled using the book Teach Yourself Welsh and made it probably about a 1/3 of the way through before I got distracted by another language and pushed Welsh to the back burner. Now that Duolingo has Welsh, I'm back on it, since I feel like I have little time to crack a book to learn a language, but Duolingo makes it much more convenient despite its weaknesses.

With a background in linguistics, I am interested in the way Welsh is colloquially spoken by native speakers. I would love to learn more about this; Googling has helped me little.

I have read that mutations work differently in casual Welsh. It sounds like basically only the soft mutation is widely used, with the nasal and aspirate mutations dying out and soft/non-mutated taking their places in colloquial, spoken language. Does this sound right? I am also wondering how gender may differ in the colloquial language. Do native speakers generally delineate sharply between masculine and feminine nouns in casual language, or is this something that is changing in the spoken language too?

Thanks for your time.

I'm still 'new' to this language and words still sound like they're all blending throughout sentences. I picked some songs to train my ear but I can't tell if the singer is omitting a word from the lyrics or it's just my comprehension that isn't good yet.

Here's the line I'm confused about:

Maintenant que j'ai écrit ça

I can't hear the "que" on this sentence. For me it sounds just like Maintenant j'ai écrit ça

Song jump to 2:17

So, is the singer skipping it or am I just not understanding the lyric properly??

You'd be hard pressed to come across a conlanger who hadn't heard of the tri-consonantal root system, and among those you'd be even harder pressed to find one who didn't think it very cool. While the majority of languages are fairly content to go with affixes and maybe a bit of reduplication, a few have some really cool forms of morphology. I might mention celtic consonant mutation, indo-european ablaut,, uralic consonant gradation, and I would be tempted to mention whatever georgian has going on, though I can't really comment there since I haven't actually got a clue what it is that georgian has going on (any good explanations much appreciated).

Notwithstanding the tentative inclusion of georgian's madness, do any of your languages have a unique or at least highly rare system of morpho-phonology? How does it work, and did you plan it or stumble upon it? Also, are there any good examples of this kind of thing I failed to mention?

Hello, everyone! This is the start of what I hope to become my first complete conlang. Let me know what you all think, and if you have any suggestions on how I can improve!

Consonants

Vowels

Stress falls on the second syllable

Phonotactics

• Obstruents cannot cluster with eachother
• Labial obstruents and /t/ cannot cluster with velars
• /m/ and /n/ cannot cluster with /x/
• /ɾ/ and /n/ cannot cluster
• /m/ and /n/ cannot cluster
• /l/ and /m/ + /l/ and /n/ cannot cluster
• /s/ and /n/ cannot cluster

Allophony

• /ɨ/ triggers palatalisation; [c] [ʃ] [ɲ] [ɹ] are allophones of /t/ /k/ /n/ and /ɾ/
• /ŋ/ only appears when /n/ is followed by a velar sound

Here's an example phrase:
Se tol cunes pytar

/sɛ tɔl kunɛs pɨcaɾ/
1SG be walk.PERF. yesterday
I was walking

(Verb system in development)

Hello everybody,

I am conducting an experiment investigating the perception of phonemes in pre-verbal infants and just spotted an unexpected effect whose origin I am trying to understand. I am a PhD student in neuroscience (I use neuro-imaging, and more specifically EEG) , not a big expert in linguistics. That is why I would very much benefit of some external advice :)

In my data, and beside the effects we could expect by shared manners and places of articulation, I see that the neural representation of the "b" is more similar to that of nasals (i.e. "m", "n", "ɲ"), relative to the other voiced stops "d" and "g".

According to your knowledge and experience is there any characteristic which is shared by /b/ and /m/ /n/ /ɲ/ but not /d/ and /g/ ? It can be at the acoustic level, in the articulation... I need a clue!

Thanks a lot in advance!

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